Eat'n, an' drink'n, an’ groov'n in Nashville

Nashville was a short trip from Minneapolis. Arrived Thursday evening and left Saturday to visit Dallas (where Karen's brother lives).

So we tried to get a lot in in a short period of time. Trev's friend Herb had given us an extensive list of places to go so that's where we started.

First stop was dinner at Butcher & Bee. This is on the East side of Nashville (across the river). It's a great place. Mediterranean food but varied in seating: at the bar, at a shared table, at the cooking bar and then just normal tables. We sat at the bar where we had excellent service. Karen wasn't feeling well so we just ordered a couple of meze plates: whipped feta with honey, bacon wrapped dates, and meatballs. All great.

Then we went up the road to a tinki tonk bar Hubba Hubba (also recommended).

It was empty but a cowboy band was playing which was cool. But then Karen felt really ill. So we hustled out of there back to our apartment (just a 10 minute walk away from downtown). The barman was just super chilled and extremely helpful (gave Karen a soda and insisted she sit down until she felt better).

We have found Americans to be so so friendly, helpful and without guile. Just fantastic.

Karen was still under the weather Saturday morning so I headed out to Broadway. This is THE party street in Nashville (actually Nashville just seems like THE music party city in the USA). Even around brunch time the road was pretty busy.

I popped into the Mellow Mushroom. There was music and it seemed a bit more chilled than a couple of the other places I'd walked past. Grabbed a beer (it is so difficult to make a beer choice – there are just too many, although I have stopped ordering any IPA which are bitter).

A small beer-on-tap array

And then a plate of sriracha chicken wings (which, surprisingly, come with healthy celery and carrot sticks!). And then just chilled.

Drank my beer and just sat back and istened to the two person band and then wandered down the street to a place which was really pump'n!

Got back to the hotel and chilled before, Karen feeling much better, we took an Uber to Bluebird Cafe. And this was just Wow! It is small intimate venue and they have this "in the round"concept. The Bluebird invites a few non-related musician/songwriters to come together and play, discuss their songs, and song writing. Theyn they just riff off one another. It was just really great.

We hadn't been able to buy tickets so we lined up outside the venue (which is in a nondescript strip-mall). There were four musicians (they aren't really performers because the venue is so small and intimate). They were (all on Spotify): David Newbould, Kiely Connell, Boo Ray, and Lilly Winwood.

After that we headed to Broadway. And now it was a pump'n! Karen's Apple Watch was screaming at her because it was too loud. So we walked around a little, dropped down a street and went into a bar called "Losers". This was cool: bottom floor had the band, middle floor was a dope-smokin' & drinking chillout lounge, top floor was a solo guitarist doing his thing. We stayed a while, chatted with the bar tender and then headed home.

Broadway is the party street in Nashville. And boy there are many ways to party in this city. From party buses, trams, military trucks and even self-peddling bars (which, cleverly, also have motors). If you can dream it you can party on or in it!

Would we recommend Nashville? Absolutely if you wanna do some listen'n, some eat'n, some walk'n and some groov'n! As Joe Bob would say: "5 stars".