Beloved Broadway Brewhouse Reopens Under New Management and Name

When our Nashville Post colleague William Williams shared the nugget of news that Broadway Brewhouse was planning to close rather suddenly after 25 years, social media erupted with the expected sadness and gripes about greedy developers and "This is why we can't have nice things!" As I always say, it's OK to be sad when something you love goes away, but maybe give it a minute before you start blaming investors and entrepreneurs for doing what investors and entrepreneurs do.

If fact, you would only have to have given it 1,440 minutes: After a busy four-day sendoff where longtime fans swarmed Broadway Brewhouse to pay their last respects and even steal some of the bricks out of the floor, the staff was summoned to a meeting the very next day. There they were told that the new owners of the building planned to reopen the restaurant and bar as soon as they could give it a fresh coat of paint, replace those bricks, tend to the tree that has grown through the middle of the dining room for years and air it out after the recently enacted restaurant smoking ban.

Indeed, just weeks later, the property reopened as Broadway Brewpub & Grub on May 11 with all but a handful of the former employees still working the operation. I dropped by to see what had changed in the turnover, and the answer is, mercifully, just about nothing but the sign over the door!

I spoke to the manager, who told me that those last four days felt like a month, and everyone was pleasantly surprised by the announcement of the reopening. Williams also reported that the building had sold to a development group for $7.25 million dollars, but the manager assured me that their new arrangement with the owners means they’ll be around for at least a few more years, maybe longer.

The Midtown Broadway Brewhouse was connected with the other Brewhouses in town, but was always its own entity — so that necessitated the slight name change. But the menu, furnishings and staff are virtually identical to what they were. The chef at the Broadway location opted to stay with the larger restaurant group, so the new buyers contracted a chef who was already within their organization to give the menu and some recipes a refresh.

The manager promised that the beloved Mojo Wings are still on the menu and as spicy as they used to be after being toned down a bit over the years. As a fan of that intense sweet heat, I welcome the return to yesteryear, and I can attest that the catfish po’boy and fries plate I ate during my exploratory lunch was fantastic, arriving quickly and hot from the kitchen.

Maybe the old-time regulars haven't all gotten the good news yet, but I was able to park (for free!) right in front of the building and only shared the dining room with a couple of daydrinkers (not that there's anything wrong with that) and a table of construction workers. Yellow vests were a common sight among lunchtime diners, and the manager told me that they are just now discovering that one of their favorite quick lunch-break options is again available to them. She also mentioned that the parking along Broadway has been moved a little closer to the street to allow for a planned patio to permit smokers to still enjoy a beer and a ciggie without violating the new ordinances.

One little bureaucratic hoop that they are still jumping through is acquiring a new liquor license, so it will probably be a week or two before those infamous Bushwhackers start pouring again. But in the meantime, Broadway Brewpub & Grub still has scores of beers on tap and in cans, including some novel options left over from last week's Craft Beer Conference that will probably not be seen again in these parts for quite sometime. Distributors were allowed to bring out-of-market beers to town for the conference to showcase, but only for a month, so get down there soon if you want to try something special and rare!

The new local management is giving plenty of rein to the staff to help welcome their old friends back to the building, including trivia nights starting back up in June, lo-o-o-ng happy hours every weekday that start up as soon as the doors open at 11 a.m., weekend 2-4-1 specials and Wednesday pint nights where they offer a dollar off of a featured brewery's pints and you get to keep the glass.

See, sometimes we can have nice things! Help welcome this institution back to the neighborhood and give the new owners a reason to keep them around by dropping by soon and often to visit your old friends on both sides of the bar.

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