Shakes and Wine: Two New Drinking Options Open This Week

I hope you’re thirsty, because two opening announcements this week promise to slake your need for milkshakes and wine. The first is the second outpost of Elliston Place Soda Shop, opening nowhere near the “Rock Block” of Elliston. In fact, you probably couldn’t get further attitudinally from the Exit/In than the hotbed of suburban rest that is Cool Springs, but that’s where they’re going.

Less than a decade after we all worried that the soda shop was going away forever, before a last-minute reprieve and a change in ownership preserved the Nashville icon, Elliston Place Soda Shop is doubling its footprint in the region with a new store at 335 Mayfield Drive in Cool Springs. The new location opened softly on May 26, but a grand-opening celebration is slated for Saturday, June 2, with special events planned for the day. Longtime dairy supplier to the soda shop, Purity, will be distributing free ice cream for the kiddies in the parking lot, and a face painter will be on hand to offer up playful disguises.

For adults, there is a special partnership with local brewery Honky Tonk Brewing Co., which has created a special Milkshake IPA for the occasion. That’s right — this soda shop will serve beer! The creamy IPA is supposed to exhibit notes of mango and vanilla and will be exclusively available at the Cools Springs shop for the next two weeks. They’ll also serve several other local brews on tap.

Serving all three meals, Elliston Place Soda Shop will offer an extended menu of traditional meat-and-three items, breakfast, burgers and the traditional fountain fare, but also some more elaborate dishes like Southern stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon and stuffed with collard greens and served over pimento cheese grits, chicken and waffles, and Cajun-inspired blackened catfish with crawfish étouffée atop a bed of butter pecan rice, along with grilled Scottish salmon topped with a lemon butter sauce.

Beginning Sunday, June 3, they will serve brunch from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. every Sunday. Expect much of the menu to rotate weekly, but staple items will include an omelet station, a waffle station, fried chicken, bacon, sausage, potatoes, gravy, fruit and desserts. The buffet will be $19.95 per person and $8.95 for children 10 and under.

They’ll also offer boozy spiked milkshakes like Orange Dreamsicle and Vanilla Bean Bourbon, along with a full bar serving an array of craft beers on tap and house cocktails. Suffice it to say, this is not your daddy’s soda shop. (Or maybe it is if he was always looking for a stiff drink on Elliston.) Elliston Place Soda Shop Cool Springs’ regular hours will be 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Another key opening announcement comes from Louie’s Wine Dive at 101 17th Ave. S., on the first floor of Skyhouse Nashville. Opening June 1, this will be the 10th location of the Kansas City-based wine bar and restaurant, which is aimed at lovers of both food and drink. Louie’s Wine Dive will feature chef-inspired seasonal lunch, dinner, brunch and happy hour menus, a local craft beer and cocktail menu, wine tastings, classes and a second-story private event space.

The restaurant is serious about wine education, both for its staff and its customers, so they offer classes frequently. Louie’s Wine Dive will offer a variety of unique experiences to guests, including "Louie’s University," a rotating flight of three wines, which servers will offer to the table based on their preferences. Additionally, there will be wine-pairing classes, wine dabblers in which guests taste eight different wines from two vendors in competition for the crowd's votes.

A novel policy is that the staff will gladly open any bottle on the menu, as long as at least two glasses are ordered, so you can consider the whole menu to essentially be “by the glass.” I mean, c’mon, you weren’t just going to drink one glass anyway, right?

The kitchen will be helmed by chef Bradley Hoffmann, who is currently working with local farmers to put together a menu of seasonal and regional plates created using sustainably sourced ingredients. The menu revolves around the concept of shared plates that should go well with those two glasses of wine that you’re sharing from that bottle you opened.

Their hours will be: Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Saturday brunch 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Saturday dinner 2 p.m.-11 p.m.; Sunday brunch 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Sunday dinner 2 p.m.-9 p.m.. Bar hours: Monday-Thursday until 11 p.m., Friday/Saturday until midnight, and Sunday until 9 p.m.