Nashville: The Smokiest City in the Country?

Old Nov 21st, 2006, 07:24 AM
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Nashville: The Smokiest City in the Country?

As we do once every other year or so, we recently spent a weekend in Nashville for a Vanderbilt football game. We stay near campus (usually on West End), park the car and walk everywhere we want to go. For some reason, on this trip, we found it almost impossible to avoid heavily smoky bars and restaurants.

According to the back of our hotel room door, there are over 50 restaurants within a one-mile radius of our room. This is undoubtedly true, and is one of the reasons we enjoy Nashville – the wide range of eating/drinking establishments within walking distance. By the end of the weekend, we sampled about 25 of them – some we had to turn around and walk out of due to the density of the smoke.

Didn’t matter whether is was a highbrow (Boundry, The Trace, Cabanas), midbrow (Flying Saucer, Blackstone) or lowbrow (Broadway Brewhouse, South Street), bars were universally smoky. This wasn’t surprising in itself, but in any bar we went to, at least 50% of the patrons were smoking at any one time. It was like a sport to them. And as there didn’t seem to be any air filtration systems, it was too thick to stand.

More disappointedly, most every restaurant in the area also allowed smoking, most with ineffectual non-smoking areas. Even the semi-famous Noshville deli allows smoking, and I’m sorry, even if you do have a non-smoking section, if your restaurant is full of smoke at 8:30 in the morning, I’m not eating there.

We did find a couple good alternatives, which aside from my ranting, is the main purpose of this post. As non-smoking options are few and far between, folks heading to Nashville looking to avoid smoke need to do some research and likely make dinner reservations as both of the non-smoking restaurants we went to were completely full.

First pleasant surprise was Tayst which is completely non-smoking. It has a tiny bar, great wine list and very good food (I highly recommend the pulled pork Wellington). The friendly and helpful bartender gave us other suggestions for non-smoking establishments, but unfortunately most were a car ride away. One within (a somewhat long) walking distance was the Gulch area on 12th Street.

Radius 10 is a striking restaurant in the back of a large building very close to the corner of 12th and Broadway (a bit hard to find). It has a big bar, great wine list, tapas menu at the bar and lots and lots of very beautiful people. Smoking is allowed only outside on the veranda. We only drank and snacked here, but enjoyed it a lot.

I understand that there are a couple other non-smoking places further down 12th street, but it was a decent hike from Broadway and not it an area I’d want to walk at night. I think Sambucca is one of them?

Had a good dinner at Mambu on Hayes St in a smoke free environment, but as we were leaving the smoking from the bar started creeping in.

Moral to my rant is, if you’re going to Nashville and want to avoid smoke, do your research. Hopefully locals who know of more non-smoking options can post them here so we can get excited about going back.
Brian_in_Charlotte is offline  
Old Nov 21st, 2006, 08:01 AM
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Gee, that's too bad. Nothing ruins a meal for me faster than the smell - even a whiff - of smoke. I've had many an otherwise-enjoyable and expensive meal rendered no better than a burger in a bar by poor ventilation or too-close proximity of smoking sections.

I guess some places think a 3 foot tall partition is effective in stopping smoke cold in its tracks.

I even (I'm VERY embarassed to admit) almost got into an altercation in a restaurant over this issue.

We just got back from a few days in Oklahoma City. Seems like OKC is in the middle of a smoke-free dining trend as there were MANY places in town that do not allow smoking at all - even in their bars.

They are listed in the tourism brochures in the hotel rooms, and they have stickers on the entrance doors that proclaim them as "a smoke-free environment."

We were thrilled.
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Old Nov 21st, 2006, 09:31 AM
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No, that would be Las Vegas.
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Old Nov 21st, 2006, 06:33 PM
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roy
 
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We just spent a couple of days in Nashville and I couldn't believe the smoke situation still existed so badly anywhere in the civilized world. At the "Irish Pub" in the Opryland Hotel, they actually sold cigars and allowed them to be burnt on premises...a worse stench than the cancer sticks. On top of this, they double tax the cocktails adding about 40 % above the already somewhat inflated rates.
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Old Nov 21st, 2006, 07:32 PM
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Memphis is very bad, too. My friend..as of right now, Louisville is scheduled to be smoke free as of July 1! Please come visit! Ohio...the entire state...has gone smoke free. I feel your pain as a musician who has chronic health problems due to smoke. I jhate smoke and I expect those who smoke to do it outside.
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Old Nov 21st, 2006, 07:35 PM
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Dan
 
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Believe it or not, LOUISIANA will be smoke-free in restaurants as of January 1. Bars are exempt, however.
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Old Nov 26th, 2006, 07:30 PM
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The Bluebird Cafe in Green Hills is smoke free. The food is okay - not upscale, but the primary reason to go there is for the songwriting. Make reservations before you go.
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