It’s a Crazy Town full of Neon Dreams

Nashville, my favorite city. This was my fifth visit, so I guess you could consider me a bit of a Nashville expert now. This was a girls trip, planned mainly for my BFF’s birthday, but also as a getaway together to have some fun!

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The last weekend in June, a few girlfriends and I took a trip to Music City to have some fun! We made lots of memories and enjoyed our time together.

Friday:

We made it into Nashville around lunchtime and met up at The Loveless Cafe for brunch! If you’ve read any of my past Nashville blogs, you’ll know I LOVE Loveless! But, this was a first time visit for most of the girls and they fell in love with it as well.

We brunched and enjoyed one another’s company around a family style dining room table. All of us were pleased with our food, and much too full for dessert afterwards.  

Next up, half of the girls went to Marathon Music Village to shop and have wine slushies, while the other half of us headed to check-in at the Airbnb.

The main focus of the trip was my best friend Brittany’s birthday, so I decided to throw her a surprise birthday party! I went with a flamingo/tropical themed party and had a cake delivered. When she arrived from shopping, she was quite surprised!! She’s very hard to surprise, so I felt accomplished! We enjoyed rum punch and cookie cake before getting ready for the evening. 

After getting all dolled up, we of course had to take just a ‘few’ pictures together! 

 

We headed downtown to Broadway, looking for a place to eat dinner. We ended up at Ole Red (Blake Shelton’s bar and restaurant). They had a live band playing on the first floor, and we sat overlooking them from the second floor. Everybody’s food turned out great, especially the girls that shared the nachos!!  

After our dinner we headed to Printer’s Alley, none of us ever having been to that area before. We decided to go to Skull’s Rainbow Room for a Burlesque show. This place was small and chill, but also very lively. They had a live rock bank playing during the show, while the girls took turns showing off their tricks. The show lasted about 90 minutes, and it was jam packed in there with it becoming standing room only.  

Following the show, we headed back to Broadway. We bar hopped for a bit, but ended up at The Valentine. This place was pretty cool, having 4 floors of entertainment. The first floor had the DJ (which was pretty awesome, playing all the throwbacks for us 90’s kids), the second floor had a balcony overlooking the first floor but had a more chill atmosphere with couches and booths to hangout in, the third floor had a HUGE disco ball and dance floor, and the roof top had a DJ and bubble machine with a large crowd of people. I think we were originally drawn to this place because of the bubbles (LOL). 

Saturday:

After getting our beauty rest, we were up and at em getting ready. We grabbed an Uber and headed to the southeast area of the Gulch for lunch. We walked around and ended up wandering into Night Train Pizza, which was phenomenal!!  

Not only did they have wonderful pizza, but they also had a large selection of craft beers. Although not a beer drinker, I found the beer can wall pretty fascinating.   

Next, we had a tour scheduled with Big Green Tractor Tours. We met for pick-up in the parking lot of Frugal MacDoogal. We all went inside before the tour, and I came across none other than Jack Daniels himself. So of course that warranted a picture. 🙂With it being a few days before Independence Day, we all wore patriotic attire. We sang and danced, enjoying classic country songs and also recent pop hits. It was hot, but with us moving we caught a breeze and they also had a covering over the trailer so we weren’t in direct sunlight.

This tour was SO MUCH FUN. The man driving the tractor was SO nice, down to earth, and genuine. The lady shuffling the songs and taking our pictures was also extremely sweet. 10/10 would recommend and do again!  

The tour dropped us off at Nashville Underground to cool off and recuperate. The second floor had large sectionals and we all just crashed here for a bit enjoying the AC. Little did we know, the second floor also had a mechanical bull. My friend Mary and I ended up being the chosen ones for the bull ride.After laughing and enjoying the bull riding, I just HAD to introduce my girls to Mike’s Ice Cream. In my opinion it is a MUST stop place when you’re in Nashville. There is almost always a line, but it moves very quickly! I enjoyed my all time favorite banana pudding ice cream as well as the strawberry. It’s always so fresh and tastes homemade!! 

