Downtown beer-centric restaurant Flying Saucer Draught Emporium — one of the key players among Nashville’s early adopters of craft and international ales and lagers — will close this month after a 23-year run.
According to a social media post, the business will cease operations Wednesday, Dec. 15, with patrons who have a personalized Flying Saucer plate allowed to pick up the memento starting at 4 p.m., on Wednesday, Dec. 8.
The post does not offer a reason for the closing, and the Scene's sister publication the Nashville Post was unable to contact officials with Dallas-based Eight 0 Management Inc., which owns and operates the business.
Located at 111 10th Ave. S. near Broadway and in the stone-clad Baggage Building, Flying Saucer opened in 1998 and quickly established a dedicated following. Some longtimers credit the business — many simply call it “The Saucer” — for effectively supplementing the city's four brewpubs during that decade: Big River (later Rock Bottom), Blackstone, Boscos and Market Street. Of note, Rock Bottom recently closed (read here).
So-called Beerknurds are rewarded with a flying-saucer-esque plate for drinking all the beers (sometimes upwards of 200) Flying Saucer offers. There are hundreds of plates on its walls.
“Flying Saucer introduced Nashville to thousands of new beer over the course of its tenure as [the city’s] premier tap house,” the owners wrote on their Instagram page. “We have built a family of loyal Beerknurds, and their loyalty and love for craft beer has kept us operating all these many years. There will be specials until we close, so come eat and drink with us until the taps run dry.”
Flying Saucer Draught Emporium began operations in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1995.
