Halls Chophouse Nashville

Hall Management Group was opening its first restaurant outside of its home state of South Carolina in Nashville, Tennessee. Its signature restaurant, Halls Chophouse, is one of the most renowned steakhouse concepts in the United States, but was an unknown quantity in Tennessee.

Hall Strategies began work for Halls Chophouse one year in advance of opening. This was not a typical restaurant opening. It was more than an exciting announcement simply to drum up interest among diners. This project was about networking and building real connections with the community and recruiting hundreds of top-quality employees to work for the restaurant.

Halls Chophouse is known, first and foremost, for providing truly exceptional service. With that mission top of mind, management would not open the restaurant without being fully staffed with top-flight hospitality talent. Hall Strategies managed all aspects of networking Halls Chophouse and its leadership within the community and to push for top-quality staff. The staffing piece was imperative, because Halls Chophouse was starting from scratch in a booming hospitality city with tremendous competition for quality staff compounded by a labor shortage.

Hall Strategies leveraged media relations, communications, advertising, influencer marketing and social media. We built out a recruitment-focused website months in advance of opening, in a manner that simultaneously boosted recruitment and built anticipation and awareness for the restaurant. This project was about building a brand, and creating a community around that brand. In all messaging early on, we used traditional public relations updates and business announcement news to infuse recruitment messages. This included carefully formulating messages about Halls Chophouse that would differentiate it from its competitors in the market for its benefits, earning potential, and culture.

With Hall Strategies’ support, Halls Chophouse was able to hire a large, skilled staff to open at its expected high level of service, a monumental feat in a crowded and short-staffed hospitality market.

Once the restaurant was ready to open, Hall Strategies knew we had to get the right audiences into the building, from media to tastemakers to important business and political leadership. We built a curated guest lists of hundreds to get the right people in the building for the opening event. The event took place on May 28, 2022, and was a smashing success, building buzz and excitement. Simultaneously, we launched major feature articles with The Tennessean, Nashville Business Journal and others to showcase the Halls Chophouse difference.

Halls Chophouse Nashville immediately catapulted to the top of the list in a crowded restaurant and steakhouse market. Despite only being open for a few months before voting began, Halls Chophouse was voted Best New Steakhouse and Top 3 for Best New Restaurant and Best Service in the Nashville Scene’s annual Best of Nashville competition. Hall Strategies has managed and grown Halls Nashville’s Instagram, amassing more than 8,000 followers in its first year.