Tony Carbone has been hoping to bring his private wine club, Moltó Vino, to Lexington for nearly two years. Next year, he hopes to finally open along the town’s Main Street.

Moltó Vino is a private wine club that gives members 24-hour access to its facility, which includes wines, beers and a lounge for members to access with just an app on their phone.

The wine club currently has one location in Forest Acres, but his hope to expand is finally coming true now that construction has begun in Lexington. 

The new club will be located at 102 W. Main St., taking part of the property that was previously slated to be occupied by the scuttled Navy Yard on Main beer garden, but Carbone isn’t sure when the new location will be ready to open. He told the Chronicle that his goal is to be ready in 2024.

“I never give timelines on construction,” Carbone said. “I've done this long enough to know that whatever they tell you … it’s not accurate, but it's not a very complicated project. Our business model is basically an open rectangle. We throw in some tables, some couches and some wine machines and then we roll.”

The Forest Acres location has generated a large amount of interest, he explained, forcing some to be denied membership.

“We just hit 700 people on our waitlist for the Forest Acres location last week,” he said. “There is a massive interest and demand for this concept. We are super excited to get it out there and we think that Lexington is gonna do even better than our Forest Drive location has.”

Carbone has a limited number of slots for members to prevent overcrowding. He said he couldn’t disclose how many members Moltó Vino currently has because of pending deals that could franchise the business in the future.

A waitlist has not officially started for the Lexington location, but Carbone said Moltó Vino would provide more updates on the process as it gets closer to opening. 

“We will probably do some open houses and some events, hopefully, towards the end of the year,” Carbone said. “That will allow people to see what our experience is and we will start to build the waitlist then.”

The idea for the club started 10 years ago when Carbone visited his family in Spain. He and his family 

 a long flight and at the end of the day the only thing he wanted was to eat and not speak to a single soul. 

“The last thing I wanted to do was talk to a hostess or a cashier,” Carbone said. “And this was the first time I ever saw one of the kiosks at the food courts where you touch the screen and pay for it, and it gets brought out to you. That's very common now, but when I saw it I thought it was genius. That's when the wheels started turning.”

Carbone is carrying his family's legacy with Moltó Vino. The name Moltó is the surname of his family’s patriarch, Santiago Moltó, in Spain. Bits of the family’s history are found in the store. 

“If you go into the restroom at our Forest Acres location, there is a painting, and it's a little boat and it has the word Tony on it,” Carbone said. “That was painted for me by Santiago Moltó and he's got his little signature on the bottom right. It means a good bit to me. This isn't just a, ‘hey, let's pop open a business and make money’ This is a legacy, this is a family thing for me.”

The buildings on the property at the corner of Main and Church that was once targeted for the beer garden has seen its three spaces broken up for different tenants, with one of the others set to welcome a forthcoming location of the Columbia-based chain Takosushi. No occupant has been announced for the remaining space.