Something quietly changed on Village Avenue in Rockville Centre, and it changed twice in two days. Wine & Design, the paint and sip studio at 21 North Village Avenue, can now serve drinks at its easels, with pours live as of September 1. One day behind it, Modern Terrarium Bar, the plant and craft studio at 19 South Village Avenue, locked in the same ability, with its service starting October 1. Two studios on the same avenue, a day apart, each able to pour for its guests for the first time.

Neither is a bar and neither is trying to be one. They are the places where Rockville Centre goes to make things: a canvas painting on a Friday night, a glass terrarium for a windowsill, a terracotta pot with someone's initials on it. What changes is the glass sitting next to the paintbrush.

The studio where the plants live

Modern Terrarium Bar has been part of downtown Rockville Centre for years. The woman-owned shop at 19 South Village Avenue sells houseplants, terrarium kits and gifts, and runs a full slate of hands-on workshops: build-your-own succulent and air plant terrariums, glass painting, private parties and corporate events. One of its signature sessions is literally named Sip, Paint and Plant.

Until now, the sip part was not something the studio itself could pour. Its new drink service, run under the shop's parent company RLJ Gifts, begins October 1 and is set up to last for years. It is a first for the studio, not a continuation of anything that came before.

A few blocks up the avenue at 21 North Village, Wine & Design runs two-hour guided painting sessions, the classic easel-and-apron night out. Its drink service went live September 1, so its pours are already legal. Same arrangement, same term, same first time.

A new lane for places that are not restaurants

The arrangement both studios adopted is worth a sentence, because it explains why this is happening now. Over the last two years New York has opened a lane for businesses whose main trade is something other than food or drink to serve customers legally while they do whatever they actually came to do, and about 1,400 businesses across the state have taken it up. Scan the Long Island adopters and a pattern jumps out: a bowling and arcade complex in Hicksville, an espresso bar in Huntington, hotel lobbies, and one class-night studio after another.

The craft studios are moving fastest. The same day Modern Terrarium Bar came aboard, The Cook's Studio, the cooking class studio at 805 Broadway in the Greybarn complex in Amityville, did too. Its sister studio in Mineola made the same move back in March. One by one, Long Island's make-something-and-mingle economy is formalizing its pour.

What actually changes on a Friday night

For a reader who has been to one of these nights, the difference is practical. The wine at the workbench becomes the studio's to offer, poured on premises the same way a restaurant does it. The studios have not published their drink menus, and the ability to serve says what a business may do rather than what it will, so the details of what lands next to the easels and the potting soil are theirs to announce.

But the dates are set. Wine & Design is pouring now. Modern Terrarium Bar starts October 1, just as the workshop calendar tips into its busy season of holiday centerpieces and gift-making. By the time Rockville Centre is painting snowmen and potting succulents for teacher gifts, both sides of Village Avenue will be able to raise a glass to the results.