This morning, Strategic Hospitality announced a partnership with the Nashville Sounds, in which they will open a restaurant in the right field concourse area of the upcoming First Tennessee Park. The Band Box will open 90 minutes before each home game, and in addition to serving the non-ticketholder public, the restaurant will be accessible to game attendees and will offer service to an area of ticketed seats within the stadium.
I had the opportunity to chat with Strategic Hospitality's Max and Benjamin Goldberg and chef Josh Habiger for a story for our sister pub Nfocus magazine (which hits the streets Friday — you can find it by looking for those three dapper gents on the cover), in which we explore the culinary evolution of Nashville. Regarding The Band Box, the guys assured us this is not going to be a Catbird Seat in right field (although that would be rad) but an elevated stadium dining experience.
"It's general stadium food, but done with a different twist to it," Benjamin Goldberg told Nfocus. "So there's a burger on there, there's a chicken sandwich on there, there's a hot dog on there, but we're not going to buy frozen hot dogs and put them in a frozen bun. We're going to source our products a little bit differently — probably use some of our local vendors — and try and put a little bit more thoughtfulness into the product out of what we're doing."
"What's nice about it is, if you're not a baseball fan, you can still go enjoy the stadium experience and there's something for hopefully everyone in this little area in terms of an elevated stadium experience," Max added. "So if you go in, and you just want to go have dinner there and get a great hot dog or a great chicken sandwich or whatever it is, you can go and then the game can be in the background. If you're a die-hard baseball fan, you've got your stat book out, you can get a product that we think is a little bit more thoughtful and fun for a stadium."
The 4,000-square-foot outdoor establishment will have a wide range of options, including snacks like jalapeno fritters with derby sauce and vegetables and hummus; or heftier fare including smoked pork nachos, quinoa chopped salad (yay, healthy stadium food!) and Porter Road Butcher's kielbasa pork sausage with carrot cumin slaw. The bar will offer draft craft beers with an emphasis on local brews, along with top-shelf options and what are sure to be some of the best frozen drinks in town. (Grapefruit-and-vodka slushie or frozen Jack & Coke, anyone?)
"This project was fun," Habiger said. "We got to kind of do our take on what would make a stadium ... would you call it a restaurant, bar? Stadium bar?"
"Yeah," Benjamin answered.
OK, Stadium Restaurant Bar it is! Benjamin continued:
"We do like baseball, but that's really not the only reason," he said. "I think the stadium is amazing for Nashville; it's the city investing back into itself. We should have this, and if we're going to have it, it should be world-class. For us, to have the opportunity to put something into a baseball stadium for 10,000 people that we think is a little bit different than what most baseball stadiums have, it's super exciting."
"We are so unbelievably fortunate right now to get approached about all these different new, incredible developments going in and getting contacted about new projects," Max added. "But we will never open a place where we wouldn't be the first people to go. Everything that we do will hopefully be based around the fact that we want to do things that are super personal to us that we truly believe in, we'd be the first people to go, and then we also love creating jobs in Nashville. That's something that I think that's one of the greatest joys that the three of us get to do is create jobs in a city we're super proud of and add more jobs to the marketplace here."
Also, this is sports, people, so you won't be too surprised to learn that a recent site visit to the stadium spurred a friendly bet between Benjamin and Max.
"We are baseball fans, and while we were talking about the Sounds, and Benjamin was looking out at the field and was like, "You know, I bet I could still hit a home-run ..." Max explained.
"Did you really say that?" Habiger jumped in. Pause.
"I didn't use the word 'still,' " Benjamin laughed. "I said, 'I think I can hit a home run.'"
"Did you even hit a home run in Little League?" Max asked. Pause again.
"Probably not," Benjamin admitted.
"So Benjamin is convinced he can hit a home run — and, of course, brothers being competitive and just seeing how can we push buttons and be terrible to each other — I convince him to make a bet," Max continued. "Ten to 1 odds. If he hits a home run, I will write a check to the charity of his choice for $10,000, and if he doesn't, he has to write a check to the charity of my choice for $1,000. He can have whatever set-up situation he wants, and he's going to get a full jersey, batting helmet and go out and attempt to hit a home run."
As for when this is going to happen, stay tuned.
