Even as national chain restaurants have pulled back on expanding in Middle Tennessee and elsewhere, Nashville’s food-minded entrepreneurs have gone rogue in a big way.
Within the past six months, close to 40 new restaurants have opened within a three-mile radius of downtown. Eighty percent of those are owned locally, by impresarios jazzed by the new convention center who are defying the economy, once-headstrong landlords and the traditional meat-and-three.
“I think the last time we saw a number like this was 15 years ago,” said Rick Balsam, owner of Tin Angel on West End Avenue. “There’s a lot of pent-up desire out there right now. People have waited and waited and waited, and now real estate values have gone down and rents are softening. People are making deals again.”