Brandon Thrash
Middle Child Clubhouse | Philadelphia
FEBRUARY 2024
Brandon Thrash first worked in restaurants while putting himself through college in Fayetteville, Arkansas. After graduating, he got his first real bartending job at Bordinos, before moving out West to San Francisco. He worked at EPIC Steak, and then at Per Diem until 2015, when Thrash took a year-long hiatus from the industry to hike the Appalachian Trail.
He went back to his home state of Alabama for two months—during which time he read, researched, and flipped through every beverage book he could find—before moving to Philadelphia. Thrash worked at Vedge and Townsend, learning to bartend for both the fine dining crowd and industry regulars alike. He then moved to Chicago, bartending at Income Tax before landing a job at Bad Hunter, where he worked with Bartender Vinny Starble and Rising Stars alum Britt Simons. After a fire closed down the restaurant, Thrash and the team took their ideas on the road, doing pop-ups across the country. A year later, after a formative stint at Maloof Wines in Oregon, Thrash returned to Philadelphia right as the pandemic hit.
Over the next six months, he delivered cocktails out of his house, taking orders through Instagram, until he got a text from Rising Stars alum Matt Cahn of Middle Child. The pair hit it off, and Thrash saw an opportunity to put his own bar philosophy into practice. With support from Cahn, he joined the team at Middle Child Clubhouse in 2021. As beverage director and general manager, Thrash has built an efficient bar program by investing in batched cocktails, constructing an in-house carbonation system, and sourcing local spirits, all while placing an emphasis on fair wages for his employees.
