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VOL. 47 | NO. 39 | Friday, September 22, 2023

Good times, above and below

Rooftop bars, lounges a growing aspect of Nashville’s downtown hotel scene

By Colleen Creamer

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In Nashville’s growing experience economy, hotels in the city’s downtown core are increasingly coming in with rooftop bars, and though Booking.com doesn’t yet have a filter for a bar aloft their hotel rooms, they soon may need one.

Four launched within the last two years, and at least four more are scheduled to open within the next two. The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp has a comprehensive list of all the rooftop bars in Music City for visitors looking for a different viewpoint on the city.

Rooftop lounges and restaurants give people an opportunity to connect to the outdoors in larger cities where there might not be as many outdoor spaces specifically in downtowns. And they are inherently Instagrammable.

The trend in Nashville started with two near simultaneous openings in the fall of 2016, the L.A. Jackson at the Thompson Nashville and L27 Rooftop Lounge atop the Westin Nashville. However, the distinction of being the first hotel with a rooftop experience goes to UP Rooftop Lounge at the Fairfield Inn & Suites in the Gulch, which opened in 2015.

Lofty bars are not unusual for the Thompson brand, which has rooftop bars and restaurants throughout the world. The Nashville hotel’s director of sales and marketing, Lisa Bush, says even though they were not exactly the first in Nashville, they were the “first of its kind.”

A bartender prepares a mixed drink for patrons of the L.A. Jackson rooftop bar at The Thompson Nashville hotel on 11th Avenue South.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow | The Ledger

“Coming into the Nashville market, we had an idea that we would be successful because we had been successful in so many other cities,” Bush says. “There are multiple hotels with rooftop bars that have opened in Nashville since we opened in Oct. 2016, but we were one of the first of its kind and that is our claim to fame; it’s in our DNA.”

Indeed, numerous hotels with rooftop bars did soon crop up in the downtown core including The Grand Hyatt Nashville, The Four Seasons, The Bobby, The Joseph, Graduate Nashville, Sheraton Grand Downtown and Noelle Hotel, just to name a few.

And more are on the way. The Cambria Hotel is slated for Church Street in Midtown later this year and, in 2024 alone, Nashville will get The Printing House, The Canopy by Hilton and the Nashville Edition Hotel. Making use of square footage in a city that continues to be one of the fastest growing in the U.S., it seems, is increasingly a driver for hotel developers.

Close enough, yet safely away

Courtney Arnett, assistant director of food and beverage at the Grand Hyatt Nashville in the Gulch, says that the Hyatt’s rooftop lounge, Lou/Na, housed on the hotel’s 25th floor, provides the amusement of being able to just swivel to see the crowds on Broadway while not having to be amid Lower Broad’s crush.

The Hyatt’s 25th floor rooftop lounge, Lou/Na, allows patrons to see downtown crowds while not having to be in the midst of Lower Broad’s crush.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow | The Ledger

“What’s great about the Grand Hyatt is we can see the energy happening on Broadway; we are just close enough on the outskirts to see the massive crowds,” Arnett says. “Financially, it makes sense; how much revenue can we get by building higher, having more stages and giving more artists more exposure given this huge influx of people coming to Nashville even just since the pandemic. And who doesn’t like an al fresco moment?”

Similarly, Harriet’s Rooftop at 1 Hotel on Demonbreun Street is near, yet not too near, Lower Broad, a selling point according to the bar’s beverage manager, Harrison Deakin.

“We have a spot where locals can come, where they are not on Broadway but are still downtown where they can have a great meal, great drinks and a beautiful view,” says Deakin. “We opened the rooftop in early January of last year; we have fire pits outside for those who do want to brave the cold during the winter. On weeknights we get more coming in for the sunset in the evening because our windows are floor to ceiling. It is really a beautiful view, and then on the weekends, it’s just packed.”

