Night One

Immediately after arriving in Nashville we headed to Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack for a bite. We had heard this was the original and probably still the best place to get Nashville Hot Chicken. I’m glad I did some research before ordering, or I probably would have ordered hot or extra hot chicken. The medium was still hot as hell, but just tolerable enough for me to enjoy. I would definitely be addicted if I lived nearby, the price is great and the chicken is phenomenal.

After the quick chicken pitstop, we set up our bed in a Walmart near downtown and caught a Lyft down to "The District"—Nashville's main honkey tonk drag.

After a quick walk down the strip, we decided to step in to "The Stage", a four-level music venue. It was wild, and a tad bit overwhelming so we decided to move along to a smaller place around the corner.

Almost immediately, there was a small scuffle resulting in the forceful ejection of an angry drunk man who tried his best (be it unsuccessfully) to take on every bouncer in the bar. All of this before 9 PM!

After scoping out a few smaller music venues on the strip, we made our way to meet up with a friend who happened to also be visiting Nashville from Chicago. It was pretty fun to meet him and his college frat-mates on their second annual reunion post-graduation. We tagged along with them the rest of the night until one member of the group was ousted for falling asleep at the bar. Probably a good time for us to head back to the Hotel Outback.

The district was filled with lively folks.

Five Points

The next morning we met another Chicago friend for a quick breakfast at a cool local place called Nadine’s Hermitage Haven. It was great to see two friends by coincidence in Nashville, but it’s a little bitter-sweet knowing we won’t be able to see them as often anymore.

That day was really slow-paced, and we took some time to get work done on our computers before finding our next stop for the night, the five-points neighborhood.

We found a lot of really amazing spots in the five-points, one of our favorites was called the Rosemary. The bar itself is hidden inside a very unsuspecting victorian style house. The cocktails were delicious and strong and it’s hard to beat the ambiance of the house.

We had a quick drink and decided to head to the Urban Cowboy, a bar/restaurant just up the way that was also set inside an old house. There was a really chic bar attached to their patio that kind of mixed tiki and cowboy vibes into something new. We had originally planned on having a light dinner there, but they were about to close down for a private event so we headed back to the Rosemary to try out the bao and soba noodle food truck they have in their backyard.

Urban Cowboy Exterior

Urban Cowboy Bar

Urban Cowboy Patio

Back at the Rosemary

After devouring a coupled of bao and sharing a bowl of noodles, we ended our night by singing karaoke at the lipstick lounge—an amazing bar conveniently located around the corner from where we sneakily car-camped for the night. Kinsey's rendition of Shakira was pretty on point. Tomorrow we'll head east towards Knoxville and eventually the Smokey Mountains.

The Lipstick Lounge near the Five Points neighborhood in Nashville.

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