Studio Mama Supper Club’s Intimate Dinner and a Show

If you drive by the red Studio Nashville building on Charlotte Avenue, there’s a good chance you won’t notice it. There’s no sign out front. Parking is in the alley, where there’s a back set of stairs to get inside. From the outside, you certainly wouldn’t imagine that this is the place where people flock each quarter for an intimate dinner and show.

But since 2023, this is where Rebecca Wood has been hosting Studio Mama Supper Club, a four-course, $550-per-person dinner and private concert for 30 or so lucky people. Rebecca is known for her skills in the kitchen — she got the nickname “Studio Mama” by working as a studio chef for eight years at Zac Brown’s recording studio Southern Ground Nashville. Under her company name Hearts in the Mix, she offers a meal subscription service with entrées, baked goods and pantry staples.

During the pandemic, Rebecca self-published The Studio Mama Cookbook, a collection of music-industry stories and recipes. She offered a dinner with live music in the studio where her husband Oliver Wood — roots musician and frontman for The Wood Brothers — records as one of the big prizes for the cookbook’s crowdfunding efforts. A Wood Brothers fan made the investment and then opened up the evening to other fans. The evening was such a success that Rebecca decided to keep doing it, and soon after launched Studio Mama Supper Club. 

“My husband is an overthinker, and I am a doer,” she says.

The Supper Club has four regularly scheduled acts per year, plus an additional fifth show in December — that one is typically a fundraiser with Oliver onstage. In 2024, the show benefited The Nashville Food Project. The next show, which is set for March 15, will feature Americana singer-songwriter Langhorne Slim.

If you’ve been in Nashville for a minute, you’ve probably been to a house show. They’re popular ways to interact with musicians, with the music and with fellow audience members. They foster connection and allow some freedom that performers don’t always get at a traditional venue. But even in a town full of house concerts, what Rebecca has created is different — in part because her events take place in a professional recording studio with inherently good acoustics. 

And then there’s Rebecca’s food.

“Studio Mama is a cut above any house concerts,” says singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan, who played the event in 2023. “What they are doing over there is on a different level.”

Other artists who’ve played the stage — which is two to three feet from the small bar and the communal dining tables — have included Darrell Scott, Nikki Lane and musicians from the Black Opry Revue.

Because it’s in Nashville, Studio Mama Supper Club has musicians onstage, in the audience and even working, mixing drinks or serving giant platters of perfectly seasoned carrots. The vibe has a local, neighborhood flair — although on the night Tasjan played, he learned that one fan flew in from Baltimore just to see the show. Part of the vibe of Supper Club is that folks who are in the audience join the artist for a song or two, in Nashville tradition. When Tasjan played, he brought his friend Judy Blank up to sing, and he says she wowed the audience. She’s just signed with Rounder Records — perhaps Supper Club guests will be able to say they heard her back before she was famous. 

Gabe Dixon heard what was happening over at Studio Mama Supper Club, and during a songwriting session with Oliver last year, he mentioned that he and his wife Amanda would like to attend sometime. Oliver suggested they come for the December fundraiser for The Nashville Food Project — if Dixon agreed to join him onstage for a song or two.

Dixon agreed; he was already a fan of Rebecca’s cooking from her Southern Ground days.

“I knew it would be delicious food, but I did not know how well-done the whole experience would be,” says Dixon, who has played his share of house concerts. These kinds of experiences, he adds, are important because they celebrate the craft of songwriting.

“I had an extremely big year in 2024,” Dixon says. “[Playing with Oliver at the Supper Club] was the last thing I did, and it was an excellent capstone for the year.” 

The small audience and the format of the evening — an hour of cocktails and conversation, followed by dinner and then the show — allow artists to experiment and perhaps play something different from what they might at a bigger show. They also play with musicians they haven’t played with before. In Tasjan’s case, that included the house percussionist and upright bass player. 

“We did a really cool, slowed-down, almost Nick Drake-style version of ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ by Tom Petty,” Tasjan remembers. He wanted to play something the audience would recognize, but with his own stamp on it. “It seemed like it was resonating with folks,” he says. 

For many performers, the physical proximity to the Supper Club audience is one of its selling points.

“I perform better when people and I are close,” says Sean Scolnick, who performs under the name Langhorne Slim. “I need to be energetically and physically close to the audience to have the best experience. The more of a divide between myself and the crowd, the shittier I feel.”

Scolnick had heard about the Supper Club and was intrigued, knowing Oliver “was a master vibes man.” The two were on tour together last year, and that connection led him to book a date. The idea of the Supper Club is just the kind of thing that made him fall in love with Nashville more than a decade ago.

“It’s no ego, no division between you and the audience, just people getting together for the love of music,” Scolnick says.

Rebecca refers to herself as the HBIC (“head bitch in charge”), but there’s nothing bitchy about her hostessing prowess — or the everyone-is-welcome vibe she creates. Studio Mama Supper Club is a unique experience, and is priced accordingly. The ticket price includes the four-course family-style meal, cocktails, wine, conversation and the intimate show in a real recording studio that has been decorated for the evening. Volunteer opportunities to help in the kitchen are available for those who want to attend but can’t swing the ticket price. Performing artists, bartenders and kitchen staff are paid, and Rebecca is committed to using quality and ethically sourced meats and vegetables for the culinary experience. She does not pay herself for her considerable work.

Rebecca works with nonprofit Nashville Grown to source ingredients, and she develops her menus based on what’s in season.

“It is an expensive party, but it feeds my soul,” she says. She averages the costs over the year, so prices are the same no matter which artist is performing.

“It is a really nice event to reset your soul, “ says Rita Martinez, who has attended some dinners with her husband, including the one with Nikki Lane as well as December’s fundraiser.

“What you are paying for is the intimate experience and the quality,” says Martinez, who used to own The Salty Cubana. What the Supper Club offers is not a Michelin-star kind of meal, she says. It’s home cooking, served family style — and she’s OK with that. “I care where my food is coming from, and I’m willing to pay more to know it is from a pasture-raised source.”

The food is plentiful too, and if you’re still hungry — which seems unlikely given the large portions on the platters that are passed around — you’re encouraged to ask for seconds.

You also don’t have to dress like you are going to a $550-a-plate, black-tie dinner. “We want it to feel good, casual and cozy and fancy,” Rebecca says. “If you want, wear your good pajamas — the silk ones, not flannel.”

Once you buy a ticket, you’ll be emailed a survey asking about dietary restrictions and preferences as well as any mobility challenges. (The back entrance requires stairs, but there is a plan B if needed.) Rebecca accommodates many dietary needs, including offering vegetarian and gluten-free dishes.

Rebecca currently cooks out of the Citizen Kitchens food incubator space — though she’s in the process of building her own commercial kitchen — and transports the food to Studio Nashville for dinner.

“To patrons of the arts and music fans, things like Studio Mama are a very worthy investment of your hard-earned entertainment dollars,” Tasjan says. “I know a lot of folks don’t have the disposable income that they used to, but this is a true experience curated by Rebecca. 

“You can’t even really explain it — you just have to go.”