Glassware waits in the twilight at the L.A. Jackson bar. The spot at The Thompson Nashville opened in 2016, part of a pattern of rooftop destinations in downtown Music City.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow | The Ledger

The roots of the trend, however, could also be traced to years before 2016 and the activity happening on the popular, rooftop honky tonks along Lower Broadway, like Acme Feed & Seed, AJ’s Good Time Bar, Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar, Luke’s 32 Bridge, The Stage, and Tootsies. Roof Gnome, which connects consumers with roofing professionals, did a comparison study of 300 of the country’s largest cities and rated Nashville fifth in number of rooftop bars alone. They used several metrics including climate and affordability.

And then there’s COVID.

“If it wasn’t already a trend, and I think it was, then COVID certainly made it a trend,” says Brett Withers, who sits on Metro Nashville’s Planning Commission. “There were occupancy limits for indoor spaces if you could open at all. I think a lot of places began to realize that having outdoor spaces were certainly valuable during a pandemic. People in Nashville are finally wanting to hang out outside. I think a lot of places have begun to realize that having outdoor spaces is not only valuable during a pandemic, but even just the rest of the time.”

New builds thwart views

Hannah Lutz, event manager for both the Fairfield Inn & Suites and UP, says even though Fairfield’s rooftop lounge is still a going concern, tall apartment buildings along Division Street soon got in the way of their view.

“We actually had a fantastic view,” says Lutz. “We were able to see the entire convention center. We were able to see the Batman building (the AT&T building) in all its glory. We could see fireworks on the Fourth of July and new year’s eve. It was a great location with a great view, but with all of the construction and all of the development in Nashville it, unfortunately, is no longer there.”

Downtown Nashville’s rooftop bars have become prime gathering spaces for after-work crowds.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow | The Ledger

Lutz says people patronize UP because they remember that it was the first in the city; others just like what the lounge offers, good food and craft cocktails, live music, watch parties and lawn games.

“It opened, and then they forgot about us a little bit, and now we’re continuing to get out and remind people that we’re here,” says Lutz. “They continue to come back for the nightlife and for the atmosphere because we do really try to hold true to southern hospitality in both the rooftop bar and the hotel. And I also hear from a lot of other people who were here back in the heyday.”

So, how do rooftop bars and the hotels they inhabit coexist? The hotel trade publication Hotel Management states that rooftop bars and restaurants cultivate a “cool and cozy vibe” which can compel patrons to linger late into the night, necessitating a plan to handle noise and general additional commotion:

“But this means that guests can wait for two hours or more just to get in, the staff can end up serving hundreds of people for a long time. It also requires careful consideration of the hotel’s core competency of providing comfortable sleeping conditions.”

Many spots long time in coming

Luxury and upscale hotels, however, simply bake in the required protocols needed to make both bar patrons and hotel patrons happy, according to Manuel Deisen, general manager of the W Nashville, a luxury lifestyle hotel in the Gulch. He says that is what W Nashville did long before plans were submitted to the city.

“The concept of our hotel was done seven years ago,” Deisen says. “It took seven years of construction, and it was always going to be a lifestyle hotel, and so the hotel is laid out very very well in terms of being able to have different programming and different venues, without interfering with anyone else. Proof, our rooftop bar, is on the 13th floor. Or you can join us in our Living Room Bar where we have live entertainment from a vocalist to a two-or-three-piece band.”

The warming trend in Tennessee, Arnett adds, happens to be a win for both outdoor bars and the people who love patronizing them.

“I think with the current weather, we are seeing that the season is longer,” she says. “And Nashville is turning into more than Music City; we connect with celebration … It’s woven into the culture of what the South is.”

For hotels banking on views to last for a while in a town where the locals are forced to see ubiquitous construction cranes as public art, those views may not be guaranteed.

“Right now, there is nothing in the works that’s going to block our view in the foreseeable future,” says Bush of the L.A. Jackson’s view of the Nashville skyline.

At least not yet. CityNowNext, an online media outlet focused on covering development news in the Nashville region, says that project plans have been submitted to the city for 45 structures that range in height from 15 to 60 stories.

For now, though, most rooftop lounges and restaurants in Nashville have unobstructed views, which is good; research shows that when we look above the horizon, it activates the same part of the brain involved during meditation, creativity activities, and dreaming. Add libations and a few close friends, and it’s not too much of a leap to “experience to remember.”

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