Unexpected Nashville: What’s New in Music City
Published March 2nd, 2024
Photography by Jennifer Bain unless otherwise noted.
Rising Mexican star Carin León debuts at the Grand Ole Opry
The Grand Ole Opry was on fire for the debut of rising Mexican star Carin León. Fans danced and screamed as the Latin Grammy winner and crossover star performed a three-song, mostly Spanish, set, and didn’t let him go without an encore.
León called it a dream come true and knelt to kiss the floor, which in this case was the iconic six-foot circle of wood that came from the Ryman Auditorium, the “Mother Church of Country Music” and the Opry’s first home.
“This moment is very important for my music, for my country,” León gushed. “Having all the family here and having country music accepting us, for us to be here, this place is magical. I hope to come back here a thousand times more.”
Grand Ole Opry Circle Room premium lounge
It was a landmark moment for Latin music in America. But, as I watched the live radio show showcase nine artists from Riders in the Sky’s old-timey western music, to the country-Americana of Miko Marks, and the “Negro spirituals” of the Fisk Jubilee Singers (the a cappella group sings “slave songs” from before the Civil War), I realized there’s more to Nashville than just country music.
I travelled to Music City for four nights in February (on a flight from Toronto that was surprisingly just 90 minutes) to eat my fill of Southern staples like hot chicken (in its birthplace), meat-and-three meals, buttermilk biscuits and pimento cheese — and yes, to have drinks in a city that’s a mecca for bachelor and bachelorette parties.
Nashville pedestrian bridge and skyline. Photo credit: Nolensville Drone Production
What I didn’t expect was to design my own Goo Goo Cluster in the Goo Goo Chocolate Co. shop just off the Honky Tonk Highway (a stretch of Lower Broadway that pumps out free live music from 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. as long as you tip the artists.)
Goo Goo Clusters — nuts, caramel, nougat and milk chocolate — became America’s first combination candy bar in 1912. They entered the pop culture lexicon when country singer Keith Urban wore the company’s “What a Cluster!” t-shirt while judging American Idol, and when the Walking Dead unexpectedly featured them in two episodes.
Contrary to urban legend, Goo Goo isn’t code for “Grand Ole Opry” — it was the first thing the co-founder’s son said, hence the clever original slogan “Goo Goo! It’s so good, people will ask for it from birth.”
You can buy pre-packaged Goo Goos in the flagship retail store, but it’s more fun to design your own at a digital kiosk and then watch someone assemble it, flash freeze it and box it up. Mine was encased in dark chocolate with peanuts, potato chips and dark chocolate crispy pearl “add-ins,” peanut butter and salted caramel fillings, and a sea salt “add-on” to top it off.
Instead of going to a classic “meat-and-three” joint where you pick a meat plus three sides, I went upscale at Deacon’s New South in the historic L&C Tower with a memorable dry-aged, bone-in ribeye served with a pat of truffle butter. Gorgeous smoked cheddar biscuits came with apple butter and pimento cheese for slathering.
Joyland buttermilk biscuit and fried chicken and CrustBurger
At celebrity chef Sean Brock’s retro fast food concept, Joyland, the fun CrustBurger is a smashburger with a flattened bun. Biscuits are made with Cruze Farm buttermilk, but what really stood out were the addictive Cornbread Chips made with heirloom Jimmy Red corn and flavoured with either honey butter or sea salt and black pepper.
Dolly Parton sculpture at White Limozeen at the Graduate Nashville hotel
You won’t need my help finding drinks.
But since Dolly Parton looms so large — showing up on “What Would Dolly Do” keychains, “Dolly for President” mugs and “In Dolly We Trust” t-shirts — be sure to visit the Graduate Nashville hotel’s Dolly-themed rooftop bar White Limozeen. The glam pink wonderland boasts a nine-foot-tall, pink chicken-wire sculpture of Dolly by artist Ricky Pittman.
The Rutledge at Four Seasons Nashville has a Moët champagne vending machine with travel writer Todd P Walker
Also unusual is the Moët & Chandon champagne vending machine in the Rutledge restaurant, where $25 gets you a gold coin to pick your own small bottle of bubbly. On your way out, take the elevator to the special door that connects to the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge.
My favorite bar, though, was the Pullman Standard cocktail lounge, housed in a 1906 building that started out as a transit warehouse. The Yardmaster (pomegranate, lime, club soda and lime from the “low and no abv” menu) paired beautifully with the Bar Car Onion Dip and house-made potato chips.
