The Gospel According To Calvin Philley: Jazz, Gin, And The Tao Of Hospitality

By Alisha Proffitt Photos by Matt Johnson 

I’ve often wondered just how exactly it is that Calvin Philley manages to keep up with all the concepts and projects he’s worked on and helped build in this city. Perhaps it is due to him basically being a bionic man, thanks to a soccer injury several years ago that equipped him with a titanium rod on his collarbone. Maybe it is all the red beans and rice. Whatever the reason, Calvin is a local character whose fingerprints are on a lot of what makes Louisville’s bar scene so special, whether or not you know it. 

Born and raised in Louisville, aside from time on the road as a touring musician and some college at Western Kentucky University, he is part of the team behind some of the city’s most unique bar concepts. Naturally, the man who has described seeing Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at the Palace in 2014 as “transformative” wasn’t going to end up in a cubicle. His hospitality career started with dish duty and ended up under the shiny front-of-house neon lights. 

“I started washing dishes at the original Feast BBQ location in New Albany because they paid better than the barista job I had been working since high school. It was really my first interaction with an independent restaurant. I was in a punk band that was touring regularly so it was a good gig because I could pick up shifts on the weekends I was in town and support my food and beer budget,” Philley reflects, “I enjoyed the tribal environment of a small kitchen like that. And I enjoyed the feeling that the product of that specific tiny kitchen was relatively cutting-edge and quite successful. Even if my contribution was washing the dishes, or, at most, pulling smoked pork to catch up with demand. I think a huge part of my DNA in this business starts in the kitchen, scraping out a smoker next to a person with a culinary school degree. I eventually started working regularly as a line cook and I had mild aspirations of a cheffy future when they fired me after I kept sleeping through lunch shifts because I was 21 and drinking too much. Naturally, I found a barback gig shortly thereafter and never returned to the kitchen.”

That pivot led Calvin down a path of spirits and gave him a respect for the mechanics of good hospitality. “Marie Zahn deserves most of the credit for anything good that I do in a bar setting. She hired me on against her better judgment as a late addition to the Butchertown Grocery bar staff and brought me into the next level of cocktails,” he explains. 

One of Calvin’s most recognizable projects is Jimmy Can’t Dance. Its resurrection inside Hotel Genevieve was unexpected even to him. “Covid held Jimmy Can’t Dance by the ankles and shook the change out of its pockets, along with pretty much every live music venue on earth. We tried to give it a shot as restrictions were lifted and people were allowed to be indoors together, but it didn’t work. The last event at the 7th Street location was a Karaoke party after my little sister’s wedding rehearsal dinner.” And while Covid ran not just Jimmy Can’t Dance but the entire industry through the ringer, it didn’t put out the fire that the much-loved venue had started in their hearts. 

“I think Brian and Dennie- as the founding fathers of JCD- had held a flame for the possibility of bringing it back, but it was always going to be a longshot for the right conditions to come together that would foster a healthy environment where the musicians get paid and the bar stays in business,” Philley explains. “I am not really sure who approached who when it came to getting started, but it began with a Christmas Jazz pop-up at Hotel Genevieve as a sort of trial period. We booked music and put together a cocktail list for them so their speakeasy-style bar could function as Jimmy’s for a week.”

“The results were encouraging but I didn’t really see the concept moving forward. I can be guilty of projecting my own rag-tag glue huffing punk rock image onto our bar partners, and I definitely didn’t see that fitting in with the pretty well put together kind of corporate structure of the boutique hotel world. But we met somewhere in the middle there and the agreement for us to take over the space came together somehow. There have been growing pains as I think would be the case in any transitional, collaborative effort of this size, and like I said we’re kind of in a different world here, but that’s all behind the scenes and I think the guest-facing product that we’ve been able to put out is pretty incredible.”

When asked if guests can expect the same experience at the new location, Calvin’s answer is that nostalgia is often a double-edged sword. “I think it’s driven a lot of interest for our new space here in the beginning, but getting hung up on it is a dangerous path. Jimmy’s in Hotel Genevieve is definitely a different experience, more intimate and maybe a bit more polished. Times have certainly changed, and I also think that with the change in venue from downtown to Nulu also brings a bit of a different approach to service and guest expectations,” he says. 

But that’s not without love and appreciation for the past. “I have a romantic memory in my head of the old Jimmys. I can smell it when I think about it,” Philley recalls. “I described it to someone the other day as the Sesame Street ideal of a Jazz Club beneath a Sandwich Shop, as if Big Bird is slapping Russian dressing on a Reuben upstairs. That all feels to me like an organic thing that I just happened to walk into and start making cocktails and opening Miller Lite bottles. This could never be that, but I didn’t just wander in out of the blue on this one and I know better than to try to waste effort to bring back the past when the here and now is so bright and shiny.” 

This isn’t to say the group has lost its passion. “I think one of the guiding principles that feels intrinsically built into our ethos as a bar group is a strong sense of place. We’re all Louisville guys. It’s important to us to add value to our home. I think people in Louisville get on board with that attitude naturally,” Philley says of his team. “I think even when I’m traveling, when I go to a bar or restaurant, it takes no time at all for me to be able to clock whether I’m in a local spot or a usurper trying to pull off a cheap imitation. It was important to us to carry over that feeling. People sense that at a personal level and I think no matter where they’re coming from, it provides a level of comfort to know real people who know this place are taking care of you.”

Reminiscers can still look forward to the same great music filling the new space. “We had great relationships with the musicians who had previously played at the old spot, and they seemed pretty stoked on working with us again,” he says. “There are cocktail places and a few restaurants in town that will have jazz nights, but to my knowledge there isn’t a dedicated venue just for jazz, so it checks out that our concept would once again be attractive to jazz players.”

