Many businesses are frightened of actually naming major sporting events for fear of stepping on trademark regulations, but as a media outlet I’m fairly confident I don’t have to refer to the upcoming World Cup — spread across North America this summer — as “The Major International Soccer Tournament Event.” So when I say I’ve been looking for someplace to watch World Cup games in June and July, I feel like the most important thing to share is that I’ve found a heckuva option out at Gaylord Opryland Resort with their new Foundry Fieldhouse Sports Bar & Taproom.
First, a few small caveats. They haven’t quite decided on how they will handle parking for locals visiting the Fieldhouse, and everyone knows that parking at the resort is really expensive. Locals’ normal workaround of parking at Opry Mills near the Grand Ole Opry House and walking over to the resort is doable, but be warned that the Foundry Fieldhouse is near the Magnolia Lobby, so it’s a bit of a schlep from where you would enter at the Delta from Opry Mills. Consider the stroll a chance to be a tourist in your own home for a little while, and that you’ll walk off a beer on the round trip.
Secondly, while Nashvillians are certainly welcome and encouraged to visit Foundry Fieldhouse to watch games or enjoy food and drink, the space is a rentable asset for conventions staying at the resort. I would suggest checking the hours online before making the trip, just in case a bunch of plumbers from across the country have rented it out for the evening. Gaylord has promised to update the hours on the website if the space is unavailable for a time.
Besides those two little quibbles, it really is a remarkable space. The two-level venue can serve more than 700 guests at the same time, and if a group wants to take the party outside to the artificial turf of The District Yard, capacity stretches to more than 2,000 people. Even at that scale, Gaylord has managed to offer varied seating options inside Foundry Fieldhouse.
A massive 38-foot-tall wall of screens can be configured to show up to 36 games at the same time or broken up into small and large displays depending on what's of interest. Visible from both the main floor and the mezzanine, it’s kind of a “choose your own adventure” of how you want your viewing experience to be. There are also satellite dining rooms and private dining rooms with their own massive televisions, as well as a cozier Tasting Room with lots of clubby wood accents and 16 local beers on tap.
Speaking of local beers, Gaylord’s culinary team has partnered with Tennessee Brew Works to create a special beer named Foundry Fieldhouse Lager, an easy-drinking 4.2 percent ABV beer available on draft, in cans and in bottles all around the resort. Rather than just “white labeling” one of TBW’s standard beers, Gaylord has actually combined what they liked about a few of their beers to create something brand-new and quite crushable. Even though it is a lighter beer, there is still plenty of complexity and hoppiness to the brew. Tennessee Brew Works founder Christian Spears tells me he is so confident that this will be a success for his company and Gaylord that he has dedicated an entire tank at the brewery to its production.
Partnering with a local brewery is just one example of how the culinary program at Gaylord is trying to involve local partners, even at the huge scale of their operations. They’re already growing mushrooms for the restaurants on site and are looking to expand gardening operations on the property. They source vegetables from Bloomsbury Farm and meat from Bear Creek for dishes that come out of Foundry Fieldhouse’s full scratch kitchen. Almost everything on the menu comes out of that kitchen, so the trip from stove to plate is a short one, as opposed to some Vegas resorts where all the food comes out of a central kitchen in the bowels of the building before being routed to whatever eatery the dish is for. The one exception is the bread that comes from a central bakery on site, because a bake shop that can handle 1,000 buns a day would dwarf the kitchen.
Gaylord also partnered with local artists for much of the decor in the Fieldhouse. Murals of the scoreboard at Greer Stadium and collages made of old baseballs decorate the walls, and staircases and the bathroom ceilings are festooned with old clippings from local sports pages and team photos from high schools that don’t even exist anymore. Local college and pro teams are also featured in displays of memorabilia, so don’t miss walking around to experience what amounts to a local sports history museum while you’re dining there.
The food I sampled was fantastic — well above usual sports bar fare. A crispy order of fish and chips was made using clean-tasting haddock and accompanied by a malt vinegar made in house using the Fieldhouse Lager. That beer also showed up in the beer cheese that comes with the Bavarian pretzel. Other appetizer standouts included loaded carnitas fries and Asian-inspired pork skewers. Several of the items on the menu come from family recipes of the kitchen staff, and you can tell they are working hard to elevate the cuisine above traditional bar food. In addition to the apps, Foundry Fieldhouse offers interesting soups and salads, sandwiches and flatbreads appropriate for lunch or dinner.
So at the risk of angering FIFA, I declare that I’ll be watching a few World Cup matches at Foundry Fieldhouse and enjoying some cold Fieldhouse Lagers. Y’all come with!
