What Is the Real Nashville Beyond Broadway?
- 6 sections
- 1 table
- 4 sources cited
Beyond Lower Broadway, Nashville is a city of distinct neighborhoods, each with its own commercial strip, music rooms, and restaurants serving the surrounding streets. Good choices for a visitor are East Nashville across the river, Germantown just north of downtown, the Gulch and Wedgewood-Houston to the south and southwest, and 12 South and Hillsboro Village farther south. Spending even one afternoon and evening in one of them shows a different city from the one on the honky-tonk strip.
How to Choose a Neighborhood for an Afternoon
| If you want | Go to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Neighborhood bars, music rooms, and casual restaurants | East Nashville (Five Points and nearby) | A residential area across the Cumberland with its own nightlife |
| Restaurants and a walk on older streets | Germantown | Historic blocks just north of downtown, next to the Farmers' Market |
| Galleries and studios in former industrial buildings | Wedgewood-Houston | An arts district south of downtown |
| Boutiques, coffee, and brunch on a short strip | 12 South | A walkable stretch of 12th Avenue South |
| A polished district close to downtown | The Gulch | New buildings on a former rail yard, between Broadway and the CSX line |
East Nashville
East Nashville sits across the Cumberland River from downtown. Its main crossroads, Five Points, is the center of a cluster of bars, venues, coffee shops, and restaurants in a mostly residential area. The neighborhood also carries a reminder of how quickly things can change: the National Weather Service’s survey of the March 3, 2020 tornado recorded EF-3 damage in the Five Points area (NWS). What the area is known for is covered in what East Nashville is known for.
Germantown
Germantown, immediately north of downtown, combines 19th-century buildings with a dense cluster of restaurants. Next to it are the Nashville Farmers’ Market and Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, which make it an easy half-day to combine with a walk. The neighborhood’s own history, from its 19th-century immigrant roots onward, is told in the history of Germantown.
The Gulch and Wedgewood-Houston
The Gulch, just southwest of downtown, was built up on former railroad land; the Cultural Landscape Foundation traces how the area grew with the railroad, with five rail lines by 1861 (TCLF). It is now a dense district of apartments, hotels, restaurants, and music, including the Station Inn at 402 12th Avenue South, a listening room for bluegrass, classic country, and roots music that says it has live music seven nights a week (Station Inn). Wedgewood-Houston, south of downtown, has become an arts district in older industrial buildings.
12 South and Hillsboro Village
12 South is a walkable commercial strip on 12th Avenue South, with shops, cafes, and restaurants and Sevier Park nearby. Hillsboro Village, near Vanderbilt and Belmont, is a compact district of restaurants and shops close to the universities. Both are best reached by car or rideshare from downtown. More on the first is in what 12 South is.
Making It Work Without a Car
Pick one neighborhood per afternoon rather than trying to cover several, and use a rideshare or the bus to get there. A WeGo ride is $2 for two hours of travel, with fares capped at $4 a day for QuickTicket and contactless payments (WeGo fares). Plan to have dinner in the neighborhood you choose, and catch whatever music is on there that night rather than heading back to Broadway.