Food, Drinks, Murals and Music in Nashville

Guest blogger – Kathy Clark Instagram: @kathy.mpls

Here’s a list of must-do’s, must-see’s, and must-eat’s if you find yourself in the country music capital for a weekend.

I loved spending a long weekend in Nashville with my best friend, Emily, in July. This highlight reel is mostly made up of food experiences and I have no regrets.

Food and Drinks

Make sure you give a dive BBQ place a try. We stopped by Center Point Pit BBQ and it was one of our favorite stops. It has such a fun laid back atmosphere with huge portions, great prices, and big styrofoam cups of sweet tea. The stars of the menu are their sliders called the “Three Little Pigs” that are by no means little. You can get one little pig or try all three. Emily got one and still had leftovers. This place is all about the food and we had great service! To us, Center Point is a MUST stop!

Take the 20 minute drive outside of Nashville and visit The Loveless Cafe. It’s a half day experience and an Instagrammer’s dream. Even though the wait for a table usually averages over an hour, there is so much to do while you wait, that the time flew by. There are gift shops, places to buy their biscuit mix, preserves, or a light snack to tide you over – we each had a PB&P (preserves) and it hit the spot! There’s also space for kids (& adults) to play corn hole and other yard games and plenty of photo-ops. They have really cute merchandise that would make for a great souvenir. It felt like Tennessee’s version of Magnolia, a whole branded town on one property. Oh yeah, and they even have a space for weddings – that would make for such a cute venue!

While we were there we ran into a group of 4 lifelong friends in their 50’s who gave us some advice when we were taking turns taking pictures in front of the original neon road sign. The ladies told us not to fill up on the biscuits they start you with at the table. They are served the biscuits with peach, strawberry and blackberry preserves and let me tell you, they are as addictive as Olive Garden Breadsticks. Even cooler, is that you can peer into the kitchen in a back hallway and watch them roll and cut out the biscuits – talk about fresh! Anyway, we tried our best to follow the ladies’ advice, we only ate one each – OK I ate two! Our wonderful waitress gave us to-go lids for the preserves and sent us packing with even more extra biscuits so we left with about 7 or 8 biscuits to go. Those things are priceless, and made for a great snack, even the next day! Inside the cafe, I had chicken and waffles, Emily had a BBQ breakfast platter, with her favorite cornbread pancake of the whole trip – she likes a little sweetness in hers. Loveless also had a surprisingly exciting drink menu like Strawberry-infused Bourbon that made for a delicious cool southern drink! Overall, Loveless is a CAN’T MISS stop, mostly because it’s so much more than just a restaurant out in the country.

You don’t have to go to the original Biscuit Love location in the “Gulch”… there was a longgg line of people waiting to be seated there, instead head for one of their other two locations. We went to the one in Hillsboro Village and walked right in. To be honest, we didn’t love our entrees but I would recommend getting their “Bonuts” (biscuit donuts) that are served with lemon marzipan and blueberry compote. It makes for a fun breakfast or brunch appetizer, or maybe something to have with a coffee while you’re there. They also serve beer. Emily tried Good People Brewing Company‘s IPA there. Overall, Biscuit Love had lots of Nashville Pride and a very cute logo, I say it’s worth giving a try!

Not labeled as a BBQ place or anything that seemed authentically Nashville, but boy did this English Pub called “The Pub” deliver on the chicken, biscuit and bacon gravy. It tasted as good as it sounds. This pub is located in the Gulch and is right across from the original Biscuit Love. They also had some killer sides, like sweet potato fries and mac n cheese! Our waiter jokingly nodded across the street at the line of people waiting with umbrellas outside of Biscuit Love and said “they are all waiting for biscuits, they could have just come here.” We agreed, especially since we liked the food better at the pub! Their fried chicken, biscuit and bacon gravy was my favorite meal in Nashville.

Don’t be scared to eat at a local chain restaurant! We had BBQ at Bar-B-Cutie mostly because we kept seeing them all over and I thought the name was funny. There, I ate a loaded baked potato topped with beef brisket and it was so good! They also serve a drink called Fruit Tea, alongside Sweet and Unsweet Tea. Fruit tea: tea, lemonade, pineapple juice and orange juice. It’s super sweet and my new favorite. We talked about how thankful we were that we didn’t live in Nashville, because we would want to eat BBQ like this for every meal.

