Whiskey Kitchen

Whiskey Kitchen was the Gulch’s tavern: a whiskey list more than 200 bottles deep, a hot chicken sandwich, and a big patio on 12th Avenue South.

The corner building at 12th Avenue South and McGavock Street previously housed a restaurant called Agave. The 2009 makeover used reclaimed oak from an old Kentucky bourbon distillery and crocodile-leather wall coverings.

It opened in September 2009 as the first M Street concept on McGavock Street. Kayne Prime, Moto, Saint Añejo, and Virago followed on the same blocks.

Restaurateur Chris Hyndman built M Street with Jim Caden. Their remake of McGavock Street was so thorough the strip itself picked up the MStreet nickname.

Nashville Lifestyles filed it under the city’s best restaurants in 2013: usually a packed house, long lines on Friday nights, and a lunch crowd that took the patio when the windows folded open.

It closed in September 2022 after 13 years, making way for a hotel project from developer CB Ragland. The whole staff moved to M Street’s other Gulch rooms.