Nashville

Slow Down at Tempo in Nashville

December 10, 2018 By Kathleen Hartsfield Spicer Leave a Comment

Tempo nashville Nashville residents will recognize Nolensville Pike as one of the best and most diverse areas to eat in the city. You can find cuisines ranging from Kurdish to El Salvadorian along the stretch of road south of downtown. Recently, the Solis family added a new destination to the lineup – Tempo.

Tempo is a coffee shop that Javier and Yvonne Solis, along with their kids, Zylah and Uriah opened this September. The family is originally from San Antonio and Houston and the offerings at the shop are distinctly Texan. The coffee is sourced from Greenway Coffee in Houston, they make homemade tortillas (the dough is shipped from San Antonio) for their breakfast tacos, and they always have cold Topo Chico on hand. They also source…

Stay Golden Shines in Nashville

September 25, 2018 By Kathleen Hartsfield Spicer Leave a Comment

Stay Golden Nashville

The Nashville coffee landscape gained a distinctive cafe and roastery this August in Berry Hill. Stay Golden is the latest project from Sean Stewart, Jamie Cunningham, and Nathanael Mehrens. Last December, they began working with parent company, DesignWorks on the concept and enlisted many familiar faces from the Nashville coffee community to be part of it. The trio have all worked in various parts of the Nashville coffee scene for the last several years, Steadfast Coffee being their most recent project. Cunningham said this concept is an evolution on their thoughts on coffee and hospitality and a “resurrection and completion of ideas and past projects.”…

Retrograde Coffee Moves Nashville’s Coffee Scene Forward

August 7, 2018 By Kathleen Hartsfield Spicer Leave a Comment

Retrograde Coffee

Driving along Dickerson Pike in East Nashville, you can’t miss the brightly colored mural that has been added to the landscape. Take a closer look, and you’ll see the gold lettering and green interior of Retrograde Coffee. After a swift ninety day building period, the café opened on July 14. Before Retrograde’s opening, there wasn’t a cafe in the neighborhood. The community’s response has been positive– in the short time since they’ve been open, they’ve already established a base of regulars….

Unwavering Hospitality at Nashville’s Steadfast Coffee

December 22, 2015 By Michael Leave a Comment

DSCF4781

When was the last time you went to a coffee shop and felt like the star? While craft coffee has focused on improving the product, the customer experience has largely been overlooked. Nashville’s Steadfast Coffee is trying to change that. When we first visited Steadfast Coffee they were a small pop-up shop with big ambitions. A year later and they’ve opened a roastery, a café with a full kitchen, and a cocktail bar is on the way. The common thread throughout? Hospitality….

Cafe Review: Revelator Coffee in Nashville

November 25, 2015 By Michael Leave a Comment

Revelator Coffee

You might might say 2015 has been the year of Revelator. Technically, the Birmingham-based company opened their first café at the end of 2014, but in a span of less than 12 months Revelator Coffee has opened five cafes in as many cities- with a sixth one on the way. We’ve long considered Nashville the South’s coffee capital, so we weren’t surprised that Revelator picked Music City as the site of their fifth café….

A Look Inside Golden Sound: Barista Parlor’s Stunning New Café

November 4, 2014 By Michael 5 Comments

Good as Gold

With a highly refined aesthetic and an unparalleled selection of specialty coffee roasters, Barista Parlor has set the standard for boutique coffee shops for the past two years. The café is known to produce rather visceral reactions on the part of its customers, and despite attracting a small following of haters, a steady flow of Nashvillians flock there for their house-made biscuits, extensive chocolate menu, and, or course, coffee. With the constant demand, it was only a matter of time before Barista Parlor opened a second location. With Barista Parlor Golden Sound, that moment has arrived….

Steadfast Coffee: A Nashville Pop-up With Big Ambitions

October 13, 2014 By Michael 3 Comments

Steadfast Coffee Nashville

A small Nashville pop-up shop is on the brink of something big. Currently located inside of Germantown’s collaborative workspace The Skillery, Steadfast Coffee is a collaboration between coffee veteran Sean Stewart and entrepreneur Dale Clay. The two previously founded coffee consulting company Steadfast Coffee will move into their permanent home in January, 2015. …

Cafe Review: Crema in Nashville

June 17, 2014 By Kathleen Hartsfield Spicer 4 Comments

A brisk 7-minute walk from the Country Music Hall of Fame, tucked away in a rather unlikely location near a Shell station, is Crema, Nashville’s premier micro-roaster. The dirt parking lot is reminiscent of some Tennessee back road and the building is unassuming. Upon stepping into the café, however, that impression disseminates with the greeting of a friendly barista and the scent of roasting coffee. Crema is both café and roastery, and the space is home to the operation behind their award winning coffee….

On the Road: Travels of a Barista Dirt Bag, Part I – Barista Parlor

October 11, 2013 By Guest 3 Comments

Day 1: 10/6/ 2013

Editor’s note: Travels of a Barista Dirt Bag is an ongoing series of dispatches from barista/ guest blogger Zach Hester. The search for a delicious cup of coffee is taking Zach from his native Kentucky bluegrass, down the Mississippi Delta, across the Southwest to the shining Pacific Ocean. Tune in each day for a fresh update.

On The Road

We took off a day and several hours past what we had originally planned. By “we,” I mean myself and long time friend and vagabond, Ian Herrick, who has just made his way back stateside from a long stay over in Costa Rica as a hired hand on a sustainable farm. His latest addendum to his diverse CV: planting a banana orchard. It’s no wonder we’ve left Louisville with something to be desired in the department of punctuality, although I am mainly to blame for this. It’s October 6^th and sometime around three in the afternoon. We’re driving south on 65 and still some miles north of Nashville. Tropical Storm Karen’s rains are very much present in the atmosphere. Everything has cooled over the last 24 hours and our field of view comes in and out with the rhythms of windshield wipers. We’re listening to the Beta Band, loudly. …

Barista Parlor: Anchoring Nashville’s Coffee Scene

September 13, 2012 By Michael 3 Comments

You’ve probably heard your favorite band being played in your local coffee shop, but you probably have never seen your favorite band there, unless your local coffee shop is Barista Parlor in Nashville, TN. But then again, Barista Parlor is far from your typical coffee shop.

Tucked away in a remodeled garage just off of Gallatin Ave, East Nashville’s main thoroughfare, Barista Parlor is marked by a giant horizontal anchor and a rather garish orange and blue exterior. The high-ceilinged interior has the aura of an abandoned WWII hanger, which may be influenced by BP’s penchant for 1940s and 50s music and vintage decor. Customers chat at hand-crafted tables that circle an island of high end coffee machinery. The far wall is filled with a contemporary art piece of a pixilated ship which only becomes visible when viewed through a smart phone or camera. Owner Andy Mumma’s meticulous attention to detail has even attracted the attention of the New York Times, whose article talked more about the furniture than the coffee.

If there’s one word to describe Barista Parlor’s approach to specialty coffee it’s…