Nashville Barrel Co CEO and cofounder Mike Hinds
You can walk into the Nashville Barrel Co. and do a flight of bourbons, ryes, rums and agaves (a tequila-like liquor from America not Mexico), but doing a whiskey flight straight from the barrel is a clever twist on tasting room experiences.
Hatch Show Print Sarah Edmonds the education and program supervisor
Seeing Nashville Barrel’s custom posters will send you on to Hatch Show Print, a Nashville institution that was on the Honky Tonk Highway when I last visited in 2009, and is now tucked into the lobby of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum building.
The letterpress print shop has been helping “shape the visual language of Music City” since 1879 and still designs and prints posters for artists, performers and businesses. I did the tour where you delve into the history and help make a keepsake poster.
Frist Art Museum exterior. Photo credit: John Schweikert
Another spot with an interactive art-making space is the Frist Art Museum, where I drew a selfie on a mirror and etched a drawing on a Styrofoam plate and ran it through a printing press to create a tiny print. Architecture geeks will love the gorgeous Art Deco building that first served as the city’s main post office when it opened in 1934.
If it’s surprising that Nashville has such a wonderful art museum, then be aware that the city dubbed the “Athens of the South” in the 1800s for its commitment to art and education is also home to the Nashville Symphony, housed in the gorgeous Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
I wasn’t expecting to see the Taylor Swift Education Center inside the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. But Swift was just 14 when she moved to Nashville in 2004 to pursue a country music so it makes sense that she donated money for an innovative learning environment. In another interactive museum wing, what looks like a replica of Swift’s tour bus from the outside houses stations where you can pretend to record a song and go on tour.
Nashville has more than 180 live music venues. At the Nashville Visitor Center in the Bridgestone Arena’s glass tower, my favourite t-shirt slogan summed things up nicely: “Chicken’s Hot and the Music’s On.”
As the story famously goes, the womanizing Thornton Prince was served fried chicken doused sprinkled with peppers and spices as punishment for stepping out on his lady in the 1930s, and a dish (and soon Prince’s Hot Chicken) was born. The visitor centre is steps from the Assembly Food Hall where I made a pilgrimage to a Prince’s outpost and had my whole wings with “lite mild” sauce.
Downstairs in the same, Fifth + Broadway shopping/retail development, Hattie B’s (which blasted onto the scene in 2012) serves its fried chicken in six levels that range from Southern (no heat) to “Shut the Cluck Up!!!” I went to level two — mild — for my “small dark” (thigh/leg quarter).
As for the “music’s on” part of that t-shirt slogan, I bought CDs (old school, I know) at Grimey’s New & Preloved Music in East Nashville after touring the new Carter Vintage Guitars space in the Gulch neighbourhood. I took photos of a giant guitar-shaped scoreboard from Greer Stadium that has a scoreboard on one side and a guitar on the other and is now in Wedgewood-Houston.
I also rose at 8 a.m. one day and wandered from the JW Marriott down the Honky Tonk Highway just to experience the venue-packed strip when it was quiet. At 9 a.m., the Eagles hit “Life in the Fast Lane” started blasting from the Music City Center and things started to feel normal again.
Kool-Aid pickles at Pig Star by Peg Leg Porker in Nashville International Airport
Airports aren’t always worth mentioning, but Nashville’s is like a microcosm of the city. There were Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame and Goo Goo Chocolate gift shops. There was a country musician performing at Tootsies Orchid Lounge while people ate hot chicken for breakfast at Hattie B’s.
My Nashville trip ended exactly how it began, with Kool-Aid Pickles. Dill pickles soaked in Kool-Aid are a fun trend across the South and I ate them on day one at Peg Leg Porker in the Gulch, and on day five at the barbecue restaurant’s airport outpost, Pig Star.
Sightseeing driver Leonard Stovall of Gray Line Tennessee
They’re traditional pickle green on the outside and gaudy cherry coloured on the inside, with a fruity sweetness followed by a vinegar bite. They reminded me of something Gray Line Tennessee guide Leonard Stovall said about how “you can go from mild to wild” when ordering hot chicken.
“From mild to wild” seems like another perfect slogan to describe Nashville circa 2024.
Jennifer Bain
After a career at daily newspapers, Jennifer began travelling the world in search of quirk in 2018. She goes wherever the story is, but has a soft spot for Canada and has been to all 10 provinces and all three territories. Jennifer has won multiple awards and written two cookbooks and three travel books. She lives in Toronto but has a vacation house on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, which some cheekily say is one of the four corners of the supposedly flat earth.