Now that folks are making good on the travel plans they talked about all last year, Nashville is a hot vacation destination again. For me that means friends and family coming to visit. And that means more hot chicken in my future.

The city of Berry Hill is home to a delightful array of small businesses and specialty shops. At less than one square mile, the tiny city has everything you never knew you needed — from beads and healing crystals to scuba gear, dollhouse furniture and birdhouses. You can make a day of prowli…

Perhaps it’s because the recent news of Krystal filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy has me feeling nostalgic, but when I recently tasted the Shammi sliders at Chaatable, they took me back to a familiar, happy place. The soft, warm bun and thin patty with a crunch of onion. It also didn’t hurt t…

Being a vegetarian in the South takes work. Nine times out of 10, a “veggie plate” is anything but vegetarian — your beans have been simmered in chicken broth, your potato salad is studded with bacon, and your greens were stewed with half a hog. We love that! Meat makes veggies taste great. …

Happy hour is one of man’s great inventions, so it’s not surprising that many men lay claim to it. Shakespeare issued an early use of the phrase — perhaps the first — in Henry V, though it had nothing to do with dollar beers or discount wings. The term as we know it likely comes from the Nav…

The best way to make a big change is to start small. I think of that every January when I see people embarking on delightfully absurd life changes. You know the ones: The guy who lives on Papa John’s decides to do the Whole30 instead of eating two slices of pizza for lunch rather than four; …

I often drive by restaurants and think, “That place looks legit — I should try it.” Curiosity typically gets me there within weeks, but it takes quite a bit longer if I don’t drive that stretch often. Case in point: Fattoush Café. When I finally stopped into the small Mediterranean restauran…

Among the many hidden gems of oft-underappreciated Antioch is King Market, a Lao-Thai market and restaurant on Antioch Pike. The market side of the establishment offers an array of cheap wares and foodstuffs, from meat and seafood to spices, produce and cookware — it’s the kind of place wher…

Food is an important and often undervalued way for people to share their stories and connect with their neighbors. The Sayid family, who opened The Horn Coffee on Murfreesboro Pike in 2014, has many stories to tell. They came to Nashville by way of Kenya in the 1990s as refugees from Somalia…

It may be better than the burger. If you’ve been to Bare Bones Butcher, you know them’s fighting words. The year that Wesley Adams and Patrick Davidson opened their Nations shop, the Scene named their burger the best in Nashville, and we stand by that. I tell everyone who visits that it’s th…

Make an omelette or roast a chicken: If you want to test a chef’s mettle, ask them to do one of those things. Many chefs have built reputations on the latter — Thomas Keller, Julia Child, the Nashville-adjacent Jonathan Waxman — but few have done it as effectively or economically as Tom Bayl…

Make an omelette or roast a chicken: If you want to test a chef’s mettle, ask them to do one of those things. Many chefs have built reputations on the latter — Thomas Keller, Julia Child, the Nashville-adjacent Jonathan Waxman — but few have done it as effectively or economically as Tom Bayl…