Rankin Vault Cocktail Lounge

An eleven-by-sixteen vault sits at the back of the room. It belonged to the mortgage side of the Imperial Life Insurance Company, which put up 7 Rankin Ave in downtown Asheville in 1925 and was its first tenant, back when College Street next door still went by Government Street. One of Imperial Life’s founders was the maternal grandfather of novelist John Ehle. The vault survived the conversion and gave the bar its name when Rankin Vault opened here in 2008, behind Table restaurant on the same block. Joel Hartzler accepted the trophy in 2014, the year the Vault Burger — Hickory Nut Gap grass-fed 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. It is a cocktail lounge whose most decorated menu item has never had a drop of liquor in it. The list around it runs fourteen cocktails deep, flat-priced at thirteen to fifteen dollars: the Oh, Bee-Hive on Corazón tequila infused with jalapeño and pineapple, the Gold Rush on Buffalo Trace and ginger beer, the Purple Pill running Beefeater gin against crème de violette and St-Germain. There’s a patio out back, and the bar has skipped plastic straws since 2018. It’s 21 and up after dark. Order at the counter and claim your own seat; there’s no host stand, and no reservation holding one for you.