We recently spent 5 days and 4 nights in Nashville and to even our own surprise, this was our first trip to such a fun city! One of our good friends was celebrating her 50th birthday so we were in a group that totaled about 16 adults. I’m writing this post to share with you where we stayed along with fun places to eat and drink – and of course listen to music!!!

Our hotel was the Noelle, Nashville, A Tribute Portfolio Hotel which is part of the Bonvoy group of properties. It was a quick walk to downtown, had stylish décor, and with a rooftop bar – we couldn’t go wrong. In all transparency, it was a quick walk downhill into town so of course a walk uphill back to the hotel at night…which created some fun adventures for our group!

The birthday girl, her hubby and the two of us were the first ones to arrive so after scoping out the hotel, we decided to grab lunch at Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant at the recommendation of our hotel. It did not disappoint. Serving traditional southern food including BBQ and Nashville’s famous hot chicken, we couldn’t have been happier.

After more of our group started to arrive, our guest of honor headed back to the hotel and The Hubby and I headed down to Broadway. This is the “main drag” of downtown Nashville. It is so cool to walk down the street and hear so much live music coming out of every building! There are restaurants, bars, shops – it was great! We hit Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge first – which opened it’s doors in 1960. We then headed to Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse and after The Hubby and I checked out the rooftop bar, we secured a couple of tables in the balcony area of the main stage right next to the band for the rest of our group.

We had dinner reservations at The Row Kitchen & Pub, this was an Uber drive from our hotel, but the food was excellent and we once again enjoyed live music.

Day 2 started out with lunch at Hattie B’s Hot Chicken which is famous for their Nashville Hot Chicken. So good – I could eat that on a regular basis!

That afternoon we booked a private trip on the Pontoon Saloon which was a 2 hour cruise on the Cumberland River complete with music, gorgeous views, and the perfect weather! This is a BYOB cruise, we did a carry out package and had coolers filled with seltzers, beer, and a bartender/DJ with vodka drinks. Public or private cruise – I would highly recommend this as part of your visit to Nashville.

For dinner we headed to Blake Sheton’s Ole Red and enjoyed some of the live music playing there including Walker Hayes – what a treat!

Afterwards we moved over to Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa which is literally two doors down (ironic?) and ventured up to the rooftop where we found a dance club. So much fun! After spotting Miranda’s husband in the club and “taking over” one of the dance “cages” we had a night to remember!

We went back to Kid Rock’s and watched a fantastic performer by the name of John Stone – we learned he was going to be there on Friday afternoon and planned accordingly!

You can see snippits of our day on Thursday in this TikTok I made – this is a new app for me, so bear with me!

On Friday we enjoyed lunch at The Stillery, which was fantastic! The cool thing about this place is that there is a location in Chandler, AZ that we have visited not that far from us! Great food, delicious drinks, and…you guessed it…live music.

We then headed back to Kid Rock’s to watch John Stone perform that afternoon. Our friend’s daughter and her friend had shirts made complete with a Venmo QR code on the back to buy drinks for the birthday girl. What an amazing afternoon with an awesome performance from John Stone, lots of laughs, dancing, and free drinks for the birthday girl!!! She even made her way on stage at one point!

After grabbing a quick bite to eat at the Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery we remembered the bar we had seen earlier in the day with a mechanical bull…I mean…how could we not? The Wild Beaver Saloon was calling our name. Complete with karaoke, Jell-O shots, and 3 ladies willing to ride the bull, this was a great way to wrap up our evening!

Here is a link to the TikTok I created with our Friday adventures!

A few of us decided to grab breakfast on Saturday morning at 417 Union which is a quaint restaurant with lots of WWII memorabilia, delicious food, and a quick walk from our hotel.

We spent the afternoon hitting a few different locations throughout the day to enjoy more live music starting with Legend’s Corner, which by the way has a very cool mural on the side of the building! It is filled with record albums on the walls and tons of history.

Because it was Saturday, it was fairly busy everywhere. A couple of us went to scope out bars and we landed on the Downtown Sporting Club – what a fun place! Live music on the rooftop, tons of games (including axe throwing and beer pong) and a mid-level space where we spent most of our time in front of the windows overlooking Broadway.

Next stop was Luke Bryan’s Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink where we sat on the rooftop, and enjoyed more music, people watching, and drinks.

Our ultimate goal on Saturday was our VIP reservation at 7:00 p.m. at Jason Aldean’s Kitchen & Rooftop Bar. With such a large group, securing this VIP table was key on a Saturday night! We had a large seating area, bottle service, an open patio, and easy access to the dance floor! We enjoyed live music for part of the time and then a DJ for the last part of the night – it was perfect!

Last but not least, I created one final TikTok with images and videos from Friday, you can watch it here.

On Sunday I got up, packed, and told The Hubby I’d meet him and the others downtown for lunch before we needed to head to the airport. It was fun walking around and perusing the gift shops as well as those with cool boots, hats, jewelry and clothing. I secured a table at Blanco for the group where we enjoyed lunch – yummy Mexican food and a little bit of final shopping before we headed to the airport.

I hope if you have the opportunity to visit Nashville you will take into consideration some of my recommendations! We had a fantastic time celebrating our friend’s 50th birthday! Cheers!