Being a more intimate space, JCD doesn’t fuss around with a fancy sound system and opts for a more personal take when it comes to performances. This lends to a more casual, organic, plug-in-and-play kind of entertainment experience. “Our approach so far has been to give the power of creativity to the musicians, and I think that has suited us well so far.”

Then there’s Darling’s, the Art Nouveau cocktail bar on Bardstown Road. Calvin’s not claiming credit for its visual panache. “God forbidI’m tasked with the interior design of my own living space,” he jokes, but he’s proud of the spirit behind it. “I think Darling’s was dreamed up on trips that James and Marie had taken to Spain and Portugal. Gin & tonics and vermouth bars have been huge there for a while. There’s a bar in the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona called L’Ascensor that James was always sending me stuff from their Instagram and it does have this brooding, super vintage Art Nouveau motif throughout, while the bartenders crank out classic cocktails and G&T’s and the place stays busy and has this unpretentious but intelligent atmosphere. What a dream.” 

“I went to L’Ascensor last September, and after having operated Darling’s for the past few years, it felt like flying across the world just to walk into the Catalan version of our little bar. We didn’t set out to like jack their whole concept- and it was a relief to go in there and see the respect we paid them in Darling’s, but I felt like I was talking the alternate universe version of myself when I was ordering my wife a Last Word in bad American Spanish.” 

Darling’s has definitely brought with it a new kind of cocktail experience in the city of Louisville, a place where Bourbon more often than not steals the spotlight on cocktail menus. “Bourbon is King here in so many ways and I have no misconception about what Bourbon does for the food and beverage industry in this town and am therefore greatly appreciative, but with that said, it can get a little old to both bartender and consumer. Everything is magic until it becomes routine. So changing lanes into a more European-centric bar concept, heavy on gin and vermouth, making our own draft tonic was exciting. It suits a diverse cocktail list, as gin is such a diverse category,” Philley explains. 

The vibe at Darlings manages to feel both upscale and laid back at the same time, and I was curious how their team was able to achieve this. So, I asked. “Going to cocktail bars or upscale restaurants even can be such a to-do that it sucks the fun out of something that should be low-stress and carefree by definition. I take away a lot from my time working with Ryan Rogers, who gave me a glimpse of philosophy in restaurants and bars, sort of the Tao of hospitality,” says Philley. “People come to our places to remove themselves from the stresses of everyday life. They want to be transported; they want us to suspend their disbelief and let their imaginations take them to a happy place where there are no dishes in the sink. I love that. I can put myself in the shoes of every bar patron that darkens the door because I have been them and I have had incredible experiences that altered my state of consciousness and I have also been rudely brought back down to earth in harshly lit rooms while Pandora commercials play over the speakers and cold food comes out while a disinterested server doesn’t notice my empty water glass.” 

It’s important to Calvin and his partners that their businesses are accessible for people to come as they are. They achieve this by appreciating that everyone interacts with their environment according to their own point of view and allowing the opportunity for guests to choose their own adventure as to what the significance of that interaction will be. “If I can offer someone an elevated experience without the pretense and weird judgement by uppity servers or stress of securing a reservation at a price point that doesn’t raise their blood pressure, that’s the goal. I want people that come here to want to and feel like they could easily return at any time. Here’s another piece of restaurant and bar philosophy- once you are a place people only go on special occasions, you’ve lost them for every other night of their lives,” Philley says of this approach. 

It is that kind of thought and consideration for the guest experience that sets these places apart from the rest. The atmosphere also stands out in a big way. The team seems to be on a whole other level when it comes to interior design, and the spaces are so well curated that they almost feel like movie sets. Ever full of questions, I inquired about this, and it seems I was onto something. 

“The movie set deal is all James. He’s actually an art department guy for film productions and that kind of skill absolutely carries over into this business. It’s definitely a unique situation that our bars benefit from big-time. Even just that he pretty much has a warehouse of props and decorations that get used once, have their fifteen seconds of fame, and then find a new life in our bars is such a weird and wonderful advantage for us. I think the attention to detail on the space is important. It’s often overlooked, though, and none of it means anything if it’s not maintained on a day-to-day level in a holistic way.” 

Despite all the fancy cocktails and moody lighting, there’s a sense of realism running through Calvin Philley’s work and aspirations for the service industry here in Louisville. Calvin doesn’t just want to build pretty bars, he wants to build a healthier, more equitable industry. “In Louisville it makes me happy to see some of the people I came up alongside in this business getting their shot as serious owners and operators, both chefs and bartenders. Of course, I would love to see more of that. I was lucky to be given an opportunity by a group of people that I had to really trust, and that was after being burned in relationships with other bar and restaurant owners who didn’t have my best interest in mind, which is sadly par for the course,” he shares. 

“I am also encouraged by the amount of awareness and initiatives around mental health and substance abuse support that seems to be growing in our industry. It’s pretty common knowledge that bartenders, chefs, servers, cooks, dishwashers, shit- bar and restaurant owners-work in stressful environments that can be surrounded by drugs and alcohol. Groups like Ben’s Friends, which I think helps remove the stigma of reaching out for help and support for service industry workers- and the new Lee Initiative & APRON’s Bluegrass Bartender’s Fund which focuses on supporting bartenders healthcare (including mental health) are great resources that have come up in the last few years. I surely would not be anywhere near this point in my professional career or let alone remotely as healthy in my personal life if there were not resources for me to reach out to when I was struggling to cope with my own mental health and substance abuse issues.”