Nashville April 9-16, 2016 – Day 6

Day 6 we drove out to the Loveless Cafe for some classic southern cooking. It is about 30 minutes from downtown.  The menu is pure comfort food (I had country ham and eggs and of course their famous hot biscuits).  Portions are generous. Everything I tasted was excellent. The cafe has a nice homey ambiance.

We headed back to town by way of Vanderbilt University and stumbled upon the Parthenon. Yes, Nashville has a full-scale reproduction of the Athens original. In addition to being a stunning art piece of its own, it is also a museum.  We skipped the museum and just took in the building itself.

After that we headed over to what my research suggested was Nashville’s best record store: Grimeys. Grimeys has a used store called Grimey’s Too that also is a book store (specializing in the music topics). The book store goes by the name Howlin’ Books. There is also a coffee shop connected (Frothy Monkey). The used LP selection is a bit thin, but I managed to find a few items. The new selection is quite good. I am starting to learn how good we have it in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area with record stores. It is hard for other cities to live up to that standard.

We headed back to the hotel for some down time.

Next we went to Fat Bottom Brewery. Their Knockout IPA has been one of my go to beers in this trip. They have a tap-room with a nice funky vibe. It has a nice little stage and we got to hear a partial set from Jessica Cayne.

Cayne has a blues voice in the style of Bonnie Raitt and Susan Tedeschi. She played a few covers associated with those ladies. She is also a songwriter, but we only heard a couple of those before we headed out. One of those originals was called “Vinyl” that had me interested in hearing more from Cayne.

Across the street was a brand new brewery Smith and Lentz. They have a spacious tap-room – an open and clean look. Most importantly the beer is good. I tasted the El Cuarto IPA and the Black Rye IPA and both were tasty. The tap room looks to be a great hangout.

We went to dinner at Lockeland Table and had the best meal of our trip. They have an eclectic menu, well crafted cocktails, charming ambiance and attentive wait-staff (shout out to Haley). Our feature was a couple of their pizzas – I could have consumed the crust naked and I would have been satisfied. We left the restaurant fully satisfied. Highly recommended.

We were too pooped to party and called it a night.