Rankin Vault Cocktail Lounge

Mosler Safe Company built the vault in the 1920s, eleven feet by sixteen, for the mortgage office of the Imperial Life Insurance Building — put up in 1925, on the corner where College Street was still called Government Street. An art gallery had the room next, then Lark Books, which kept its film archives inside the vault before Rankin Vault opened here in July 2008.

Out front, red umbrellas shade a line of sidewalk tables and a bench, a motorcycle and someone’s convertible at the curb a few feet away. There’s no host stand. It’s counter service, first come, no reservations, and the bar has skipped plastic straws since 2018.

By 2014 the kitchen had a trophy. Joel Hartzler accepted the trophy the year the Vault Burger — Hickory Nut Gap beef, Heritage Farms bacon, white cheddar, arugula and red onion in a house vinaigrette, spicy Duke’s mayo — won the inaugural WNC Battle of the Burger. Rain threatened the contest that year; the line at the Vault’s tent held anyway. The counter takes orders for both, and the burger has the bigger trophy case — though not by as much as the trophy implies.

The Gold Rush puts Buffalo Trace against honey and Fever-Tree ginger beer, a straightforward bourbon highball. The Habanero Heat works jalapeño-infused agave and pineapple-lemon vodka against cucumber bitters, heat pitched to match the kitchen’s. The Espresso Martini finishes on Van Gogh espresso vodka under a Kahlúa whipped-cream float, the dessert course for a table that came for the burger. Bar manager Tara Christensen told the Citizen-Times: “This is a community spot. The fact that you get this bomb burger is just a plus to it all.”

The vault itself never made the trophy case. It just kept the room its name.