Get FREE email communications from Fodor's Travel, covering must-see travel destinations, expert trip planning advice, and travel inspiration to fuel your passion.
We've compiled the best of the best in Day Trips from Nashville - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
This coffeehouse is in a literal house, built in 1904 in Downtown Franklin, and during a good mid-morning lull, you can curl up with a cinnamon toast crepe in one of the sitting rooms and listen to a record or read a book. The library room is an especially good spot to pass a rainy afternoon with hot soup and a grown-up grilled cheese sandwich.
Located inside The Factory, this dreamy bakery seems to glow with soft pink light. They specialize in donuts, but not just any old donuts—these are 100-layer croissant-donut hybrids, cream-filled and glazed in flavors like chocolate–sea salt and maple-bacon (they also have a wide selection of paleo and vegan donuts). There are locations in East Nashville and 12South.
This coffeehouse opens first thing in the morning and stays open through breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There’s plenty of porch space to enjoy your rosemary-honey latte outside, and in the evening they expand their drink menu to include craft beer and wine. The menu is Southern comfort food with a New South twist (like johnnycakes with house-pickled okra and bacon-onion marmalade), but coffee is still the main event. All their coffee is locally roasted by their own roasting company, and you can buy it by the bag from the café. There are multiple locations around Nashville.
Franklin’s first coffee-roasting company is an honest-to-goodness great place to get a cup of coffee. Located inside The Factory, Franklin’s converted industrial shopping complex, it’s also a great place to get an honest day’s work done on your laptop. In addition to their ethically sourced and roasted coffees and selection of teas, there’s usually an assortment of croissants, scones, and donuts available.
Southwest of Nashville on Highway 100, The Loveless Cafe serves up its famous scratch-made biscuits and country ham every day of the week. Long waits for a table are typical, so be prepared to do some shopping and play a round of cornhole while you wait. When the café opened in 1951, it was just chicken served at picnic tables on Lon and Annie Loveless’s front porch. But over the years, the restaurant has expanded to include every iteration of Southern breakfast and supper. In 2004 the remainder of the on-site motel was converted into quaint country shops—chief among them the Hams & Jams Country Market, where you can get free coffee all day, Southern-inspired home goods and gifts, and barbecue to go.
As soon as you squeeze through the front door of Meridee’s Breadbasket, you’ll feel at home. The shelves are stocked with fresh-baked bread, and the cabinets are full of peanut butter pie and butterscotch bars. There are quilts on the walls and baskets hanging from the ceiling, helping the jumble of tables to feel more neighborly than crowded. The service is as charming as the setting: ask any employee which bread you should order with your chicken salad sandwich, and they'll discuss it with you for as long as you like.
Maybe it’s the graffitied walls, maybe it’s the local bee-pollen honey, but this crunchy sandwich shop inside a converted garage is undeniably cool. Come any time, morning or night, and you’ll find a goat cheese–smothered waffle, a hummus-stuffed veggie wrap, or a late-night cocktail that will suit your needs.
