The Patterson House Makes the Big Move to the Gulch

Moving a restaurant or bar to a new location is rare but not unheard of in the Nashville market, and the idea of pulling up and putting down new stakes does come with inherent risks. Some local institutions have pulled it off successfully, like Jimmy Kelly’s, The Gerst Haus, Green Hills Grille, F. Scott’s and Chef & I, which all survived multiple relocations to enjoy long lifespans as restaurants. The 404 Kitchen moved just across the street, but the upgrade from a tiny kitchen to a three-story restaurant certainly improved the operation.

The idea of making two moves at once is pretty bold, but that’s exactly what Strategic Hospitality is in the middle of with The Patterson House and The Catbird Seat. The former shuttered temporarily in April, a month after The Catbird’s final service in the former location the two spots shared at 1711 Division St. This week, both beloved establishments will reopen on the fifth floor of the Bill Voorhees Building in Paseo South Gulch at 700 Eighth Ave. S. 

I learned a bit of trivia about that address from Strategic Hospitality partner Josh Habiger. The building was formerly owned by Nashville-born filmmaker Harmony Korine, who had used it as a studio — a fact I should have known if I had paid closer attention to what my colleague William Williams wrote back in 2019. In the past, The Patterson House was on the ground floor of the Division Street property, with The Catbird Seat accessible via an elevator. In the new configuration, the two businesses share the same floor with separate but adjacent kitchens.

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The Patterson House will open first on May 13, and guests will find a lot of familiar aspects from the previous iteration — maybe just turned up a little bit. The space is certainly larger, with more than 100 seats as opposed to the previous capacity of 70. The three-sided bar offers more seating than the previous wraparound bar area. The fourth side of the bar will act as a service area and permit staff to manage the flow of the entire room from a perch with full view of the space.

The ceiling features tin panels reminiscent of the original TPH, plus crystal chandeliers, but the overall vibe has morphed from 1920s speakeasy to more of a midcentury-modern gestalt thanks to the use of more natural materials and warm wooden furniture. I haven’t seen the space at night yet, but the fact that there are actual windows as opposed to the cavern-like darkness of The Patterson House 1.0 promises completely different views, especially of the lights of downtown.

These changes are all appropriate in the life cycle of both The Patterson House and Nashville. Cocktail culture in 2009 was closely associated with speakeasies and secret knocks and bartenders with bowties and garters on their arms. Now mixologists, the drinks they make and the places they make them have grown up to the point where the liquid in the glass can speak for itself. 

The new food and cocktail lists at The Patterson House certainly reflect this maturation, but not by sacrificing the fun personality that made the bar a local hero. On the food side, that expanded kitchen has allowed for a more robust offering of even more interesting options. The cuisine was designed by chefs Andy Doubrava and Tiffani Ortiz of The Catbird Seat in collaboration with Habiger. Small starters range from sourdough bread baked by Dozen served with cultured butter to craveable crispy potatoes and cheese sauce. More substantial plates include pasta, a Bear Creek Farm cheeseburger served with a side of smoked onion jus for (French) dipping, grilled catfish and a pork chop plate topped with smoked trout roe and served in a coriander and herb whey sauce. Smaller bites revolve around bold flavors that should be fun for the mixologists to pair with cocktails. Think of herbaceous chicory leaves served with ricotta and chewy strawberries or a plate of asparagus accompanied by charred leeks, onion soubise and fennel sausage. There’s an old sommelier’s saw that no wine pairs with asparagus, but I think the bartenders at The Patterson House are going to have a lot of fun matching flavors with that last dish.

Combining cocktails and desserts is definitely a thing, so expect a changing menu of sweet offerings to end the evening on. I’m particularly intrigued by an initial menu item of fermented potato ice cream served with potato chips and preserved blackberries. I don’t know if Strategic Hospitality corporate cousin Trevor Moran was involved with the creation of that particular dish, but it sure sounds like his kind of mad-scientist flash of genius!

But as expected, it’s the cocktail list where The Patterson House 2.0 will continue to shine. Actually, that should be cocktail lists, as general manager Adam Binder — alongside the bar management team consisting of Brandie Johnson, Alex McCutchen and Patrick Chabot — has put together two menus, each thoughtfully expressing a different side of the bar’s personality.

First, there’s what they are internally calling “The Short List.” This ever-changing roster of cocktails represents drinks the staff has created recently that really excite them, perhaps because of the ingenuity and bravado to come up with the ideas, or because they are exactly of the moment when it comes to seasonality or as an expression of the current state of the zeitgeist.

Don’t be too surprised to see a vodka drink on The Short List. Unlike earlier TPH menus where vodka was buried on the back page of the list — if it appeared at all — the current attitude of the mixology team is willing to meet the customers where they are. While you won’t find a vodka soda on the menu, you will find a Vodka Jasmine Smash made with vodka, a jasmine/sage syrup, lemon, cucumber and mint that sounds freaking delicious to me!

This doesn’t mean that the bar staff doesn’t want to still get a little weird and push the envelope like they’ve been doing for more than 15 years. Other cocktails on the opening list include ingredients like fig leaf syrup, a birdseed cordial, popcorn milk and a pie-crust-infused Tanqueray 10 gin. Now there’s the cutting-edge wackiness I’ve come to expect from this team, and they somehow almost always manage to make it work!

The Short List was developed so patrons can figure out a little bit about the sensibilities of The Patterson House mixologists without wading through a phonebook (remember those?) of a menu. Of course, the bartenders can make almost any drink you might desire, and they have come up with more than 1,200 original concoctions through the years.

That’s what “The Long Menu” is for. While they certainly don’t include every drink they’ve ever created, the bar staff has compiled some of their greatest hits into a list of about 150 cocktails helpfully divided into a dozen categories that are thoughtfully named and explained.

To be honest, while the category headings are well-thought-out, they’re not all completely “thoughtful,” because some of them are the result of stereotypes the staff has discovered from a minority of customers through the years. Spend any time at a bar listening to what patrons order, and you’ll appreciate why one section of drinks is titled “Vodka, Not Too Sweet” — and you’ll certainly recognize who the target demographic is for the drinks listed under “Big Whiskey Drinker.”

The tongue-in-cheek titles don’t mean the drinks listed in the categories aren’t excellent cocktails. On the contrary, the very intent of these drinks is to take Miss Vodka Drank and Mr. Whiskey Swiller and introduce them to alternatives that might expand their palates a little bit.

Other sections revolve around some of the earliest drinks on the menu or drinks that feature techniques The Patterson House has made popular through the years, like using black-tea-infused gin or bacon-washed bourbon in recipes.

A collection of drink inventions that turn normal recipes on their heads — by doing things like using nontraditional spirits like amaro, aperitivo or liqueur as the base — is listed under the name “Rogue Won!” That's in honor of the mixologists who tried something crazy and it worked well enough to make the menu.

Staff favorites show up under the heading “Ceiling Crashers,” a designation that lives in the category of “if you know, you know.” You might be able to get a bartender to tell you the story behind the name on your 10th visit, or maybe not. If you just want to know which drinks have been patron favorites for extended periods of time, just flip to the section “The Fucking Bangers” for solid hits. Of course, nonalcoholic options, low-ABV cocktails, classic cocktails and modern classics are also available, because they can do pretty much anything at The Patterson House.

Now they just have a much nicer place to do it in, so congratulate them on moving on up to the penthouse floor.