Will Hollingsworth
Bartender/Owner, Spotted Owl | Cleveland
NOVEMBER 2016
Eugene, Oregon native Will Hollingsworth is a bit of an unlikely bartender. He’s an intellectual with degrees in philosophy and history of math and science with concentrations in classics and comparative literature. He’s self-professedly not a cocktail nerd. What draws him to the bar is the bar itself, the community of people holding the glasses.
Before Hollingsworth found himself behind the stick, he worked in political communications, most notably with the 2008 Barack Obama campaign. Victory secured, Hollingsworth zigzagged across the country, finally settling in Cleveland, where he landed his first bartending gig. He mixed at Rising Star Restauranteur Jonathon Sawyer’s Greenhouse Tavern and later Michael Symon’s Lolita, loving the work but becoming increasingly obsessed with creating the ideal bar atmosphere.
Hollingsworth set out on his own, opening The Spotted Owl in an old monastery complete with stain glass windows. He expected to people to flock to the bar for its vibe rather than his esoteric drink list. Cocktail sales quickly surpassed beer, though, and Hollingsworth hopped over to New York to for an intense stage at the Dead Rabbit, working with Rising Stars alum Jillian Vose. Back behind the stick of Spotted Owl, Hollingsworth leads a bar that’s at once seedy and sacred, but above all else hospitable, welcoming, and communal—it also happens to serve the best damn cocktails in Cleveland and for miles around—cocktails worthy of a seat with his mentors as a 2016 StarChefs Rising Star.
