Yer Mom’s — You’re dying to know, right?
Yer Mom’s started just the way you might expect: as a long-running, universal family joke. The kind that began with a completely normal question and ended with one of our kids’ knee-jerk responses.
“How was your day?”
“Yer Mom.”
“What does everyone want for dinner?”
“Yer Mom.”
“For the 100th time, can you please put your laundry away?”
“Yer Mom.”
A little crass. Mildly irreverent. Always an icebreaker. It cut tension instantly and made room for laughter—the unexpected beginning of a smile.
What started as a punchline stuck. Not because it was clever, but because it carried something familiar. A reminder of the no-nonsense, funny, truth-telling people who shaped us. The ones who didn’t take themselves too seriously. The ones who made space for others.
When we started sketching the idea of a bookstore and wine café, we kept landing back in that same place—not because we don’t want guests to take us seriously, but because we do. We’re serious about creating a space where anyone can come, uncork the pressure of the day, and breathe a little easier.
Why Louisville, Why Books and Wine?
Besides being a lifelong dream (the combined passions of an English major and a meteorologist), few things connect people like books and wine. Connection is a cornerstone of Louisville – our city lives comfortably between grit and grace, tradition and reinvention, art and industry share the same streets. Conversation still matters.
Despite all our digital connection, we often miss each other’s individual stories, and sometimes even our own. Sitting with a book is a quiet rebellion against that distance. Pair it with a glass of wine—something ancient, agricultural, shaped by soil and weather—and the room starts to hum. People linger. They talk.
Not just the feeling of the room—the literal atmosphere.
Despite being creatives at our core, we’ve spent most of our professional lives in the weather industry, constantly examining the unpredictable nature of our world. When crafting our vision for this concept, we couldn’t stop thinking about atmosphere and how invisible forces inform everything we experience. Climate shapes vineyards. Sunlight alters flavor. Pressure systems move across continents, chaotically rearranging tomorrow in often inexplicable, and sometimes absurd ways.
Books do that too. So does laughter.
The space we’ve built is meant to feel warm, a little surprising, and gently irreverent. A place where seriousness exists, but doesn’t suffocate. Where the edges soften, conversation comes easy, and time loosens its grip.
Atmosphere, Literally
Wine has an unfortunate reputation problem. Too many rules. Too much vocabulary. Too much anxiety about ordering the “right” thing.
We’re not interested in any of that.
Our approach to wine mirrors our approach to books: if it has a good story, if it surprises you, if it’s enjoyable on its own terms, it belongs here. We look for approachability over pretension—labels that make us smirk and bottles that taste good on the way down. Wines shaped by weather and chance, as unpredictable as a plot twist you didn’t see coming.
Wine, to us, is an invitation. Not an audition.
About the Wine (Relax)
At the heart of Yer Mom’s—beneath the jokes, the bottles, and the shelves—is gratitude.
That’s why you’ll leave with a pink carnation at each visit. It’s a small tribute to my grandmother—a Jersey girl and artist turned rebel—who never quite got her own shot at living her dream. She knew how to laugh at herself, opened her arms to anyone, and loved the pink carnation.
Her story ended too soon, but I like to think she’s getting a kick out of the sequel.
Take the carnation with you. Give it away. Keep it. Dry it in a book you love. Wherever it ends up, let it be a reminder that humor is a form of care, and that we’re grateful you stopped in.
Yer Mom’s isn’t trying to be everything. It’s trying to be something real: a place where books and wine do what they’ve always done best: connect us, soften us, and maybe, if we’re lucky, make us smile before we even know why.
Welcome.