The Late Pleasantness

There is this feeling that comes over an East Sider when crossing one of Nashville’s glorious bridges after midnight on a weekend: I’m home, and now I can get really drunk. And if it’s already getting late, they might as well head straight to the corner of 11th and Forrest.

More often than not Red Door East doesn’t even get going until after 11 p.m. Oh, you can go there early, secure a prime spot at the classic wooden bar and guarantee some prime time on the Megatouch machine, but it is late-night that the place comes to life.By 1 a.m. on a Friday or Saturday (even a Thursday), the place is bustling with an eclectic cross-section of Nashville’s night owls. You’ve got the fratters in their crisp button-ups, rockabilly kids, plenty of dudes who look like they’d be more than happy to tell you all about their band (and said band’s side project), girls giggling about how “dirty-hot” boy-who’s-probably-in-a-band is, and everyone in between.

But it’s not too crazy: there are no college girls throwing up their salads in the bathroom or guys trying to pick them up as they come stumbling out. The music is just loud enough that it feels like a weekend, but not so loud that you need to shout.

When the weather gets warm, the porch bustles with drunk, chattering folk sitting at the long, wooden picnic benches and elbow-height round tables or perching up against the deck’s railing. When the night is cool and the drinks are cheap, it’s easy to watch the hours slip away and find yourself being asked to, please, close out.

Red Door East also has a comforting familiarity. On the weekends, it’s always the same excellent bartenders working the signature U-shaped bar (perfect for making eyes), and the place is usually chock-full of regulars, sipping 16-ounce PBRs or downing a third Jäger Bomb of the night. And there are lots of people you’re pretty sure you’ve met before, even if you don’t quite remember when. (Hint: it was probably at the Red Door, late at night.)

And the best thing about Red Door East as a late-night bar—and 5 Points as a late-night neighborhood—is that if you get bored, there are always a couple other options just down the street.