City Review: Nashville

I recently spent 5 days in Nashville for work. Apparantly, they are marketing it now as Nash-Vegas. What happens in Nashville, stays in Nashville. My manager didn't agree though, and still wanted a full report of everything I worked on and how it went.

Previous visits: I'd been through there before about 15 years ago (back was Opryland was a theme park and not a mall) and I've been through there and shopped at Opryland Mills twice before when staying near Nashville and spent one night there for work before. (although with my job, that means I got there, worked until the wee hours of the night, slept 4-5 hours, drove back).

Downtown and Dining: I was very impressed by my downtown dining options every night of the week. With few exceptions, most downtown areas in a city that size or larger are ghost towns by 7 pm. At the end of a 4 block walk in most large cities, you'll be forced to give 32 people money, forced to purchase drugs, be mugged 3 times, pick pocketed, punched in the face, threatened within inches of your life, and have all your drugs taken from you at gunpoint. And that's just 4 blocks. And no stores or restaraunts would have been open. Nashville was quite the opposite. There were several blocks worth that were hopping every night of the week. Most restaraunts were of a bar and grill type format, several with musicians performing every night. And it was crowded. Downtown is the place to be it seemed like. I never had to wait long for a table, but at the same time felt safety in numbers.
That said, I really enjoyed Demo's Steak and Spaghetti House. Rotiers was a hole in the wall near Vanderbilt that was excellent (try the cheeseburger and fried zucchini). Also, Big River Grille and Brewing Works was so good, I went two nights. The homemade root beer was great, so was the Chicken Fried Chicken. All in all, I was impressed that they were able to keep the downtown area clean and safe.

Music: Like I said before, if you like live music, Nashville is the place to be. Walking down 2nd Ave and Broadway on Saturday and Sunday night looking for a place to eat, I'd say every other establishment had someone performing. Also, I saw two music videos being shot and one band playing on the sidewalk outside the smallest record store I've ever seen.

Navigation: One of the important aspects of any city to me is how well I can get around. Nashville was laid out pretty well and lots of one-way streets helped keep traffic flowing. Aside from parking being a bit of a problem, I'd say getting around in, as well as in and out of the downtown area was pretty good.

Overall, Nashville was a nice city. I could see going back there, but I'm not sure that there would be much to do if you didn't like live music (especially country music) or eating. Those seemed to be the two main attractions.