8 New Venues in Nashville for Fall 2024 Meetings and Events

The six-story Chief’s on Broadway opened in April, founded by country music star and CMA Entertainer of the Year winner Eric Church, alongside AJ Capital Partners CEO Ben Weprin. Whether you choose a single-floor event or a full multifloor buyout for up to 1,300 guests, Chief’s offers many options for every party size. The first floor features around 4,000 posters celebrating Church’s storied career and can host 200 guests. The second floor hosts Friendly Shadows, Nashville’s only dueling piano bar, which can accommodate 150 guests. The live music venue Neon Steeple spans the third and fourth floors, hosting up to 350 guests. Designed to resemble an old-world church, it features pews from 1890 and 20 stained-glass windows showcasing people who influenced Church’s career. On the fifth floor, Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ at Chief's, a partnership with James Beard Award-winning pitmaster Rodney Scott, overlooks Lower Broadway and can host 60 guests and has a private dining room dubbed Sinners. Menu highlights include classic South Carolina whole-hog barbecue, Nashville hot chicken, beef brisket, and burgers. On the rooftop, the appropriately named Hell of a View accommodates 250 guests, offering stunning views of Broadway, Second Avenue, and the Cumberland River.

One of the city’s tallest buildings, the trendy 28-floor Sheraton Grand Nashville Downtown, managed by Aimbridge Hospitality, recently finalized a multimillion-dollar renovation. Owners Dreamscape Companies and Centerbridge Partners announced a transformation of its nearly 494 guest rooms and suites, working with award-winning interior design firm Looney & Associates. The key focus centered on creating comfortable spaces for work-life balance, incorporating neutral hues and pops of green and gold, along with destination-centric artwork. For meetings and events, the hotel has seen an upgrade to 29,000 square feet of event space with 13 unique areas to host groups of all sizes. This includes two karaoke studios with retro-inspired decor; the 400-square-foot space, named after Dolly Parton, can hold up to seven people, while the 500-square-foot room named after Johnny Cash can host up to 12 guests, perfect for private parties in Music City. The lobby is a centerpiece known as the Public Square, featuring a grand staircase and a community table perfect for gathering. The entire 2,800-square-foot lobby area can accommodate 74 guests, and the 2,635-square-foot Library Restaurant & Lounge can welcome 120 guests, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The restaurant pays homage to the hotel’s former site, the Nashville Public Library. The rooftop restaurant’s 28th-floor Skye Lounge is another popular rental with its stunning 360-degree views and Sora Kitchen collaboration with chef Art Insyxiengmay as a unique sushi-focused pop-up that’s now a mainstay.

Choy is a new 7,000-square-foot, two-story Chinese-American restaurant in the Gulch neighborhood that melds traditional recipes with a Tennessee spin. Opened in July, it’s the latest project led by owner Moni Advani, who brought in Nishaan Chavda, former West Coast director of operations for the Mina Group. Advani has previously teamed up with Maneet Chauhan—celebrity chef, best-selling author, and Food Network star—on popular restaurants like Chauhan Ale, Masala House, and Mockingbird. The restaurant features showstopping decor with a 30-foot-wide marble bar and a wine cellar with over 1,000 bottles. The main dining room can host up to 19 guests for gatherings, while the semiprivate Bird’s Nest can hold up to 20 guests within the grand booths just above the main dining room. The private 1,500-square-foot Crane Room on the second level can host 48 seated guests or 60 for receptions and has its own bar. Full buyouts are available.

