Plan

Jonathan Waxman's restaurant in a converted automotive garage on McGavock, named for his mother. The wood-fired oven runs the menu and the JW Chicken is the dish people come back for. It is a sit-down meal, so give it time.

Lunch and dinner daily, kitchen closes around 10pm

James Beard American Classics winner since 2009. Cafeteria line since 1982: pick your meat, pick your three sides, pay cash. Kahlil Arnold runs it now. Monday through Saturday until 3pm, closed Sunday. Leave time to get where you’re going next.

Mon to Sat until ~3pm, closed Sun

A guitar store in the old Antiques building on 8th, with more than two thousand instruments on the floor. Vintage acoustics and electrics hang alongside new builds, and staff will hand you one to play. Players passing through town treat it as a stop in itself.

Mon to Fri 10am to 6pm, Sat and Sun 10am to 4pm

The 100 Layer Donut is the thing here, a croissant-dough donut cut into squares. There is also coffee and a few breakfast items. They close when the donuts run out, which happens some days before the posted time.

Mon to Fri 7am to 8pm, Sat and Sun 8am to 8pm, or until sold out

Built 1933 to 1934 as Nashville's main post office: cast aluminum doors and colored marble floors, Art Deco stonework throughout. Opened as an art museum in 2001. The building is worth the visit even without the exhibition. Closes at 5:30pm.

Thu to Mon, until 5:30 PM. Closed Tue and Wed

Po'boy bread flown in from New Orleans. The chicken and andouille gumbo is the anchor; the debris fries are worth knowing about. This is the real Cajun thing.

Open through dinner

One of the most extensive Jamón Ibérico programs in the country. Get the bacon-wrapped dates, croquetas or pulpo. Dim lighting, marble and tile.

Dinner hours

Chef Julio Hernandez started making tortillas during the pandemic from his garage, masa milled from nixtamalized corn his family has grown in Tlaxcala for generations. James Beard semifinalist before the restaurant even opened. The tortillas are the whole deal. Get whatever's wrapped in one.

Dinner hours

A small counter on 11th with espresso, drip, and a short pastry case. Seating is limited and turns over fast. Opens at six, so it covers an early afternoon as easily as a morning.

6am to 3pm daily

Ramen on Division, with tonkotsu and a few rotating bowls plus small plates. The counter seats fill first. They break between lunch and dinner on weekdays, so check the clock.

Mon to Fri 11am to 3pm and 4pm to 9pm, Sat and Sun 11am to 9pm

Carey Bringle named the restaurant after the leg cancer took when he was a kid. Texas Monthly called the dry-rub pork ribs the best Memphis-style in the country. That's the order. Don't skip the pimento cheese.

Open til close

Tacos, tortas, and a long tequila list on McGavock. The patio faces the street and fills up on warm afternoons. Weekend service starts at ten in the morning.

Mon to Fri 11am to 10pm, Sat 10am to 10pm, Sun 10am to 9pm

A grocery with a hot bar, a made-to-order sandwich counter, and a small seating area at the front. You can put together a meal in ten minutes or shop for the week. It is the only full grocery in walking distance of the 12th Ave blocks.

Mon to Sat 7am to 9pm, Sun 8am to 8pm

A taproom on 12th with a long rotating draft list, mostly Tennessee and regional breweries. Pours come in flights or full pints and the staff will talk you through the board. Tables are communal and it stays busy late.

Until 11pm, midnight Thu to Sat

The roof of the Thompson, open since the hotel was in 2016. Two hundred seats looking back at downtown. Doors at two on weekends, so it works after a matinee as well as after a late set.

Until midnight Sun to Thu, 1am Fri and Sat · Rooftop; the line builds on warm weekend nights.

$1.50 oysters at happy hour Monday through Friday, 5 to 7. Gulf Coast seafood with Brack May in the kitchen.

Dinner until 10pm

Indoor mini golf on 12th Ave N with tracked scoring, plus a full bar and food. Courses run about an hour for a group. After nine on Friday and Saturday it is twenty-one and up.

Sun 11am to 10pm, Mon to Thu 11am to 11pm, Fri and Sat 11am to 1am

A cocktail bar that moved to the fifth floor of the Bill Voorhees Building on 8th in May 2025. There are two menus, a short list and a long one running past a hundred drinks built up over seventeen years. The kitchen runs until midnight and the bar keeps going.

4pm to 2am daily, kitchen until midnight

Opened on Demonbreun in 2002 as a place for working musicians to land between gigs, and it still books a band every night with no cover. Nineteen other cities have one now. This is the original.

Until midnight Sun to Tue, 2am Wed, 3am Thu to Sat · Walk-in bar, no cover.

A bar tucked inside Goodfellas Pizzeria on Grundy, reached through the pizza counter. Cocktails and beer, low light, and pizza by the slice still available. It runs to three in the morning, later than almost anything else nearby.

Until 3am