I wrote this for any magazine who wants to pick it up. Here it is in the meantime.
Bartending is the science of dilution.
Whether shaking or stirring, the only real objective is simply to water down the drink enough to be palatable; sipped without the sting that naturally accompanies hard liquor. While shots and beers will also do the trick, extravagant cocktail bars have popped up like dysfunctional whack-a-moles as many demand more and more of an experience out of their bars.
Fat-wash this, craft syrups that. Elegant, profligate garnishes made of flowers and rocks from the banks of the Harpeth thrown on fucked-up variations of Cosmos. Dust collected off the train tracks in WeHo and sifted onto Whiskey-Sours in funny shapes as a “farm-to-table” promise. While a bit of an exaggeration, you know what I mean.
Today’s clientele refuses to budge; they crave more, expect more, drink more. My generation has grown up as the least alcoholic, consuming less than $3 billion in alcohol sales a year in the United States. That is compared to Millennials at $23 billion and the ever-loving Boomers with almost $26 billion. But does that mean that we have low expectations when we go out to drink? Hell no. Growing up with social media and the proliferated effects of Unreasonable Hospitality, we are actually the most critical and dictatorial generation with our anticipations.
We expect to be treated like royalty when we go out; the imperfections and flaws should be ironed, starched and dried out before we ever step foot anywhere. Spontaneity with places to eat and bars to drink has been effectively eradicated. Without proper planning and preparation when choosing destinations, most won’t even leave the house. Less than four stars? Automatically out. A single review about a bad vibe? Next option immediately.
While this seems like Habeas Corpus in motion, the so-called “due process” occurring as the voice of the people have decided the fate of the bar, I believe that it fails to take into account something very important: individuality. Somehow a concept that has become incredulous in practice, people lack the ability to discern the simple fact: What might be right for me may not be right for you. What I hated is not the same as what you will enjoy.
We see that a bar has a review about grumpy bartenders, about cocktails that don’t taste good, about a lack of selection or what have you. And while the cocktails might admittedly not be perfect, the barman might be a cynical bastard, the beer selection is just Banquet and Miller Lite, this often is a major piece of a bar’s allure.
This is pretty much a summation of The Villager Tavern.
The gruff, solo, bartender was outside smoking a cigarette when we arrived. We sat at the bar for another three minutes before she finally stamped her boot on the yellow roach and came in to take our order. Merely looking at us and asking what we wanted to drink was peak hospitality. Mercifully, no Guidara influences were to be found here.
And yet, I loved it. It is a local-oriented dive that serves only beer and throws the best dart tournaments in the city. No frills, just a wall full of board games and an attitude that encourages you to be completely present in the moment.
I went back and looked it up online after I left. Based on what I saw, I likely never would have tried this place out unless I had stumbled in. While I said other spontaneity doesn’t exist, I should add that once you’ve been sufficiently intoxicated, suddenly the world opens up. The last living vestiges of a present generation.
Nevertheless, bars independent of any conglomerate have much fewer resources to work with and, as a result, often have more kinks and imperfections more explicitly apparent. This scares my peers especially. Things should be smooth, service should run with casual, light conversation, the food and drinks should run with a good, exciting theme. In short, they should play it fucking safe. No interruptions, no unexpected occurrences; just a smooth experience. There is something to be said for this, admittedly, but there is a way to be hospitable to the customer without beating it over their head.
As someone who has bartended for five years but been a professional alcoholic for more than ten, I can count my favorite bars in the world on one hand. The base commonality between the handful is authenticity. They created within the bounds of financial constraints and, as a result, the ingenuity is contagious.
In Nashville, Never Never is an industrial speakeasy and overall anomaly. A gritty dive bar, built out of an old-school welding and repair shop, manages to serve some of the best cocktails in a city proliferated with great drinks and bartenders. The mismatched vibe of intensely loud music over the speakers and cigarette smoke wafting in from the patio combines with glittering, aristocratic dry martinis somehow works.
Will I get stabbed coming out of Dino’s in East? Probably, but I’ll have the best late-night burger and beer of my life at 2 am. I’ll sit in the company of others who are ending their night on a calm, high note and revel in the energy.
To most conscious observers of Nashville city life, the death of the indie bar is no new phenomenon. In this economy, how the fuck are you supposed to start a multimillion-dollar venture in a world where hospitality groups backed by billions in venture capitalist blood money operate restaurants on a grand scale unseen before. Every town is Vegas now. Small restaurants and bars are swallowed whole by the bigger fish; expected to either join the conglomerate or die a slow death.