The creators of the successful Frankies 457 in Brooklyn—where a New York Times writer described their meal of crostini, romaine hearts, meatballs, beets, cold ribeye salad, braciola marinara, and red wine as their favorite meal on the job—have opened Frankies Nashville in the past year. The venue offers several spaces for entertaining, along with off-site catering options featuring Italian-American cuisine. The Big Hall at Frankies, with its grand high ceilings, accommodates gatherings of 25 to 250 guests. For more intimate events, the Skybox provides a private space for up to 20 guests, offering the cozy atmosphere of a dinner party at a friend’s home, complete with its own entrance. The restaurant, Frankies 925 Spuntino, can be rented for up to 85 guests, and the patio has space for up to 100 guests. There’s also an on-site pizzeria, which has catering packages and large-format platters for parties. Guests can also stop by the specialty market, The Bottega at Frankies, for coffee; morning pastries; or to pick up salumi, cheeses, and the Franks' internationally celebrated olive oil and pasta line.

Fonda 12 South, which opened in May in Nashville’s 12 South neighborhood, features a variety of authentic, elevated Mexican cuisine with creative, unexpected twists by cookbook author and chef Roberto Santibañez, who trained at the esteemed Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. For dinner, start with guacamole en molcajete made to order, where you can add chicharrones, blue cheese, smoked almonds, grapes, or (if you’re adventurous) a side of chapulines aka crispy grasshoppers. Main dishes include baked homestyle enchiladas made with meats such as chipotle-pulled chicken, pork, and birria, as well as vegetarian options. A variety of small plates include everything from salads to dishes like arrachera, a Mexican surf-and-turf; a wagyu ribeye with mole sauce; grilled lobster with street corn; and seared beef tongue served with tomatoes, capers, and olives. The cocktail menu highlights tequila-based cocktails. A semiprivate room with glass sliding doors gives an indoor-outdoor feel for events and can hold up to 30 guests for seated dinners or up to 50 for reception-style events. Buyouts are available, and the entire restaurant can host 100 for sit-down dinners or up to 150 for cocktail receptions.

The 27,000-square-foot, four-story restaurant and bar Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottoms Up features three live music stages, six bars, and the capacity to host up to 1,000 guests. The overall design is inspired by singer-songwriter
Lainey Wilson’s 2022 album, Bell Bottom Country, with the star wanting guests to feel as if they are in her home. The main floor has a glam country feel with cowgirl hat chandeliers, cowhide textures, and decor that pays homage to her love of bell-bottom jeans. The rooftop area showcases a '70s Western aesthetic meshed with disco-inspired decor, a dance floor, and fabulous frozen cocktails. The menu, inspired by Wilson’s Louisiana roots and crafted by the singer and TC Restaurant Group’s vice president of culinary development, chef Tomasz Wosiak, includes shareable appetizers like chicken gumbo sausage, bang bang shrimp, and bourbon chicken wings. Cajun-inspired dishes include crawfish crabcake sliders, mac and cheese, blackened catfish, a shrimp boil, and bone-in ribeye. Alongside this new space, TC Restaurant Group also operates several popular eateries around Nashville, like Tequila Cowboy Bar & Grill, Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar, and Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa.

Sidecar Bar opened in August in Germantown by Good Time Design, a California-based hospitality and entertainment group behind popular spots like Sonny’s Patio Pub and Cerveza Jack’s. Its state-of-the-art sound system would make it a perfect intimate venue for a team-building event, cocktail party, or even an album-listening party. The venue offers nightly entertainment from DJs and musicians, with a menu of creative cocktails, beer, wine, and snacks like jumbo chicken tenders, a variety of fries, jalapeño bottle caps with a side of ranch, fried pickles, and buffalo cauliflower. The space features a variety of seating options like a wraparound bar, high-top tables, and comfy booths and can host up to 70 guests for buyouts.

The popular Tavern Midtown, originally opened in 2011 by M Street Entertainment Group, closed for two years for a massive renovation. It reopened in June with elegant interiors and an upgraded menu, offering elevated options alongside signature favorites for brunch, lunch, dinner, and cocktails. The decor celebrates the restaurant’s natural light and includes a beautiful bar, tall ceilings, and leather banquettes with green hues throughout. Guests can rent the semiprivate mezzanine, which overlooks the main dining room, or the solarium, a covered open-air space, to host up to 40 guests. The venue offers full buyouts for around 145 people for seated dinners or up to 170 for receptions.