Nashville City Guide Part Two
Our Nashville City Guide is Part Two of our Nashville Travel Guide. This is a look at our early 2019 visit to Music City U.S.A. Nashville is a popular tourist destination. This early January visit gave us time to see the city at a more relaxed pace.
We arrived in Nashville on December 30th, 2018. They city was in full festive mode for the Titan’s football game and New Year’s. We only spent one night in Nashville before heading towards Chattanooga and Georgia. You can read about our activities in part one of our guide.
After watching the Flaming Lips perform in a cave on New Year’s and visiting Chattanooga, we headed back to Nashville on January 3rd. We drove 4 hours after a day touring Dahlonega, Georgia.
Our hotel for this stay was the The Hayes Street Hotel Nashville near Vanderbilt University. I went to Vanderbilt for two years and my niece was currently attending so we wanted to stay in this area, called the West End. The West End is about a mile from downtown. It is not as busy (touristy) but there are still plenty of bars and restaurants.
The The Hayes Street Hotel Nashville was an awesome boutique spot. Using Hotwire we got a great deal at $100/night. Nashville hotels are expensive so check out our guide to using Hotwire. When we came back a few months later the Hayes Street was going for $250 a night.
Booking.com
Hayes Street is right next to a newer Nashville institution, Hattie B’s. Hattie B’s specializes in Nashville hot chicken. Nashville hot chicken is a new, old trend.
According to the Hot Chicken Cookbook, Nashville hot chicken got its start at Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. Prince’s is still going today, but it is pretty far off the beaten track.
The reality is that Nashville hot chicken is a relatively new thing. When I lived in Nashville in the 1980s, hot chicken was unknown. It only became trendy in the past decade. Hattie B’s is considered a leader of the current trend.
We had passed up Hattie B’s in several past visits because of the long line. We had heard that one option is to do pickup and take back to your hotel. However, there was almost no line this time of year so we got to dine in.
The thing to note about Nashville hot chicken is they definitely mean hot. Next time I am ordering medium. Overall, I am still not to sure how I feel about the concept of Nashville hot chicken. I love spicy food but, in my experience, this amounts to cayenne pepper overkill.
After dinner we found a cool restaurant/bar featuring live music. This place, The Row Kitchen & Pub, was right next to both Hattie B’s and our hotel. They have live music every night of the week. We ended coming here both nights of our stay to listen to music and hang out at the bar.
We woke up in Nashville to pouring rain. We tried taking a walk Century Park and the Parthenon but were quickly rained out. When I came to Nashville 3 months later I made sure to do a walk of this beautiful park across the street from Vanderbilt.
I did get to see some cool old haunts I knew from living in this neighborhood 35 years ago. This included the Elliston Place Soda Shop and the famed Exit/In music venue. Exit/In is a small venue that has had many of the greatest music artist. There was even a tribute to the club in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
For our last day in Nashville I wanted to take a bus tour. There are all kinds of bus tours to choose from. I even noticed that Old Town Trolley operated a tour. I had always thought Old Town trolley was based in Old Town San Diego. To my surprise, they operate in 7 U.S. cities and are based out of Florida.
I wanted a music-based tour and my research led me to the Music City Rollin’ Jamboree Tour. This tour combines music and comedy. It had rave reviews and I noted that it was a small operation with two ladies who personally conduct every tour.
The Music City Rollin’ Jamboree Tour is adult themed with a minimum age of 21. The tour is not for the timid. The two hosts, Jessie and Jenny, make fun of everyone on the bus. They are accompanied by a guitar player. Riders may be dragged to the front of the bus to participate in a singalong.
The tour is an hour and a half. It goes around downtown Nashville and Music Row (on the West End by Vanderbilt University). There is one brief stop at Marathon Village. Marathon Village was new to us and it had some cool looking shops and restaurants. We plan to go back here the next time we are in town.
Unlike many of the Nashville tours, Music City Rollin’ Jamboree Tour is not a drinking tour. You are allowed to bring alcohol on board, but the tours are during the day so it is more sedate.
For those that want to party, Nashville has many drinking tours. This includes the pedal tavern tour which is also popular in San Diego.
At the end of the tour we were ready for lunch. There are all kinds of places in downtown Nashville. We picked Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant. We knew it was touristy, but they specialize in Southern food. The original Puckett’s was a small grocery store in small town Tennessee.
Meat and three, a choice of meat and 3 vegetables is a key feature of Puckett’s. I had my meat and three on our first day in Nashville so I went with a basic pulled pork sandwich. Once again, I found this centrally located tourist restaurant to be much more reasonably priced than what you would find in similar areas of California.
I will note that USA Today noted Puckett’s as the second-best meat and three restaurant. Number one is Arnold’s Country Kitchen. Arnold’s is just south of downtown in an area called the Gulch. It is probably more authentic, but Puckett’s was more convenient.
Near Puckett’s is Printer’s Alley. This is where Nashville’s printing industry was located in the early 20th century. When I lived in Nashville in the 1980s it was considered a sketchy part of town. Today it has been cleaned up and has several popular nightclubs.
Our final night in Nashville we went to dinner with my niece who was just back in town to get ready for a new semester at Vanderbilt. She suggested a pizza place, DeSano Pizza Bakery on Music Row.
We have covered the best pizza in San Diego and I can say DeSano’s would be right up there. I noted that they have opened two locations in the Los Angeles area.
DeSano’s is huge with two large dining areas with picnic table seating. In the center of one of the dining rooms are three wood-burning ovens. DeSano’s features Napoletana-style pizza that quickly cooks at a high temperature. If they opened one in San Diego it would likely soar to the top of our list of favorites.
After dropping off my niece we headed back to the Row to sit at the bar and watch music. It was a Friday and they had five acts playing. We watched all of them before heading across the street to our hotel.
This turned out to be a great time to visit Tennessee. It rained pretty much all the time, but we didn’t mind. It beat the summer humidity. Be sure and check out our guide to other spots in Tennessee. Tennessee is a huge state and we have now visited most of it. But we are just cracking the surface of things to do.
Places On Our Trip
Here are places we visited in Nashville. We only list places we recommend.
Hayes Street Hotel: Our hotel near Hattie B’s, Exit/In and Vanderbilt
Hattie B’s: Famed Nashville Hot Chicken
Row Kitchen and Pub: Restaurant/bar with live music. next to Hattie B’s
Marathon Village: Trendy shopping/dining area right outside downtown
Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant: Downtown Nashville tourist version of an actual old-school country restaurant.
Printer’s Alley: Famous night district of Nashville that has been cleaned up in recent years.
DeSano Pizza Bakery: Huge pizza bakery that is opening locations in California
Centennial Park: Large open space with a full size replica of the Greek Parthenon
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