SURPRISE!!!... Best Wife ever!!!

[mandotool]

You are of course going to Carters ....and yes..its hands down the best Mandolin inventory and a great opportunity to actually play and examine and learn about vintage mandolins and contemporary builders... and with Walter Carter in-house who is one of the foremost authorities on vintage instruments in the world..and also one of the nicest and approachable people you will ever meet...
They have 128 high quality mandolins at the moment ...so give yourself plenty of time. ...you might consider planning on a few visits while you are in town..
and You Have Arnold's Country Kitchen right next door for your "meat+3's

And you will want to visit Gruhns of course..they have about 45 mandolins at the moment.
And there's a great Vietnamese restaurant right next door..
you dont even have to move the car.
"Love Peace & Pho"
PLAY MANDOLINS....EAT....PLAY MANDOLINS...EAT....REPEAT
You are gonna have a blast !

NFI..

[geoffa]

There is a Hattie B’s just down the road from Carter’s and Gruhn’s too (Melrose location). Worth a try if you’ve never had Nashville hot chicken. There are a lot of fun things on that same road. Might as well not even go downtown. But you should go downtown if you’ve never been.

[doublestoptremolo]

There's a cool little music shop in East Nashville called Fanny's House of Music. They didn't have a ton of mandolins when I was there but the ones they had were cool, and they had some cool guitars as well. Pepperfire Hot Chicken nearby is very good. You may already be aware that we have a Hattie B's in ATL now. Now if we can get a branch of Carter's down here . . .

Gruhn's didn't strike me as having a lot of mandolins but maybe I didn't go into the right room. Lots of nice guitars and banjos though, friendly people and quiet rooms for trying out instruments.

[Timbofood]

Just have fun! Don’t worry about tourist density, that happens everywhere! If you have to wait anywhere, be pleasant. It’s a big city with all that that entails. There will be jerks, there will be pearls, much like finding the “right Mandolin” it’s a “frog kissin’” exercise!
I was schooled in “Big City” manners when I was about ten in Chicago at a bloomin’ junkyard! I had bumped into a guy and this five foot forty dude weighing in around half an elephant looked down at me and apologized for being in the way! The joint probably had a hundred people waiting to be taken care of. I loved J.C.Whitney everafter!
It taught me to simply be courteous in metropolitan situations!
Eat anywhere, everywhere. Play instruments anywhere and everywhere! Sleep soundly and have a simply grand time!

[soliver]

Thanks all!

Keep it comin'!

Any Cafe Nashville-ians attend the jam at The Station Inn?

[CES]

There’s a Mexican restaurant a couple blocks from Carter’s that has some of the best house made salsa i’ve Ever had. Dan Voight and the crew recommended it since Arthur’s doesn’t do brunch, and we were very grateful after a night on Nashvegas...

Artisan Guitars and Cotten Music have some good stuff, too, if you have extra time, but, yeah, hard to beat a few hours
at Carter’s and Gruhn’s...

[William Smith]

Yep she is a KEEPER for sure! Happy for ya, hit the bar Tootsies-very historical place next to the opry if I remember correctly, I had a few beers in there after a hair raising experience just walking around the old Ryman! That place you can't help but feel the ancient vibes! KOOL! Hit Gruhns and Carters as they are close together nowadays I think, the Station Inn is always a blast, never know who may pop in! Even hit the Gibson Mando factory-don't know if ya can visit but well worth looking onto as David Harvey is a super nice guy and pry the best Acoustic type Engineer Gibson ever had besides that Loar guy!
Not to brag but my wife is a KEEPER also, she doesn't mind what I do musically be it buy expensive vintage instruments or go and play out-she actually wants me to go and play all the time "maybe she just doesn't want my OCD at home-funny!" Great women can be hard to come by so when you get one that shares your main passion or fuels or feeds it that's worth a little something!

[Rob Meyer]

If you are downtown, a place we like to eat at is the Sun Diner (105 3rd Ave S, Nashville, TN 37201). Just off Broadway and enough out of way that it wasn’t as busy as other places. No entertainment, just reasonably priced, good quality food. Food suitable for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

[Todd Bowman]

If you are a "greasy spoon" fan, there's the Hermitage Cafe on Hermitage ave just outside town (south side). For lunch downtown, I always try to hit either The Farm House or Etch Restraunt, in the same building across from the CM hall of fame. Both excellent lunch options.

[Timbofood]

Kevin Ball sometimes does the thing at Station Inn, he’s an old friend, if he’s there, tell him hello for me.

