Atlanta Chef Kevin Gillespie Is Helping Bring a Food Hall Concept to Nashville

It looks like Atlanta heavy hitter Kevin Gillespie is expanding his geographical reach, with plans to help bring a new food hall concept to Nashville. Gillespie, a former ‘Top Chef contestant,’ James Beard-nominated chef and the creative mind behind hit restaurants Gunshow and Revival, has formed a partnership under his Red Beard Restaurants group to open a sort of restaurant incubator food hall in the planned Germantown Union development located at 1324 2nd Ave. North.

According to a Kansas City Business Journal article from last month, Gillespie formed the partnership with hospitality developer Meriwether Cos. to create RedWether Collaborative, with the first food hall location planned for a mid-2018 opening in Kansas City. The article also references Nashville as the next target, and an online search reveals the initial press release, with it stating that “RedWether has signed a letter of intent for its second location in Nashville’s Germantown Union mixed-use development [and] is currently considering markets throughout the United States for future development.”

In the release, Gillespie states that he has “been wanting to help chefs try a new concept or open their first restaurant, and I finally have the right partner to do this[.] As a restaurateur, I think mostly about food and service. Meriwether thinks about the setting and the overall experiences. Together, we envision a curated, micro-restaurant environment where aspiring entrepreneurs get to take the next step toward their dreams with RedWether as a support structure behind them. It’s a unique hybrid of restaurant and incubator.”

It goes on further to describe the operations, stating that RedWether will choose six to eight concepts for each location, looking for chefs and cuisines that are both complimentary and in contrast to one another. RedWether will “control service and the bars inside the space, giving the chef tenants the ability to focus on their food without the burden of a lot of paperwork or the need to access large sums of money.”

This project is still quite a ways out, so be sure to check back for more intel and updates.