Bri Hlava grew up in Columbus, Ohio, in and around big families and people of diverse ethnicities where everyone was welcome. They cooked together. They danced together. “I feel like my whole childhood were these moments of everybody being together and working together,” she says. It came as no surprise to anyone who knew her then that she would end up in the hospitality business.
When she was 16 years old, Hlava started working at a brunch restaurant in Columbus. Soon after that, she started working at Chipotle. When she left Kent State University and relocated to Kentucky to attend University of Louisville, she moved into student housing. “And there were a bunch of problems.”
Her financial aid was insufficient because her credits were not transferring. She found herself in a city where she did not know anyone, paying rent at the higher-than-regional-average student rate. “Suddenly, I’m way over my head financially,” she says. She was again working at Chipotle. It was easier for her to transfer to a Chipotle location near campus than it had been to transfer some of her academic credits. But because of the financial burden she was carrying, she started working as many as — and sometimes more than — 60 hours a week at Chipotle. “I’d go out and sleep in my car in the parking lot so that I would be at work ready to open the restaurant the next morning. I was 20 years old. I was just looking for somewhere else to be.”
“In a twist of fate,” Hlava pauses as though reliving the moment, “I was in Clifton, and I missed the bus back to my apartment. I needed to charge my phone, and the only place on the block that was open was the Silver Dollar.” She had never been inside the Silver Dollar before. “I really never liked country music, but they were playing all these honky tonk female country artists on vinyl. Half the cocktail menu? I’d never heard of [any of the ingredients]. I loved everything about being there and got talking with the people behind the bar. They mentioned that they were hiring.” Two weeks later, she quit her job at Chipotle and started at working as a hostess at Silver Dollar.
Eventually, the Silver Dollar had hiring needs, and welcomed anyone on staff to interview for the open bartender position. Hlava interviewed and got it. She stayed in that position for two years. “I met my best friend while working at that restaurant. I met my husband working in that restaurant. I am going to a show tonight with some friends, and they were the first three people I met at that restaurant,” she says. “Ten years later, we’re all still really close.”
Making Moves On Faith
When a local entrepreneur bought a turnkey restaurant and began looking for a beverage director, a close friend of Hlava’s pushed her to go for it. “At the time, I felt like, ‘I don’t know enough. I haven’t done this long enough. I’m just a 24 year old girl. I can’t run a bar.’ A lot of self doubt.” Encouraged by her friend, Hlava made the move on faith. The space was opened as Butchertown Social Public House, and it stayed in operation for almost three years. “We fell into a natural rhythm with each other, and again, I found family,” Hlava says.
Butchertown Social Public House closed in December 2019, and by February 2020, the found family had begun to miss working together. That was when The MerryWeather offered their kitchen for a pop-up menu for one night only. The friends named their pop-up Poco 502. “It was a huge success. We sold out in an hour. So we did it again and again, and eventually had three or four of them. But then the pandemic hit.”
In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, bars could only be open for business if they were serving food. “So all of a sudden, our friends who are bar owners and managers are calling us like, ‘Hey, can you come do a pop-up? If you do a pop-up, we can open for one night this week.’” From this economic crisis came an opportunity, a platform for Hlava and her friends to do what they love, one pop-up at a time. “We were able to give people a little reprieve, like, ‘The world kind of sucks, but we’re making this sandwich tonight. And if you pull up outside, we’ll pass it to you through your window. And you don’t have to worry about dinner tonight.’ It was like our little oasis from everything.”
Pink Pony Club
Susie Hoyt — who had been the beverage director at the Silver Dollar when Hlava was tending bar there — is now the owner of the Pearl of Germantown. “It was a big deal for me to find a leader and a mentor and a friend to look up to,” Hlava says of Hoyt. “Seeing what she was doing and being able to learn directly from her was very impactful and stuck with me.”
Hoyt was the first person Hlava called when she and her friend, chef Connie Hartsock, wanted to do a lesbian night. Hartsock is an out lesbian, and the two now host Behind the Pink Door at the Pearl of Germantown on the last Thursday of every month.
“We know how to throw a party,” Hlava says. “We got food. We know how to make cocktails. We have the connections, we’ll just do it.” They launched their newest event only two weeks after they first conceived of it, and it has been an unexpected success. “I don’t think the Pearl had been that busy in like, years. Huge success.”
Four years after the launch of Poco 502, Hlava is in the process of opening a brickand-mortar location in Louisville. She is also working for the local beverage brand Elixir Kombucha, where she and one of the owners are developing a non-alcoholic cocktail bar as a pop-up for special events and music festivals. “Even if you’re not drinking alcohol right now for any of the many reasons to choose not to, you still deserve a fun drink and a cute glass with a great garnish and something that’s not just juice and soda water,” she says. That non-alcoholic cocktail bar will be called Zero Gravity. “We’re hoping that by the end of summer, we’ll be able to officially launch and will be available for booking.”
In addition to her work with Poco 502 and Elixir Kombucha, Hlava is the president of the Kentucky State Bartenders Guild. “Sometimes people are like, ‘Where are you working right now?’ Well, I’m doing pop- ups, and I’m working with the kombucha company, and I’m starting Zero Gravity. But sometimes I work at the Pearl. But at the end of the day, cocktails and spirits are at the heart of it, and I get to spend a lot of time building community with the Bartenders Guild.”
She encapsulates her passion for hospitality as “making people feel welcome and letting people know that there’s like a space for them with you, and you’re a safe space.” Family and community come first for Hlava.
As ambitious as she is, she still finds time to enjoy a well-crafted beverage. Her emblematic drink of summer 2024 is inspired by the Chappell Roan song “Pink Pony Club.” The locally-owned Pony Boy Slings, a brand of batch whiskey-based canned cocktails, produce three cocktails, and Hlava’s favorite is Bourbon Popstar. “I’m like, oh my god, Pony Poy. Pink pop star Chappell Roan. We’re all in the Pink Pony Club. So cute.”
Her personal recipe of the season is mezcal with the watermelon Elixir kombucha and a squeeze of lime. “So light and refreshing and smoky and good. And just amazing.”
Women like Hlava might seem to come out of nowhere, working three jobs while crafting mezcal and watermelon kombucha cocktails. But her success is the result of years of intrepid risk-taking and dedication. “I’m going to get choked up because I am really fucking proud of us and love what we get to do,” she says. “It’s summer. I’m listening to Chappell Roan. I’m drinking a cocktail. This is great.”
Local Kentucky State
Most Popular
Comments / 0