The old governor's mansion on West End Avenue
Nicki's Panjandrum of Old Nashville Stuff continues. Did I mention I've been writing a local history book?
It's taking me back to the time that so many Nashville restaurants were housed in ... houses. A restaurant in midtown in the 1970s was likely as not to be in an old house. I'm thinking of Faison's, Ruby Tuesday (which was called Shenanigan's at the time), Julian's, B Palola, Tavern on the Row.
In the case of the house in the photo, it was the governor's mansion and it was torn down to make way for a fried chicken restaurant.
But to me, the spookiest house restaurant was Maharajah on West End, across from the gates of Acklen Park. It must have been an enormous house, because it was a big, rambling restaurant. It was dark, with moody lighting and drapey batik decor that looked like ghosts. There were foreign smells and foreign foods that we kids didn't like.
A few house-restaurants remain. Virago, Jimmy Kelly and Café Coco keep the skeletons of their houseness. Bound'ry was a rock-and-roll hotel called Close Quarters, which had been an apartment building before that.
Do other cities have districts where the houses became restaurants? And what did I leave off the list?
