Are Nashville's expanding restaurant chains hurting the character of its prized neighborhoods?

Some 12South residents were up in arms when the owners of Twice Daily convenience stores opened a coffee shop last year in the middle of the bustling Nashville neighborhood.

The move was part of the Nashville-based company’s ambitious plan to break into the high-end java business with at least 10 White Bison Coffee locations across Middle Tennessee. Some people feared 12South was losing its authenticity and the arrival of a “chain” coffee shop would further diminish the character of the area. 

Today, you can find White Bison Coffee shops in The Nations, Brentwood, Franklin, 12South, Murfreesboro, Gallatin and more.

Now, many of Nashville’s own homegrown restaurants are similarly expanding across the city, targeting popular areas such as East Nashville, Charlotte Avenue and downtown.

Two years ago, if I said Five Points Pizza, you’d probably think East Nashville. But today I might be referring to Charlotte Avenue.

Barista Parlor has grown to locations in East Nashville, the Gulch, Germantown and Marathon Village, with a shop coming to Charlotte Avenue. You can get your Hattie B’s hot chicken fix in Midtown, Melrose and Charlotte Avenue — not to mention Memphis, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Birmingham, Alabama. There’s another one slated for the Fifth + Broadway development downtown.

Edley’s doles out its barbecue in East Nashville, 12South, Sylvan Park, Chattanooga and Lexington, Kentucky. Frothy Monkey has four Middle Tennessee coffee shops and one in Chattanooga. Meanwhile, Fresh Hospitality-backed brands, including Hugh Baby’s, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint and I Love Juice Bar, are growing quickly with multiple locations in the region.

These restaurants are successful for a reason: They’ve figured out the secret sauce to getting customers in the door time and again, even in an increasingly crowded dining market.

But these restaurant expansions raise an important question: Are Nashville’s neighborhoods starting to look the same?

East Nashville, for example, is now home to more than eight local restaurants that have a presence in other Nashville neighborhoods, including Burger Up, Five Daughters Bakery, Dose, Local Taco, Edley’s, The Urban Juicer and Stay Golden. The Hunters Station building opening soon at Main and South 10th streets will house already-established restaurants Vui’s Kitchen, Hugh Baby’s and The Grilled Cheeserie, along with newcomer Tacos Aurora.

On Charlotte Avenue, Hattie B’s, Taqueria Del Sol, Five Points Pizza and The Urban Juicer have opened outposts like their other locations in the city.

Even the Nashville International Airport and an under construction downtown food hall at Fifth + Broadway will soon house Nashville-based restaurants with locations across the city. 

'If you can get it anywhere, it loses that sort of urgency or excitement'

12South resident Michael Ward said he preferred when restaurants such as Edley’s and Burger Up were unique to his neighborhood. To him, restaurants lose their appeal once they start expanding all over town. He said 12South is becoming like East Nashville, is becoming like Green Hills and so on.

“I like trying something new, and if you can get it anywhere, it loses that sort of urgency or excitement of trying it,” Ward said.

Bob Bernstein, a Nashville coffee veteran with five different restaurant/coffee concepts, worries Nashville is becoming more generic and starting to look like “every other city” with the same chain stores and restaurants. Even local restaurant expansions are making Nashville’s neighborhoods look the same, he said.

“Nashville became the ‘it city’ because all these people had unique concepts and each neighborhood was different, and I’m just afraid of what Nashville is going to look like in the next 10 years because homegrown and out-of-town money are making it look no different than any other city or neighborhood,” Bernstein said.

To be sure, Bernstein has multiple locations of Bongo Java in Nashville, including Belmont, East Nashville and downtown at the Omni hotel. But he’s also opened single-site coffee shop/restaurants Fido and Box, vegetarian restaurant Grins and modern diner Fenwick’s 300 in the 28 years since he became a small-business owner.

Today, Bernstein said the Nashville dining scene has changed drastically and it’s harder than ever for newcomers to open. It takes big money-backers to break into the Nashville market, but it’s easier for already-established restaurants to expand. For restaurateurs, it’s usually costlier and more difficult to come up with new concepts and menus for different neighborhoods.

“To do what I did over the last 20 years is going to be very difficult for anybody else to repeat, because the economics of the city have changed so drastically,” Bernstein said. “Once you have one or two restaurants going successfully, to get the third and fourth is easier and landlords will start to look at you more.”

Customer access is key

Fresh Hospitality is a fast-growing Nashville company known for helping small restaurateurs with those barriers to entry. The company partners with food entrepreneurs to help them grow by providing capital, technology, accounting, expertise and more. Under the Fresh Hospitality umbrella, Hugh Baby’s has grown to three Nashville locations, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint has six in Middle Tennessee and I Love Juice Bar has 11 in the region.

Matt Bodnar, a partner in Fresh Hospitality, said some restaurant crossover in Nashville’s neighborhoods doesn’t diminish the unique character of those areas.

“If anything, because traffic has become so bad, it creates an opportunity for guests in different neighborhoods to access food they otherwise may have few opportunities to eat. I know there are a dozen places around town that I would love to have way closer to my home or office,” Bodnar said.

For Ryan Pruitt, managing partner of Frothy Monkey, the success of his business largely depends on customer access. Essentially, people want their coffee shop to be conveniently located. 

“Our regular customers (visit) five and six times a week. We’re not in fine dining, where a regular customer might be once a quarter or once a month, at best. You have to be in people’s routes and patterns in order for someone to be able to stop in five or six times a week,” Pruitt said.

He said Sylvan Park residents used to frequent the 12South Frothy Monkey, until that location became too busy. When Frothy Monkey opened a shop in The Nations, it earned back those Sylvan Park customers.

“All of a sudden, we started to see people we haven’t seen in two to three years because we gave them a new option,” Pruitt said.

Even though Nashville’s neighborhoods are changing rapidly, Pruitt still thinks the neighborhoods have a lot to offer and plenty of character. 12South has become a tourist hotbed, a shopping destination and a popular dining spot in the 13 years since Pruitt started working behind the counter at Frothy Monkey.

“Nashville is very neighborhood centric, and I think all the neighborhoods do a good job of hanging onto their character,” Pruitt said. “12South looks much different today than it did 15 years ago. Yes, it has seen a ton of change, but I think 12South is a really great product today, and same with East Nashville."

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Reach Lizzy Alfs at lalfs@tennessean.com or 615-726-5948 and on Twitter @lizzyalfs.