StarChefs - By the Bottle

Wine expert Kate Cunningham’s wine bar pop-up is bringing under-the-radar wines to Nashville’s boutique hotel scene.

In a city flooded with tourists, well-rounded hotel beverage programs are an absolute must. “I have always loved staying in hotels and the hard part for me, as a wine drinker, is the lack of thought around a wine program,” says Nashville-local and seasoned wine expert Kate Cunningham.

“There is usually a beverage program, but wine is [often] an afterthought. I see a lot of mass produced wines with no character on these lists and the markup is always insane.” With the Nashville hospitality industry rapidly growing, granting independent F&B professionals the opportunity to leave a lasting impact, Cunningham launched By the Bottle (BTB), a wine bar pop-up designed for boutique hotel bars.

By the Bottle found its first home at Urban Cowboy in May 2021. The cozy East Nashville boutique hotel already had a full-service bar outside, but its courtyard was in need of activation. This was a perfect fit for Cunningham, who wants her pop-up to help F&B concepts that are in need of a “jumping-off point.” BTB thrived at Urban Cowboy, attracting both tourists and locals who crave a nice bottle of wine without having to make a reservation. But when winter came, Cunningham decided to move her bar to a new home.

“I wanted to stay close because we had built so many connections and neighbors.” Vandyke Bed and Beverage, another boutique hotel in East Nashville, opened in 2019 with a big cocktail program that was having trouble maintaining consistency. This left an opening for Cunningham to propose popping up with BTB. With an extremely positive response from the jump, she stayed on for a six-month residency.

As someone who has been working in the wine world for 15-plus years, Cunningham knows how to stay in tune with what’s new, but more importantly, create a wine list that falls in line with her values.

“I’ve been able to help champion wines, importers, and producers [which allows me to] gain access to wines that might not normally have made their way here,” she says. “I love being able to find wines that are under the radar and give them a voice here in Nashville.”

And that doesn't necessarily have to come with a huge markup. Whereas restaurants depend on wine sales to maintain their margins, with no food, labor, or other overhead to worry about, Cunningham has less of a struggle breaking even.

But Cunningham isn’t ready to settle—the idea of By the Bottle will continue to expand. “My goal is to keep popping up for now and to try and bring BTB to various neighborhoods here in Nashville,” she says. “BTB has quite the following here in East Nashville and I want to continue to maintain that neighborhood wine bar mentality. But I do hope to find a hotel group who wants to grow with us and maybe take this show on the road.”

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