"An 80-seat, patio-equipped whiskey-focused bar by a chef better known for his Southern restaurants, built around an encyclopedic selection of roughly 200 bottles from the U.S., Scotland, Japan and beyond, curated with help from his bar manager and a drinks writer/whiskey expert. Though designed as a bar first, it will offer a concise food program centered on playful, seasonal cheeseburgers that experiment with different meats, global flavors and house-made buns. Styled as a modern, non-traditional take on a whiskey room rather than a mahogany-and-leather relic, the concept also doubles as a social mission: it will serve as the training ground for a small-cohort workforce-development initiative (LEE, Let’s Empower Employment) that teaches young adults all aspects of restaurant work and ties into broader mentorship efforts to increase diversity in the industry." - Monica Burton