Inspiring Conversations with Jessica Blakley of BarBees Bartending

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Blakley. She and her team share their story with us below:

BarBees was founded on celebration. My business partner, Willow and I are best friends who celebrate life’s large and small milestones, and anything in between. After attending bartending school on a whim,  we discovered the power of a tasty drink to facilitate conversation, connection, and celebration. We officially launched BarBees Bartending in 2019. Today, in 2022, BarBees has 20+ team members and is shaking up drinks in five cities across the country. We are equipping others to lead more celebratory lives.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Running a small business and running into challenges go hand in hand. Expansion to other cities has come with a host of challenges – from the start, Nashville has been an incredible incubator to start and grow a business. Small business support is ingrained in our Nashville culture. It’s been challenging to plug into the small business scene in other cities. If anything, it’s shown us what a gem Nashville is.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
BarBees is a mobile cocktail class company in Nashville, New York City,  Scottsdale, Austin, and Palm Springs. Willow and I started BarBees to create space for relationships to be built and enhanced—because we all know there’s nothing like a good cocktail to spark conversation! We feel that our role is to promote connection, whether through a cocktail (or two!) or a friendly conversation with your bartender.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role you feel it’s played for you.
On paper, starting a business one year before a global pandemic sounds pretty unlucky; before the pandemic, BarBees served large-scale events like weddings, fundraisers, and massive private parties. At that point, we had only done two cocktail classes for friends – cocktail classes weren’t part of our normal offerings. While Covid impacted our business in many ways, one of the upshots for us was that we could step away from massive events into more intimate cocktail classes, which we felt aligned more with our mission. Throughout 2020, we taught hundreds of virtual classes for groups of friends, families, and corporate groups looking for a way to connect. This was a rewarding season of business for us; it allowed us to facilitate connection and provide a unique experience, which we strongly feel is at the heart of our business. In 2021, we were able to transition from teaching virtual classes to in-person cocktail classes. This is our primary offering today. Over the last three years, unexpected circumstances have driven what we prioritize and pursue in our business. We feel “lucky” that we were able to transition from an in-person to a virtual setting, and through that virtual format, we were able to better understand what we wanted to do in the post-pandemic world.