Full on ice cream, we headed back to our Airbnb to relax for a bit. We lounged around for a couple hours before getting ready. 

Once ready, we headed back downtown for dinner at FGL House. Although they have a smaller menu (typical for most bars), their food is always delicious!! I decided to get the No Joke Mac ‘n Cheese again because the last time I had it I loved it, Brittany got the BBQ nachos and they were delicious as well.

After we ate, we went up to the rooftop for a bit to hangout.  

We spent our second night barhopping to various bars, trying some new ones out we’d never been to before. Some we stayed 10 minutes, others an hour or more. We also spent a majority of the time back at The Valentine, because we liked it that much. Of the ones we stopped in, the most memorable ones for me were Nudie’s and Famous.

Nudie’s Honky Tonk seemed like a classic Nashville bar, located in a 100 year old historic building. Nudie Cohn (1902-1984) was a Ukrainian born tailor who became famous in America for his decorative rhinestone-covered suits, popularly known at “Nudie Suits.” Nudie dressed everyone from Ronald Reagan to John Wayne, and even Elvis.

One of my favorite things about Nudie’s bar, was that it was lined with old coins underneath the glass top. I also snagged a pressed penny from their penny press machine (I collect these).  

Famous Saloon was a bit more of an upscale bar, which made it different from most downtown bars in my opinion. It’s actually not located on Broadway, but right off of it on 2nd Ave backing up to the Cumberland river.

Walking in I was mesmerized by the large FAMOUS letters above the bar as we slowly made our way to the rooftop. From here, you could see the Cumberland River along with Nissan Stadium. They had a good DJ going on the rooftop and we stayed here til almost the end of the night.  

Our last stop of the night was the Wild Beaver Saloon off Commerce street. Brittany wanted to stop in this place after watching the music video that Little Mix did here for ‘No More Sad Songs’.  We got here towards the end of the night, and they were just wrapping up their Karaoke. This place was pretty neat, they had a mechanical bull and a few arcade games. Britt and I took some photos in the photo booth, but I’ll spare y’all those close ups.  

After shutting down the bars, we had the most friendly Uber driver on our way back to our house. We stayed up talking for awhile before going to sleep.

Funny story: Brittany had no idea I had planned the surprise party for her, which was flamingo themed. And she had bought us matching flamingo pajamas!! (Flamingos have just always been “our thing”). So we definitely had to document that with selfies!!  

Sunday:

We checked out of our Airbnb around 10am, and headed to Acme Feed and Seed for a delicious brunch. I love brunching at Acme, the ambiance is such a chill and homey vibe which I enjoy. We grabbed a big wrap around booth on the second floor and enjoyed the sunlit room while we ate.  

Most of us got the biscuits and gravy, which were MOUTHWATERING. However, my sister-in-law Amber went with their banana pancakes, which looked phenomenal!  

After our meal we made our way up to the rooftop to take in the views of the Cumberland River and Downtown Nashville in the daylight.  

After Brunch, we walked over to Savannah’s Candy Kitchen before saying our goodbyes. Three of the girls left for home, but my friend Mary and I stuck around for a bit.

I had a list of murals I’d been wanting to see, so we spent the next couple hours driving around and getting pictures. I did a full mural guide in my last post, with locations and info on all of them here.  

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Nashville was the perfect location for us to eat good food, bar hop, hangout together, and have a good time! We thoroughly enjoyed our time together and all look forward to another girls trip in the future.

If you’re interested, our Airbnb we stayed in was super cute. It had a farmhouse theme  and was plenty spacious for all of us. It’s conveniently located near the airport which was about a 15 minute Uber ride to downtown. Here is the link for it, and here is my link for you to grab $40 off your first stay.

For my Nashville recommendations list click here.

Also, shout-out to Brittany who just started her very own blog “The Minnie Mama Mouse”. If you’re interested in all things Disney, you should give her a follow! 🙂

“It’s a crazy town full of neon dreams, everybody plays everybody sings. Hollywood with a touch of twang, to be a star you gotta bang bang bang.” – Jason Aldean