Third Places in Nashville
A few of our favorite Nashville spots that aren't home or work
Home is your first place. Work is your second. Everything else - the coffee shop where they start your order when you walk in, the trail where you take the hard phone calls, the gym lobby where you somehow always run into a neighbor - that's your third place.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg named the concept back in 1989, and the definition has held up. Third places are the informal spots where you can set down the concerns of home and work and just be around people. No agenda. No pressure to buy your way in or clear out when you're finished.
Nashville has hundreds of them. These are a handful we keep coming back to, sorted by the kind of day you're having.
Laptop spots
Alone, headphones in, actually getting something done.
Ugly Mugs (Eastland Ave) - The patio, the regulars, and a 6am open.
Living Waters (East Trinity Ln) - Coffee bar by day, brewery by night. Stretches from a quiet 9am work session to a beer with a friend at seven.
Retrograde (Dickerson Pike + Clifton Ave) - Roomy, easy to settle into for a while, and two locations on opposite sides of town.
Frothy Monkey (multiple locations) - The reliable one. The 12 South spot stays open until 8.
Blended work and play
One roof, multiple modes, hours that cover the whole day.
Pinewood Social (Peabody St) - Coffee at 9am, cocktails at 9pm, with bowling, bocce, and a pool in between.
Lost & Found (McGavock Pike) - Open-air compound with a bar, a wine shop, retail, and rotating food trucks. Closed Mondays, so plan around it.
L&L Market (Charlotte Ave) - Shops, coffee, and restaurants packed into a renovated warehouse. Opens at 7 every day.
Outdoor think time
No laptop. This one's for walking calls and for nothing at all.
Radnor Lake - The quietest thinking in Davidson County, 6am to 6pm, and deliberately kept that way.
Shelby Bottoms - Flat, shaded, wide greenway that's easy on the knees and good with a dog. The greenway is always open.
Centennial Park - The most walkable of the three. Benches, ponds, and the Parthenon to circle while you think.
Membership-based
The category almost nobody counts, and probably the most underrated.
YMCA of Middle Tennessee - 12 locations with association-wide access, so one membership travels with you across the metro. Childcare is included with a Plus membership for up to two hours, which is the whole ballgame if you've got small kids and a call to take. Free wifi, lobbies people actually linger in, and sliding-scale financial assistance through their Open Doors program.
Free and civic
The only tier that asks nothing of you at all.
Richland Park Library (Charlotte Ave) - Open until 8 on weeknights, with a seed library and a garden out front.
East, Bordeaux, and Green Hillsbranches - Similar programming, similar hours. Free computers, free meeting space, free somewhere to be.
The neighborhood branches beat the downtown one on convenience, and most buyers never think to look at them.
One more thing to try
Next time you're touring a neighborhood to potentially live in, give yourself an extra half hour and go find the third place. Order something. Sit down. See who's there and whether anyone's talking.
A listing can tell you square footage, school zone, and what the comps did last quarter. It can't tell you whether you'll enjoy an ordinary Tuesday afternoon there. That part you have to go see for yourself.
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