After spending more than four years rising from the ground at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Broadway in the location previously home to the Nashville Convention Center, the enormous Fifth + Broadway commercial and residential complex is finally about ready for its closeup. Taking up a major portion of the hundreds of thousands of square feet under its roof is the nation’s largest food hall — Assembly Food Hall, to be specific, which is preparing to open its North Hall on Thursday, March 4. Nashville eaters have a lot to look forward to.
With access from just about every direction on the square block it covers, Assembly Food Hall should quickly become a gathering point for downtown denizens and visitors alike. The entire structure is a marvel of engineering with soaring ceilings, heavy-duty ventilation plus the ability to open garage door walls on pleasant days to basically create an indoor/outdoor environment. The three floors of the North Hall feature all sorts of flexible seating options, ranging from soft seating around coffee tables for small parties, high tops, bar seating and larger tables for groups who can’t seem to ever make up their mind on what sort of food to eat for lunch — there will be more than 30 different options once both halls are open. There are also outdoor seating areas and an expansive rooftop patio that will be able to host more than 1,000 people for events on its large stage. The view down Broadway from that perch is pretty impressive, and other large windows offer the lovely visage of the Ryman in all its glory across the street.
The view from the rooftop entertainment venue.
Assembly Hall will be a cashless facility, and all the vendors will share a common point-of-sale system that will allow you to order and pay online from your table if you don’t want to wait in line at each restaurant station. If you happen to have only cash in your pocket, you’ll be able to load up a “Hall Pass” to use like a credit card with a quick stop by the Assembly Hall welcome/info booth. Diners can also view all the restaurants’ menus at assemblyfoodhall.com or scan QR codes all over the facility to view specific offerings.
And there are a lot of offerings, including four large bars, each focused on a specific type of drink (whiskey, tequila, beer, wine), but all of which can serve you from a full bar menu. The restaurants average about 400 square feet of space, which is fairly large for these sorts of operations, so they’ll be able to offer a wide variety of foods. Even though some restaurants like Prince’s and Thai Esane might have slightly limited menus — a “greatest hits” of their full restaurant offerings — you’ll definitely recognize their cuisine.
The roster of restaurants is a mix of small outposts of Nashville favorites, spinoffs of other local concepts or new-to-the-market restaurants, some of which also occupy spaces in Assembly Hall’s sister property in Texas. In addition to Thai Esane, the North Hall will feature homegrown outlets of spots like DeSano Pizzeria, NoBaked Cookie Dough and Cotton & Snow along with imports Oke Poke, Smokin’ Chikin and Whisk Crepes Cafe. When the South Hall opens later this spring, Prince’s will be joined by two concepts from the team behind Coco’s Italian Market, Hattie Jane’s Creamery, Pharmacy Burger + Wurst, Steam Boys, Horu Sushi Kitchen, Istanbul Shawarma (from the folks at Edessa Restaurant), Philly Special and The Liege Waffle Co. While Assembly Food Hall does try to offer some sort of exclusivity by food type to their vendors, that doesn’t mean you might see a hot chicken taco at one of the two planned taco concepts, offering even more variety of choices.
Several standalone restaurants are also planned within the space, but details are still forthcoming on those. In addition to the large rooftop stage, there will be other performance areas scattered around the property to offer entertainment from soloists or small group acts starting in the afternoons. Each restaurant will set its own hours, but the complex will open daily at 8 a.m. and remain accessible until late night most evenings. Assembly Food Hall will also offer rentable private areas where you can throw a party catered by your choice of their member restaurants.
A hidden outdoor bar area near the new AllianceBernstein building offers a nice view of the bustling crowds below, and there will even be a speakeasy down a hallway for some more “illicit” entertainment.
The design scheme of the property is neo-Nashville writ large — lots of concrete and metal with enough barnwood accents to build a new version of Steeplechase — but the overall effect seems like it will fit in nicely as the buffer between the more commercial Midtown and honky-tonks of Lower Broad. You probably won’t want to park there. While it does have a massive underground parking structure, adding an extra $12 to the cost of a meal doesn’t really make much sense, since the complex is easy to walk to from just about anywhere downtown, and they don’t validate. That being said, it is nice that they have installed a traffic signal to facilitate getting in and out of the garage, so go for it if you’re feeling froggy.
So if you’re struggling to find a venue where a disparate group of appetites can all be satisfied in a space so large that even indoors feels like outdoor dining, Assembly Food Hall should be a salvation. Just remember to walk, carpool or take the bus.
