Otherlands

Otherlands takes its name from a Walt Whitman poem, and owner Mel Wilcox means it. A Furman grad who chased a UC Davis Master Brewer certification and cut his teeth in Denver, Wilcox had a whole brewery plan ready to go when the pandemic stalled it, leaving him a stay-at-home dad who fell hard for cooking in the meantime. That detour shaped the place, 25 taps on the wall, but beer's treated as the vehicle, not the point. "I don't care much for accolades or awards," Wilcox has said, "the beer, wine, and coffee are vessels for whatever you need them to be." What that means in practice: an eclectic booking calendar and a room that feels built for community first, genre second.