Living in WeHo the last year has been especially eye-opening. A compact, gentrified industrial zone pantomiming as a baby Brooklyn has seen investment and corporate interest on a scope unseen in Nashville. Where once existed only a small row of boutique shops, a burger stand and a few local bars now caters to SoHo House, Hermès, and the Lululemon clad frequenters of Pilates studios that reproduce around the city like rabbits. Apartment studios begin in the low 2,000s and cost of living might as well make this Williamson County Pt. 2.
And the problem resides in the fact that every new restaurant and bar in the area is going to succeed, if only for the simple reason that too much money has been pushed into it to fail. Rent prices are driven up with this guarantee and only chains are given the opportunity of having such a level of exposure. Indie bars like Present Tense or Never Never—my favorite in Nashville in case you didn’t know—have to compete against the big bank of Momotaro, Alla Vita, Middleman backed by Boka Restaurant Group. It feels an impossible task.
Where do we go from here? With lack of spontaneity, an increasing demand for better drinks and crazier flavor combinations, and demand for flawless service, bars and restaurants without backing don’t have the money to burn coming up with ridiculous drink ideas. Who’s to say that Patterson House, without the help of big daddy Strategic Hospitality, has the capital to infuse every bottle of gin with exotic, black tea leaves just to “fuck around and find out” and see if a cutting-edge drink results (I’ll give them credit, it usually does).
None of this even accounts for the shitshow that is Broadway. Every day I’m still somewhat surprised to see Robert’s, the only real legacy bar, is still kicking.
The classic, incubating music venues that used to spur the indie rock scene from the likes of The Dead Weather to Kings of Leon, from Edgehill to Blake Ruby, are disappearing or being bought out (AJ Capital and Exit/In being one of the most inflammatory examples, though it was a rare happy ending). The Basement effectively caved to the Live Nation monopoly to stay afloat and who can blame them; The Truth’s opening will steal even more business from the smaller scenes like them and The End. In a city dominated by Morgan Wallen wannabes, it’s clear the indie side has been neglected and forced to move elsewhere.
How can a Roy’s survive? How can someone open up another Sullivan’s without a consistent, rich benefactor? If approached by the parasitic hospitality groups, how do you say no? Costs on everything have risen to the point of an unrealistic barrier of entry and I know business owners are struggling with the math.
The death of the indie bar is a problem that needs to be addressed as this city’s growth spurt advances unrelentingly. Creativity and character should be at the forefront of the Council and City Planners, otherwise Nashville succumbs to the corporate takeover and we become a city not worth remembering.
We become a city of chains that move here with predatory intentions; LA, Chicago, and NYC bringing a copy and paste business model from their original locations without a clear direction besides printing money. Call me old-fashioned, but I love bars and restaurants started by owners with the sole, innocent purpose of bringing new perspectives and life to an area with a unique voice. Who can argue that The Henry is here to enrich our community?
Broadway’s appeal will not last forever; tourists will eventually want to venture off the beaten path. I would hazard to contrast us with New Orleans. While we are similar in the fact that we essentially co-opted their French Quarter, this is where the similarities end.
Unlike us, they were smart. They are not simply known for Bourbon Street; although, like Broadway, that is the most immediate, eye-catching draw and most people’s first impression. No, it’s a city with more breath and energy than most others in America because it allowed itself to grow with unique perspectives and collaboration in mind. It is rough and ragged, dirty and, very occasionally, crime ridden. And yet, art and innovation still find resolute sanctuaries within the mossy Live Oaks. It is remembered as a one-of-a-kind city worthy of being discovered and unpacked. It is a town well-lived-in.
I believe Nashville has this potential. Growing so quickly has allowed the city to essentially restart. Because everyone here is a carpetbagger, there is no status quo to adhere to. The term
“disruption” doesn’t exist because there is no norm to disrupt, it is simply transplants who have come to seek refuge in a city historically known for music. With the addition of interlopers, fresh voices and talents have come onto the scene in a way that resembles jazz music moving from Chicago to Kansas City in the early ’30s. All at once, we have a talented city in aspects not just involving country music.
We have the ability to reinvent ourselves as a result. We have three Michelin Star restaurants; we are no longer just a southern-hick town full of Nashville-hot and barbecue. We are no longer just $30 Jack Daniel shots on Broadway (although that will probably never stop). We have Babu and Coral Club finding ways to reconcile Middle Eastern flavors with the tastes of a modern Tennessee audience. As a result, I’ve never visited either of those bars when they weren’t obscenely busy. Bring a fresh idea and people will respond, regardless of how imperfect and different they are.
In a city dominated with great drinks and greater expectations, space should be held for the small-timers that provide this on their own, authentic scale.
I don’t want everything polished; I want to see what we can do with less.
Chipper Dreher 