It’s a genius, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that idea: Buy a camper and refurbish it to become a chic, functional, mobile bar that can be easily dispatched to events in and around Nashville (and beyond).
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Provide bartenders who can get the party started, curated cocktails to keep the conversation flowing, and all the bar-related accoutrements needed to let the event host enjoy a stress-free experience.
This is Aero Bar, the brainchild of Brian Fuente, who gave birth to Music City’s mobile event bar genre.
The idea for Aero Bar came to Fuente at the most unexpected time. The Nashville-based, Mississippi-raised Fuente was a musician—not a bar or trailer aficionado. On a trip home he attended an event at his mom’s furniture store, where a couple was serving cocktails out of a converted camper. Fuente was immediately smitten with the idea.
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“I thought it was incredible,” he says. “My brain would not stop thinking about it. I kept thinking, ‘Nashville has nothing like this!’”
Two months later he had a concept and a business plan, and by June of 2017 he launched Aero Bar with his first trailer. With Nashville’s first mobile bar, Fuente knew he was sitting on (or in, for that matter) a million-dollar idea, but he still didn’t plan to make a career out of it.
“I thought it was just going to be a side gig. I thought I was just going to keep it in my backyard and my wife and I would do two or three events a month, at most.”
Charles Whiting
But the Nashville party scene had different plans. While serving drinks at an event in Germantown, Fuente and his wife were approached by two women who were hosting a five-day event for Alfa Romeo, starting the very next day. They hired Aero Bar on the spot.
Fuente is the first to admit that when the venture began, he and his wife were not professional bartenders, but they had a passion for mixology.
“We made cocktails in our home, and we thought we were pretty good,” says Fuente, “but I never knew what it took to actually execute an event for twenty-five people.”
Two years, another Nashville-based trailer, and additional dispatches in Austin and Southern California later, it’s safe to say Fuente has gotten the hang of it. And he’s hired some amazing folks to help him grow the business—and the menu. “We have about 52 bartenders on staff, plus a full-time time team including an events coordinator and a director of operations.”
And he loves that each event brings a different challenge.
“Sometimes clients know exactly what they want, and sometimes they rely on us for that,” he says. “We’ll pick a base spirit and ask them what kind of flavors they like, plan around seasonal holidays, that kind of thing.”
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They’re able to offer these consultations in their own (non-mobile) space via a showroom in East Nashville—complete with a bar (obviously).
“It’s a really cool experience,” says Fuente. “We built a great bar in there and we develop cocktails with the clients.”
The event side of the business has evolved, too. Fuente says Aero Bar is still averaging two weddings a weekend, but they’re also taking on a lot of corporate clients and partnering with brands for event installations. From luxury car companies to high-profile celebrity parties and music events, the Aero Bar trailers make the rounds.
In fact, they recently transformed one of their trailers into a Bacardi bar at Bonnaroo, completely covered in the spirit’s own branding—with not an Aero Bar sign in sight.
“We do a lot of those big corporate activations where we provide a really incredible space for them to implement their brand on our product,” Fuente says. “Or we'll do branded cocktails where you can put your logo on branded ice cubes, so if a corporate client has a logo, or if it's a wedding and they want to put their initials on ice, we’ll stamp it. We’ve really updated our cocktail game and it’s so fun for us to do crazy cocktails. We can even do edible flowers frozen in the ice cubes.”
Fuente says projects like that fuel his creative passions. “It’s been a lot of fun to develop not only really great cocktail recipes, but to create art. And beautifully presented cocktails.”
He’s also expanding the empire beyond trailer-slung beverages. The Aero Bar team is building and stocking bar carts for a different kind of moving bar option.
“We’re an experience-based company, so we get to create these really cool experiences for our clients and their guests.”
And all that innovation (and libation) is fueled by the passionate team Fuente has put into place.
“We hire people with really great personalities—people that can elevate the entire event and the experience,” he says.
“We’re more than just a bartending service, we have built great relationships with our clients and created friendships, and that's so important to me. Most of our business now is referrals, which is amazing, and it's because the community of Nashville has really supported us. It’s because of that—because of them—that we are where we are.”