Did you know that the bar-attire for former frat guys in the South is composed of a golf polo and some salmon-colored shorts?1
I learned all sorts of things like this on my trip to Nashville last week. For other nuggets of wisdom like this, read on.
On live music
I was watching the NBA Finals on a weekday in some dingy sports bar near Vanderbilt. Not exactly the place you’d expect to have live music, but in Nashville, live music is everywhere. And there’s no quality versus quantity tradeoff either.
At that divey sports bar with no cover, the live music was good enough to draw my attention away from the game. “Who is this guy,” I wondered. It turns out that the musician performing was this guy Curt Chambers whose most popular song has over 300K views on Spotify. Sure, he’s not some big celebrity, but he’s the dude performing on a Tuesday at a divey sports bar with no cover! That’s insane!
I don’t think there’s another city in the U.S. that puts up free, high-quality live music like Nashville does. Maybe New Orleans, but it’s close.
On bars
Every Nashville restaurant I went to had a full-service bar. It wasn’t just the fancy ones either. Arnold’s Country Kitchen is a fantastic, no-frills Southern cafeteria where you order at the counter and sit on some old benches. Surprisingly, even a casual spot like Arnold’s has a full-service bar. This is definitely not a thing over in San Francisco where liquor licenses are both expensive and hard to come by.
On hot chicken
Bone-in > Chicken tenders.
Let me say that one more time.
Bone-in > Chicken tenders.
Yes, the chicken tenders are easier to eat, but don’t let convenience get in the way of a much better experience. Given the dry-rub seasoning of Nashville hot chicken, you wanna contrast that dry powder with the juiciness of the dark-meat, bone-in fried chicken. Just trust me here. Anyways, for recs, go to Hattie B’s or Prince’s for hot chicken and Bolton’s for hot fish.
On Lower Broadway
Imagine half a mile of bars, live music, and bachelorette parties with the crowd density of the Vegas Strip. That’s Lower Broadway.
For all its fun, I do think the incentives on Lower Broadway are off. Rather than competing on music quality, the bars on Lower Broadway optimize on playing the loudest, most recognizable music to lure bystanders in. The end result is that you’ll hear every possible rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama” after a night on Lower Broadway.
Thankfully, live music is most definitely not just concentrated in Lower Broadway. You’ll find plenty of live music in restaurants and bars throughout Nashville. Here are some places I really enjoyed2: Belcourt Taps, Alley Taps, or Tin Roof.
On gentrification
While I was getting a drink at Nissan Stadium, the bartender laughed when seeing my ID. “You’re the 8th California ID in a row,” she said shaking her head.
The gentrification of Nashville is very much underway. I knew it well before I paid the $11 for a Truly at Nissan Stadium.3 Construction of high rises is ubiquitous across the city. Also, everyone I talk to seems to be from anywhere but Nashville. All that’s missing is the influx of tech workers, which seems to be the final and fatal stage of development for American cities these days.
And that influx is coming. Amazon, for example, has hired over 1,000 employees in its Nashville office over the past year. I’m almost certain that the other big tech companies will follow, along with a plethora of up-and-coming start-ups. Perhaps one of them will find a way to automate the live music.
Golf hats and Sperry’s are encouraged but optional.
The Yelp scores for these places are horrendous largely because of the food. But I mean, come on, what gets you to order food at that dive bar with sticky floors that does live music? You got what you had coming.
Portland has this law that prevents restaurants from charging more at airports than they do at their non-airport locations. Cities need to do the same for stadiums, theme parks, or anywhere else people get screwed over by monopolies.