Average Jane's Miscellaneous Nashville Fun

So what else did we do in Nashville? Well, eating featured prominently. Even before we left, we were actually discussing how many times we were going to have breakfast at the Pancake Pantry. (As it turned out: twice.)

We happened to catch it at times when the wait was minimal. Sometimes the line stretches halfway around the building and down the block. I highly recommend the pecan pancakes, even though the portion was so enormous that I couldn't finish mine.

Nashville also has a number of good brewpubs. We had dinner at Blackstone one evening and enjoyed the nut brown ale that was their cask option of the day. Later on in our trip we ate at Big River Grille downtown, which also had a good brown ale. Their food and service were nothing to write home about, but at least we got to sit on their patio and enjoy the downtown sights while we ate.

While we were exploring Lower Broadway, we stopped by Hatch Show Print and I got a very cool poster. The store is well worth seeing just for its gigantic letterpress and shelf after shelf of wooden type and graphics blocks. There are also two shop cats, but we didn't see them.

Naturally, we took photos of the Ryman Auditorium while we were nearby. We would have taken the tour, but we didn't have time.

Most of our shopping was confined to music stores. In fact, the first place we stopped when we got to Nashville was Fork's Drum Closet, where my husband eventually traded two of the snare drums he'd brought for one he'd been wanting. Here's my husband reveling in their snare drum room:

We were hoping that the Nashville music stores would have some good deals on used gear, but it turns out that Ebay is now the default distribution channel for all such merchandise. It was still interesting to go to the stores, if only to see the professional-grade gear they had available. I also noticed at their musicians wanted/available bulletin boards were significantly bigger than what we see in Kansas City:

Speaking of the music business, my husband had us stop by the Musicians' Union building, for old time's sake. He said it looks exactly the same as it always has.

Before we left Kansas City, I'd contacted a representative from the Nashville Social Media Club to see if there were any meetups or Tweetups going on during my visit. There turned out to be a Digital Nashville mixer on Thursday evening, so I signed up and attended. It was held at an interactive firm called centre{source} in their very cool office:

As our visit was drawing to a close, we met up with one of my husband's friends at the 12South Taproom and Grill, which is the kind of neighborhood bar I wish I had in my own neighborhood. We learned from our Nashville insider that Dolly Parton's empire is headquartered at the building across the street:

So that pretty much covers our trip. We had a great time, possibly gained some weight, and saw pretty much everyone and everything my husband was nostalgic to see. Nashville's a great town and I look forward to our next visit, whenever it might be.

Comments

[Huts]

Should've tried the ghost tour while you were there. It was interesting when we went.

[Tanya (aka NetChick)]

Sounds like a ton of fun! I've never been to Nashville -- I'll have to go!

[Greg]

Makes me want to go back to N'ville! My little bro is a drummer and when his family comes to visit us in KC, we always make a stop at Explorers - which PALES in comparison to where you guys obviously were. Shows you how sad the music biz in Iowa actually is.