From football to recycled guitar strings, from pancakes to potato gnocchi, Nashville is not just for country music fans. On a recent fam to Music City USA, I learned so much more about this iconic Southern cultural standout.
Creative Collaborations
One morning, as we sat inside Pancake Pantry, Music City’s legendary breakfast spot, we watched the line to get in snake its way around the block. Turns out this is a common sight, so much so that the restaurant once sold Johnny Cash-inspired shirts that read, “I walked the line at Pancake Pantry.”
Yet as we all poured maple syrup over our pancakes, we wound up talking about Kurdistan.
“We have the largest Kurdish population in the United States,” explained Heather Middleton, chief marketing officer of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corporation (NCVC). “We have a lot of Kurdish restaurants, and Turkish. Catholic Charities took in a lot of refugees in the 1970s and 1980s. When Iraq was first able to vote again, we were the hub, in the Southeast, for the voting.”
Indeed, Nashville’s restaurant scene has blossomed in recent years. Anyone who limits themselves to fried chicken and pancakes is missing out.
“We’re getting a lot of food accolades,” Middleton said. “New York Times. James Beard Awards for Japanese restaurants. It’s not Southern cuisine making those lists.”
As Nashville continues to grow, chefs, just like anyone else, want to come and work in a city known for creative people—and, fitting for Nashville, a lot of the chefs are musicians.
In Nashville, an ethos of cooperation seems to penetrate everything. The competition is healthy, not cutthroat. Songwriters are more inclined to work with each other, not argue about who wrote what percentage of each song. This attitude spills over into everything else. Restauranteurs hire locals to design their interiors. Breweries help each other if equipment breaks. Everyone seems to have each other’s backs. Event organizers all want the city to thrive.
“It’s a very collaborative city,” Middleton said. “It really is a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ kind of city.”
[Related: How to Tap the Top Nashville Honky-Tonks for Group Events]
Nashville’s New NFL Stadium
The same philosophy came screaming through when we received a private VIP glimpse at a pristine model of the new Tennessee Titans NFL stadium, on a table, in a secret showroom designed to resemble what the suites were going to look like. Numerous spaces for groups, large and small, will soon be available throughout the new stadium once it opens in 2027. Private rooms, luxury bars, reception areas and even the field are already being promoted for potential group business, even for non-NFL fans.
“It’s not just about football,” said Savanna Howie, the Titans’ manager for communications and corporate affairs. “We want this stadium to touch people who don’t care at all about football. We want them to have an opportunity to interact with this building, whether that’s coming to a concert or a special event. This is the people’s house. We want it to be that way.”
Many local small businesses, including minority- and women-owned businesses, have contributed to the construction of the new stadium, which was well underway upon our visit in late March. Collaboration reigned free.
[Related: Full-Service Properties Renovate and Rebuild to Support Renasant Center in Memphis]
Keeping It Local
On a similar note, everywhere we went around town, local businesses all seemed to rally for each other’s causes.
For example, Hope for Strings is a tremendous and uplifting nonprofit that helps recovering women addicts and survivors of domestic violence achieve a better life by teaching them how to make jewelry from recycled guitar strings. The women receive training and jobs, all to put them on a better path.
For planners, a complete corporate social responsibility (CSR) experience is available, providing a relaxing, interactive space where attendees can make a custom piece of jewelry. Hope for Strings is unique in that it even provides an impact report so groups can see just how much their work is affecting peoples’ lives.
“The founder’s husband built guitars,” said Emily Winters, CEO of Hope for Springs. “She was tired of seeing strings lying around and she wanted to do a craft project, and it turned into a nonprofit.”
On a larger level, the iconic Nashville options are still available, as always. Numerous multistory music clubs, in some cases branded with likenesses of Luke Combs or Bon Jovi, are all available for multiple configurations of events, corporate groups or total buyouts. Many have rooftop views of the entire honkytonk strip.
Over at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Director of Event Sales Austin Taylor showed us around some killer spaces, including the main theater where the Hall of Fame Induction concerts unfold. Planners often came away with goose bumps just knowing their events would utilize the same stage where so many country legends once stood.
Upstairs in the main reception space overlooking downtown Nashville, Taylor explained the venue’s sustainability projects, one of which donates excess food to the Nashville Rescue Mission, just two blocks away.
“In 2024, we donated enough food to provide over 15,000 meals for demographics they serve,” Taylor said, explaining similar details about elementary school programs and other projects. The list went on. “It’s pretty humbling,” he continued. “It’s fun to work here. There’s always a bigger ‘why.’”
[Related: Nashville’s Facility and F&B Scene Is Hotter Than Its Signature Hot Chicken]
Special Stays
In terms of accommodations, Nashville introduced us to several newer ideas. The Four Seasons, only a few years old, offers any number of custom bartender or chef events for private groups. Chef Nicky Miscia from Florence, Italy, provided gnocchi-making lessons. General Manager Sunil Narang joined us and spilled the details on even more offerings.
“If a group comes in, our bartender can work with them and design a drink just for their group,” he said, and same goes for the chef. “We love those kinds of things. It’s off from the normal stuff.”
Over at the Thompson Nashville Hotel in the trendy Gulch neighborhood, whiskey and vinyl LP events unfold in the lobby. Rooms even come with Bluetooth-enabled Marshall amps.
In the end, I think we all were moved by a collaborative spirit after touring Nashville, our boats rising with the tide.
