Nashville Festival - September 2017

Nashville Food and Wine Festival

After the success of FUCAT (F'ed up Childhood Appreciation Tour), we worked with John and JoAnna to come up with a new excuse to travel.  So we settled on another four-year program where we'd visit one festival a year, with each of us taking turns to select the festival.  JoAnna went first since she was the inaugural FUCAT tour, and she chose the Food and Wine Festival in Nashville.  While Keith had been there for work as well as personal travel 20+ years before, none of us had really visited for fun in the recent past.

The Stillery for Dinner

Since we live on the west coast now, we decided to fly out late on the Thursday and work from the hotel on the Friday.  And late it was - the 7pm direct to Nashville arrived at 12:30am so we were not asleep until 1:30am.  It did help to have the time zones in our favor.  Our hotel for the weekend was the Renaissance hotel downtown Nashville, which was only a block off Broadway.  Shawna worked in the room the whole day Friday while Keith worked at a table in the club room on the 24th floor.  We both had back-to-back calls so were jammed the whole day.  John and Jo's flight arrived late so we fortunately had time for an early-evening nap and shower before they arrived so we were bright eyed and bushy tailed for their arrival.

Jonathan Waxman

The first stop of the evening was the rooftop of the Stage on Broadway.  Broadway is a massive honky-tonk street - think Bourbon in New Orleans or Duvall in Key West - but with almost all country bars.  The streets were heaving with people, though once we got to the rooftop it was full but not jammed.  We squeezed in a couple of beers before deciding we were hungry.  The next stop was The Stillery for dinner (on 2nd street) where we had Mac 'n cheese with fried chicken, jalapeños, brussel sprouts, and cheese dip with pesto bread.  The waitress was really nice and the food was tasty and fast.  The final stop for the night was the Swinging Door, another rooftop bar that backs to the Hilton where we sat next to a bachelor party and listened to a live musician.  We called it a night at about 2am which made John and JoAnna proud.

Pig - Yum!

Saturday was the main event - the Nashville (Music City) Food and Wine Festival. It was raining when we got up and continued to rain as we walked to the festival site in Bicentennial Park. We had pre-purchased the tickets for the day and the gates opened at 11-4pm. We started our first tasting at 11:15 and had a fantastic day with a massive variety of wines, beer, and local restaurant tastings. There were also celebrity chef demonstrations - we caught the last 10 minutes of Tim Love - a Fort Worth Chef that Keith's brother knows. We also saw Jonahtham Waxman. There were so many booths - we were not able to taste everything but we surely get it the college try!

HOHO Bus Tour

By 4pm we had our fill (and more) of the food and wine, so headed back to the hotel.  We decided to have a nap, which lasted until 9pm at which time none of us were inspired to head out.  So, with a pretty full day behind us, we ordered room service, watched Pitch Perfect 2, and fell asleep again!

What? The Parthenon? In Nashville?

Sunday was our last day in Nashville so we decided we had to see a bit of the city.  We showered, packed, and checked out - and opted for lunch which we found at Skulls Rainbow Room on Printers Alley.  It was a really interesting old building that has been resurrected - with pretty good food (the lobster bisque was delicious).  We then decided that the best way to see the city was the GreyLine Hop-On Hop-Off bus.  The first leg of the tour was terrible, with the driver naming pretty much every restaurant and shop on every street - including his commentary on Hooters - which was kind of creepy.  We jumped off half way through the tour and got the next bus with a different "guide" - who was only good in comparison with the first.  We did not really get any history, so it was a bit of a disappointment.  At the conclusion of the bus tour we had a couple of hours to kill before needing to go to the airport, so we went to the rooftop of the Acme Feed and Seed restaurant which overlooks the river.  The upside there was that the music scene was more traditional - which was nice since we were a bit "country-ed out".  We Ubered to the airport - with Keith heading to Phoenix, Shawna to Hartford, and John and JoAnna back to Raleigh.  It will only be a short time until we see them again in Scottsdale!