Judith, a regular, grabs her perch at the front bar inside Golden Sound, the stylish, cocktail-slinging sister to Nashville’s member of the Sushi | Bar family.
The food isn’t the main draw on this side of the historic Gulch space, necessarily, but the smashburger is a must, she says. It keeps Judith coming back, as does the proximity—and how Scott, masterfully manning the bar, always delivers on service and cool conversation.
“How we doin’ tonight, y’all?” Scott asks, placing a Golden Sound signature espresso martini with sotol (complex like mezcal, but more herbaceous) on the marble bar.
It’s Cheers, but dressed up for a close-up. And that was very much the plan.
“Nashville has no lack of bars, by any means,” says Ryan Stock, founder of Golden Sound owners Adept Hospitality. “But I felt like there was a bit of a void when it came to something more elevated—where it can still have a vibe, but it’s different from what you’re getting downtown.”
Challenge Accepted
Stock and the Adept team built their business on noticing and filling restaurant-scene gaps in markets from Los Angeles and Miami to Austin and Charleston. Their Sushi | Bar omakase concepts stretch across seven cities, including Nashville, each with subtle aesthetic twists and a consistent focus on 17 courses of luxury bites.
Many omakase concepts have a lounge for waiting diners—it’s an experience as much as a meal, so groups of guests move in timed seatings, typically with a highly limited number of seats. With Nashville’s Sushi | Bar, Adept specifically wanted distinct but connected experiences: the omakase and the craft cocktail hang. Two brands, two culinary approaches, two vibes—aligned enough to share the same space, but individualized to stand alone.
It’s a tall design and décor order, and to achieve it, Adept tapped Nashville interior designer Stephanie Hayden, then of Remick Architecture, now senior managing designer at LA | CA Design.
Set apart by dramatic drapery, the two concepts are a case study in subtle differentiation: cohesive lighting, cohesive textures, but distinct details—Japanese-inspired minimalism on one side, retro energy on the other.
“Credit is absolutely due specifically to (Hayden),” Stock says, laughing. “She probably spent a lot more hours on Zoom, FaceTime, and phone calls with us than she thought she would when she took the project.”
Hayden backs that up—with an important caveat.
“This project consumed me in ways that I could not have anticipated from the start, in the best possible way,” she says. “We all felt so energized by this concept and wanted to ensure that every detail was considered. Managing a project like this can be really stressful, but it’s also addicting.”
Finding the Sound
Along with Golden Sound and Sushi | Bar, Adept has a Nashville hand in Iggy’s, Ryan and Matthew Poli’s inventive Italian spot in Wedgewood-Houston, and Golden Sound’s next-door neighbor, Alba’s Empanadas, among others.
Golden Sound and Sushi | Bar were Adept’s first steps into Nashville. And although the team was committed, intentional, and focused, the steps started a little slow.
“It’s surprisingly more challenging than you might think to find some of these smaller footprints,” Stock says, pointing out how the bulk of available spaces were new construction—and glass-and-metal sterility didn’t exactly fire him up. “We came across this location, which was still a coffee spot, and almost none of those high-rise condos were there yet—I think they were still in scaffolding. So there wasn’t much happening in the Gulch at that time, but it was pretty clear that there was a ton of opportunity.”
The coffee spot, Barista Parlor Golden Sound, represented another round of creative minds recognizing opportunity. Barista Parlor chief Andy Mumma partnered with Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach to reimagine and reopen the brick building in 2014.
They announced their intent to exit that location in 2022, and—lucky for Stock and Adept—the space had the perfect balance of size, location, energy, and possibility.
Classic Nashville History
That history, as is true of an outsized number of cool old buildings in Nashville, includes time as an off-the-Row recording studio. Between song-slinging days in the ’60s and its barista rebirth, 610 Magazine Street also housed a transmission shop. But across the decades, the brightly colored, Jet Age-style sign out front stayed—and inspired, again and again.
“That’s gotta be the name of the bar,” Stock remembers thinking as soon as he saw it. “I was excited to make sure that we maintained the facade, that original aesthetic, as authentically as possible. And of course, the sign was a big piece of that.”
The sign and the studio story ultimately shape the entire Golden Sound aesthetic, from branding to both large and small interior touches.
“The process began with a simple question,” Hayden says: “‘How can we honor a space with such a rich past without being too literal?’ The goal was to evoke a sense of nostalgia while creating an atmosphere that feels retro yet fresh—sophisticated yet playful—while remaining distinctly its own.”
The cocktail bar is all curves and creative cool, with warm wood reminiscent of vintage console record players, bar-front textures grooved like vinyl, seating lined with retro rumpus room colors, and dim, creativity-encouraging lighting throughout.
And the details continue the story. Guests choose cocktails from a gatefold album sleeve menu holding a retro 45, and drinks arrive on napkins designed like high-class, mid-century monogrammed hankies, marked with a lyrical snippet.
“At the end of the day, that’s the fun part,” Stock says. “The design aesthetic doesn’t stop at the color of the walls and the floor finishes—it’s everything. The more elements we can influence, the more immersive the overall experience becomes, consciously or subconsciously. And that’s what it’s all about: immersive experiences.”
