Two New Restaurant Projects Announced for Charlotte Avenue

As the Nations, Sylvan Park and Sylvan Heights neighborhoods continue to sprout new residential options, two teams of hospitality professionals have announced upcoming restaurant projects to keep up with the growth of the area. The first will be an all-day cafe with a more formal reservation dinner brought to you by some veterans of the M Street group of restaurants, and the second is the latest project from a third-generation hospitality pro who aims to open a gastropub in a space that once housed one of Nashville’s oldest groceries.

First up is Common Ground, an upcoming neighborhood cafe/bar/restaurant that has plans to open in the former Chaatable space at the corner of 40th Ave South and Charlotte. The new owners have plans to return the main entrance to its original configuration on the front of the building, so it will have the address of 4001 Charlotte Ave where Salt & Vine used to be.

Those owners are Matt Ramos and Wes Taylor, two veterans from many restaurants and bars within the M Street and Red Pebbles hospitality groups. The duo came together around a concept of a neighborhood restaurant that could be repeatable in multiple locations around town. After they nailed down their overarching idea, Ramos and Taylor started looking for a spot for their first restaurant.

“The biggest thing was we wanted to be where it was a real neighborhood, where native Nashvillians are living or maybe working remotely," says Ramos, adding "This wouldn’t fit on Broadway."

The pair worked with local chef Andrew Whitney to develop an initial menu, even before they have settled on a final chef picked from the applicants they are currently interviewing. “Andrew acted as our culinary consultant,” Ramos explains. “We took advantage of him to help research a guideline and a playbook for the menu, something that would be replicable. What he came up with is a prep-intensive menu that is streamlined and simplified to allow for easy execution.”

Their anticipated hours will be 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. The morning start with a fast-casual cafe service until 11 a.m., switching to a more substantial lunch menu until 3 p.m. and finally seated dinner reservations from 5-10 p.m.  Instead of a regular happy hour, they will offer daily features around specific items like “Flamingo Tuesday” when they’ll give special deals on their Flamingo Shirt cocktail. That one is based on an inside joke between the managing partners, so ask them if you need a reason to accept a cheap drink.

The planned menu is already online and features selections of toasts for breakfast or quick snacks, a section of salads and sandwiches, and dinner options of shareables and main dishes. Whitney works with Black Hawk Farms and dishes featuring their fantastic American wagyu beef are all over the menu, particularly in double patty smashburger that has me looking forward to their anticipated early November opening.

Ramos and Taylor have a goal to expand aggressively and quickly, depending on the next spaces and neighborhoods they discover as options. They are open to the idea of a standalone Common Ground Cafe, a cocktail bar or a more formal reservation-based restaurant, whatever they decide the neighborhood could use.

Their plans for the Charlotte space include bringing back the cafe counter that can serve as a second bar, offering more than 20 seats to encourage neighbors to drop in even if they don’t have dinner reservations. They want patrons to consider themselves regulars, and they’ll offer about 100 seats plus an outdoor patio and private dining options. They’ll also offer carryout as an important part of their service, including a grab-and-go cooler with sandwiches, salads and drinks.

“We want people living around us to place an order for their morning drink and maybe a sandwich and then drop by to pick it up after walking the dog,” says Ramos.

They plan to source locally whenever possible. In addition to the beef from Black Hawk Farms, they’ll get their coffee from their neighbors at 8th and Roast and they have designs on a charcuterie platter featuring meats and cheeses from nearby vendors.

If you’d like to stay up to date on exact opening dates sign up for their email newsletter at Common Ground’s website or follow them on the socials @CG_Nashville.

The next new spot to hit the neighborhood is a little farther off. Carter Hach and his longtime friend from high school, Henry Beveridge, have plans to open a new gastropub with a bit of a sports bar/speakeasy vibe at 4916 Charlotte Ave early next year. (“The first nice-looking weekend in February,” Hach hopes, optimistically.)

The planned venture will be called Streetcar Taps & Beer Garden, a nod to the history of the space: It originally housed one of Nashville’s oldest groceries, and was a frequent stop for the streetcar that used to run down Charlotte. Hach is a student of history and also a part of Nashville’s culinary lineage. His grandmother was Phila Hach, the legendary chef, caterer and innkeeper who is best known as one of the first television cooking celebrities ever and for catering a meal for a gathering of international dignitaries at Centennial Park in honor of the 1982 World’s Fair.

Carter Hach ran the kitchen at his family’s Hachland Hill inn and retreat center in Joelton before deciding to bring his talents to the big city. “Henry and I both have families that date back generations in Nashville," he says. "Our goal is to preserve a historic brick-and-mortar while bringing new life and fresh ‘Hach-spitality’ to the stretch of buildings directly across from Richland Park Farmers Market.”

Hach and Beveridge have already discovered a fantastic 140-year-old mural at the old grocery that they unearthed behind years of drywall, plaster and drop ceilings, and the decor of the restaurant will preserve that old-school vibe. 

The planned menu will lean on local purveyors to help create a selection of elevated bar food, including po’boys made with regional ingredients. (That means probably no oysters and shrimp, but you can get excited about trout, brisket, fried chicken livers and local mushrooms.) Hach plans to fire up a big smoker to help cook his meats and to perfume the dining space with hickory.

The menu will offer small bites which you can mix and match to create your own platter. Expect options like pimento cheese and hoecakes, smoked trout dip and sausage biscuits.

A family-style portion of the menu will feature smoked meats like currywurst, schnitzel and bratkartoffeln, all nods to Hach’s Swiss and German family heritage along with Southern and Cajun influences. The menu finishes up with a few options for kids and a selection of desserts, perhaps as a preview of Hach and Beveridge’s second planned venture, a bakery in the space next door to the gastropub.

It sure sounds like Charlotte Ave will be an even more exciting dining location in 2023!