Twelve Music City bartenders will step behind portable bars atop Fogg Street Lawn Club on Thursday evening, mixing, shaking, and garnishing their way through Nashville Lifestyles' latest Bartender Bash cocktail competition. The Summer Edition kicks off at 6 p.m. on the venue's rooftop in the SoBro neighborhood, with the eventual winner chosen by guest vote rather than a panel of judges. Ticket proceeds will help fund The Nashville Food Project, the local nonprofit working to close Nashville's hunger gap one scratch-made meal at a time.
The competition's specifics were first reported by Megan Scarano for WTVF NewsChannel 5, which described the summer showcase as Nashville Lifestyles' latest installment of a competition built around inventive, tasty cocktails. Advance tickets start at $42.17, according to a listing on Eventbrite.
Two Decades of Nashville's Bartender Bash
This isn't a one-off pop-up. Nashville Lifestyles has run the Bartender Bash for 20 years, growing the brand into separate Spring, Summer, and Holiday editions, per Zinio. Past showcases have partnered with spirit brands including Ketel One Vodka and Old Dominick, giving competing bartenders access to premium pours for their creations.
Rooftop Lawn Bowling Meets Craft Cocktails at Fogg Street
Thursday's rooftop battleground has its own backstory. Fogg Street Lawn Club opened in September 2024 in the SoBro neighborhood, boasting an 8,000-square-foot rooftop that includes the first rooftop lawn bowling green in the Southern United States, according to City Now Next. The space also doubles as a multi-level Premier League soccer pub. It was created by Thom and Angela Dahle, who previously opened the neighboring Bad Axe Throwing venue in 2021 as part of the couple's expanding footprint of recreational concepts in Nashville's Pie Town district.
A Past Champion's Heart of the Dragon Cocktail
Competitive bragging rights carry real weight in this scene. At the July 2024 Bartender Bash held at Cannery Hall, Denim bartender Maxx Gonzales took first place with a cocktail called Heart of the Dragon, while Thistle & Rye bartender Max Nishida earned runner-up honors, per Zinio.
Why The Nashville Food Project Needs the Money
The charitable stakes behind Thursday's cocktails are considerable. The Nashville Food Project has prepared and shared more than 1.6 million scratch-made meals and diverted nearly 1.2 million pounds of food from landfills since it was founded in 2011, according to GuideStar. The nonprofit operates out of a custom-designed headquarters in The Nations neighborhood, GuideStar notes.
That need is stark: roughly one in seven Nashville residents experiences food insecurity, even though more than 40 percent of all food produced in the city goes to waste, according to The Nashville Food Project. The organization also runs Growing Together, an urban agriculture initiative that gives refugee farmers from Burma and Bhutan land, technical training, and market access to grow fresh produce, which they then sell through Community Supported Agriculture channels, per CoolBot.
The Tax Bill Behind Every Poured Drink
Behind the bar, Nashville's hospitality industry is navigating a tighter regulatory squeeze of its own. Venues serving liquor, wine, or high-gravity beer must collect a 15 percent liquor-by-the-drink tax on top of Davidson County's combined 9.75 percent sales tax rate, according to Adams & Reese. A Tennessee law that took effect in July 2024 also raised the mandatory minimum tax liability bond for any business holding a liquor-by-the-drink license to $10,000, up from bonds that could once run as low as $1,000 for wine-only establishments, per Adams & Reese.
A Rooftop Toast to Food Security
For competitors and attendees alike, Thursday's showdown offers a rare chance to sample a dozen original cocktails in a single sitting, with every pour ultimately supporting the same nonprofit kitchen that keeps Music City's food-rescue work running.