Something you should try while in Nashville is hot chicken. I don’t have much of a heat tolerance, but I went for it and ordered the mild. These chicken wings were amazing! Emily likes the heat and ordered “hot.” Those were right up her alley. Hot Chicken is just a lesser known Nashville speciality, but worth the 20 minute wait for fresh spicy delicious-ness! Make sure that whichever restuarant you go, it’s one that is named after someone’s granny. We went to Helen’s, but also heard great things about Hattie B’s

“I Dream of Weenie” was the perfect after brunch snack before we headed to the airport to go home. I recommend the Mac N Cheese dog. This place is more than just a cute VW wagon turned into a now stationary food truck. This place makes for a cute picture but also serves a really yummy hot dog. They also have colorful picnic table seating and lots of free street parking. It’s a can’t miss stop and within walking distance to my favorite mural “Radiate Positivity.” There aren’t any bathrooms at I Dream of Weenie, but they do have an agreement with the cute music store who’s back lawn they are located on. The inside of Fanny’s House of Music was brimming with musicians and just felt like authentic Nashville to me.

The airport has an open container policy, so you can buy great local beer and walk over your gate with it if you prefer! We hung out in a space where we could sort of hear live music as we waited to board our planes. Emily finished her beer and spotted a nun, which felt kind of ironic. We enjoyed beer from Tennessee Brew Works there.

Emily’s favorite food from the trip was the cornbread pancake that is traditionally served underneath a large heap of pulled pork everywhere we ate in this city – she liked Loveless Cafe’s the best. My favorites were the biscuits from Loveless and the chicken, biscuit and bacon gravy from The Pub.

Murals

There are murals everywhere you look, but also some that are worth hunting down behind an industrial building. There are dozens and plenty of lists and instagram hashtags to explore (#nashvillemurals #nashvillemuralhunt) We used those to plan out our favorites and then spent almost a whole day driving around to find them and pose with those cuties! Make sure that if you’re into the “hipster” scene that you check out all that East Nashville has to offer – we loved it there and as you can imagine there were tons of great murals in that neck of the woods. Here are some of our favorites:

There’s a free bus called the Music City Circuit, that takes you all around downtown area. We caught it at the Wings mural in the Gulch where we were able to park for free for the first hour. Then we took a little local tour of the city for free. The buses run every 15 minutes and gave us a fun 30 minute tour of Broadway, colorful locals, stadiums, the fancy new convention center all while staying cool in the AC. If you’re someone who wants to go out on the town at night, I would definitely recommend using this bus – It’s free, safer than driving, you have a lot of free parking options and it runs really often!

Music

Emily and I aren’t the party/club type, so we didn’t want to go to Broadway for music, instead we just googled bars with live music. Since it’s Nashville, we had dozens of options to pick from all within miles of us. We decided to check out Dee’s County Cocktail Lounge because of it’s old-school classic vibe and it did not disappoint. Dee’s gave us just what we wanted: great local music (think 40 somethings in overalls and tie dye strumming a base), Christmas lights in July, dart boards and pool, and tons of local drinks. I loved the Picker’s canned mixed cocktail called Porch Picker, Emily enjoyed another local tap beer! Everywhere we went had lots of local favorites on tap! One we found at Target was by Jackalope Brewing Company and called Lovebird. The cutest cans in the world and a Strawberry Raspberry Hefeweizen beer, that’s a win-win.

If you’re a country music fan find the radio station called Nash-Icon 95.5 FM. It had a great mix of old school and new age country music that had us getting nostalgic and remembering words to songs we hadn’t heard in years!

Beware of Bachelor/ette parties everywhere you go, they make everything fun, even your flights! Emily and I both had two Bachlor/ette parties on each of our flights in and out of Nashville. They came to party and gave Nashville a fun vibe! Don’t be surprised to see lots of veils and matching funny shirts! I ran into a group from Toronto and when I asked them why they decided to celebrate in Nashville, they said it was because they love country music! Nashville is becoming an international hot spot, but for good reason.

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We had such a blast in Nashville! Even if you only have 2 or 3 days, there’s lots of delicious food, great music, fun drinks and beautiful sights that await you in central Tennessee!

@kathy.mpls

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