I Dream of Weenie. East Nashville. January 20 2017.
Waking up to the sound of birds chirping in the middle of the city is a neat experience. Nashville is a neat experience too, and it’s really hard to describe. The first time I went to Manhattan, and stood at the corner of Central Park and Fifth Avenue, it didn’t take long to get a decent sense of what Manhattan is all about. Age range, style, vibe, is discernable by the turn of a head. The first time I went to New Orleans, I walked a block of the French Quarter, watched the people, looked up at the buildings, and felt like I kind of “got it”. Nashville, on the other hand, would seem like a ghost town if you didn’t know any better. There’s very little foot traffic even downtown. That’s the beauty and complexity of Nashville. The key to it is what’s inside.
Driving through East Nashville, you wouldn’t have any idea that you’re in one of the most up-and-coming neighbourhoods in the United States. At a glance, it’s all residential streets, industrial buildings, rinse, repeat. And no one is really walking around. But then your eyes linger on one of these residential houses, and its Fanny’s House of Music, where they sell banjos, steel guitars, vintage clothes. You park next to one of these industrial buildings, and it’s Barista Parlour, a huge auto shop-turned coffee shop (with the best biscuits on the planet). One bar we went to even a had a big ol’ treehouse plastered to the back of it. Just by taking a closer look, we learned that Nashville is brimming we culture.
CREMA. Downtown Nashville. January 20 2017.
Nashville is known for coffee (who knew?), so naturally our first stop was CREMA, a national treasure. The atmosphere on the inside is just like any coffee shop along Toronto’s Ossington strip or Montreal’s Plateau, but like everything else here, you wouldn’t notice it just by walking by. During our twenty-four hours here, we also hit up Hip Zipper Vintage, wandered through artisanal shops, had a massive pint at a sports bar, picked up a cute denim dress at Pangaea. We grabbed a bite at Burger Republic (where I had the Zagat’s list “Tennessee Burger” with a veggie patty swapped in). We drank a flight at Jackalope Brewing, chatted with a bartender at Southern bar Crying Wolf, Zach had a fancy cucumber cocktail, and we capped off the night eating in-house grilled cheese sandwiches while listening to a Steve Aoki lookalike spinning some records at Duke’s
Today when we were leaving, the owner of Barista Parlour, Andy, stopped to compliment us on the van. He told us that he moved to Nashville twenty years ago from Virginia and hadn’t left because the people in Nashville are the nicest he’s ever met. We have to agree.
I write this from bed in the van, as we drive to Arkansas Hot Springs for the night, and then on to Dallas. It’s sunny, I’m hungover as all hell, and life is beautiful.