[mandos&turtles]

There is a Hattie B’s just down the road from Carter’s and Gruhn’s too (Melrose location). Worth a try if you’ve never had Nashville hot chicken.

Some of the best chicken I've ever had. I strongly second this suggestion!

[Al Trujillo]

All of this is to get me to the point where I can ask y'all to: GIMME SOME IDEAS OF WHAT TO DO IN NASHVILLE!!!!!!
!

Start with flowers for the Mrs.!! Great story, wonderful lady!

[soliver]

Day 1 was a lot of fun!

I realized earlier this week that Gruhn is closed on Sundays, so we opted to head there first. I spent about 3 hours playing just about every Mandolin they had on the first floor. There were a couple of stand outs, but for the most part, nothing I felt that was worth writing home about. There was 1 1920-ish A that sounded ok, a couple of nice prewar F4's and an Altman F5 that was nice. The really fun show stoppers that were there on the 1st floor IMO were the 2 Lawrence Smart Octave Mandolins. I've never played an Octave and these were very full bodied F styles and were really fun to play.



here's a shot of me with one the few National Reso-mando's... nice sounding instruments. Not for me, but definitely nice.


I have a guitarist friend who told me that if its not too busy, you pester them in a nice way ("Hey I drove here all the way from Atlanta") you can get someone to take you up to the second floor where all the really nice stuff is... so I asked and I received! I was taken up and introduced to George Gruhn himself. A very nice man. He let me play 3 of the 7 Lloyd Loar signed Gibson F5's that he had. One 1920's model that was very nice. A 1924 with a Virzi, and a 1923 that had been retopped by Gibson in 1938. All of those were very nice and a treat to play! Then George let me play a Weinman that was really nice as well. He also played it for me himself so I could hear it from across the room. He sat with me and told me all about how Loar had developed the F5 and was very chatty about the history of the instrument. It was really cool to sit and share some one on one time with such a wealth of knowledge. Albeit a quirky but very interesting man.

A little later we decided on heading to dinner at Taco Mamacita which was pretty good and followed that up with coffee and Gelato next door (excellent). Then closed the night by walking up and down Broadway to endure the insanity just to say we did it. ... Probably won't do that again.

Tomorrow it will be Bluegrass Brunch at the Sutler Saloon to hear the Tennessee Warblers then to Carter's Vintage for the afternoon!

[soliver]

Today has been GREAT!!!

We started off at the Sutler Saloon and heard a group called the Tennessee Warblers; or maybe just half of them. It was only the banjo and guitar players that were there but they were great as was the brunch at the Sutler.

From there we had a little time to kill before Carters opened so we went to Antique Archeology... the place owned by the 2 American Pickers mad famous by the history channel. Very cool place to visit.. of course I walked away with a T-shirt and hat. Then on to Carters... what a selection! And I played 90% of it!... some real quality vintage Gibson oval A's, Elkhorn, Apitius, Summit... all the big names and it was a lot of fun! The stand outs for me were of course a Silverangel F, a Pava A and I was blown away by an Old Wave A!... If I had had the money, I would've both the Old Wave, but I'll be ordering a custom SA soon, so no need! I also played a couple of Tenor Banjos just because I've never had the opportunity to try one... I never realized how Heavy Banjos are,... JEEZ! Aside from the opportunity to play instruments that cost more than we paid for our house; ones the Mr Gruhn confirmed that Thile had played, as well as getting to share time with George Gruhn himself,... I honestly enjoyed Carter's more than Gruhn.

Here is the Mando inventory at Carter's:



We went from Carter on to dinner. After dinner at a place called PM (asian fusion kinda place... just ok IMO) we came back to the hotel which is right next door to the Station. Went into the Station and Jammed until late and am just getting to bed now.

Tomorrow, we will futz around a little, go have lunch at the Gaylord and then back home to Atlanta!

[colorado_al]

My experience with Gruhns/Carters matches yours. Gruhns has some fantastic instruments. Carters does as well, and is a great place to spend time picking!
Glad you're having a great trip!
Safe travels!

[HonketyHank]

cheers, soliver. thanks for the updates.

[soliver]

Went toThe Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention center this morning. My wife stays here for an annual Home School Convention every spring, so she showed me around. What an amazing feat of engineering!... It was really really cool. Vast atrium after atrium of tropical plant life with numerous water features surrounded by hotel living space, convention halls, restaurants and shopping.... very very cool. Worth a visit if you don't mind spending an hour or 2 wandering around the plant life. We had lunch at one of the many restaurants at the Gaylord and then headed home.

A shot of one of the atriums:



Back in Marietta now ... great trip overall. Thanks for sharing suggestions everyone!