Best of Berry Hill: Recording Studios, Creative Businesses, and Daily Life

Here is the thing nobody tells you about Berry Hill until you have walked it: it is about the size of a few city blocks, it has its own tiny police department, and most of the buildings are 1940s cottages that somebody turned into a recording studio. You will drive past a little house with vinyl siding and a sign out front, and somebody is inside it laying down vocals. You would never know. That is sort of the whole personality of the place. It does not announce itself, and neither, for a long time, did its food.

The old line on Berry Hill was that you had to leave it to eat. Everything good was over in 12 South or Melrose, and Berry Hill was just studios and antique malls. That has not been true for a while now. The neighborhood quietly filled in with its own coffee, its own bakery, its own brunch, its own working distillery. So this is the honest, hungry version of the list — what is actually open, what you should order when you get there, and what it is like to eat. A couple of beloved old names have moved or closed, and I will tell you about those too, because nothing wastes a lunch like driving over for a place that has been dark since January.

Where to Eat

The headline room is Common Ground at 734 Thompson Lane, in the old Yellow Porch space — it opened in August 2023 and it is the best-reviewed table in the neighborhood right now. Order the smashburger. It is Black Hawk Wagyu, smashed thin with extra-cheesy American cheese, onions melted right into the beef drippings, paper-thin pickles, and a tangy Worcestershire-spiked 'CG sauce' that does not taste like anybody else's burger sauce. Then get the chicken katsu, which regulars will flat-out call one of their favorite dishes in town — shatteringly crisp, not greasy. Start the table with the focaccia plate: warm house sourdough, sorghum butter, whipped Boursin, and a tomato-bacon jam you will keep going back to after you swore you were done. The shrimp tacos and the Korean-BBQ short rib lettuce wraps hold their own, and the cocktail program is serious enough that people show up just for the espresso martini flight. Happy hour runs Tuesday through Saturday, 4 to 6.

Two doors down at 700 Thompson Lane is Calypso Cafe, the opposite kind of meal and just as loved — Caribbean-leaning, fresh, healthy without being smug about it. The thing to get is the Lucayan Salad: green leaf lettuce, marinated chicken breast, mandarin oranges, toasted almonds, and a generous pour of their famous house vinaigrette that people genuinely ask to buy by the bottle. It comes with two Boija corn muffins, and those muffins are the reason half the regulars are there — sweet, dense, gone before the salad is. The rotisserie chicken with house-made Jamaican curry or Caribbean BBQ sauce is the other move, and the black bean and corn salad is a side worth ordering on its own. Calypso has been around since 1989 and has the Nashville Scene reader awards to prove it; ownership passed to cousins in early 2025, but the Thompson Lane location never closed, which is the part that matters to you.

For lunch under ten bucks, Vui's Kitchen at 2832 Bransford Ave is the one locals fall back on without thinking. Get the beef pho — the broth is the whole argument, clean and patient, the kind people describe as 'as good if not better than a lot of pho I've had.' If you want something to hold, the pork belly banh mi is an altogether amazing sandwich, and the pork belly bao buns get called some of the best buns people have ever tasted, which is a big sentence for a small steamed bun, and it earns it. There are real vegan options too — the tofu bao buns are not an afterthought. It is a cozy room and most of the menu is under ten dollars, which is how you end up there twice a week and only notice when you do the math on your debit card.

And then there is The Nashville Jam Café at 2806 Columbine Pl, the new-Southern brunch from Chef Gary Baron and the cafe arm of The Nashville Jam Co., which makes fourteen flavors of house jam plus its own ketchups, mustards, and hot sauces. The named customer favorite is the shrimp and grits, an incredible spin on the classic, and they are not wrong to be proud of it. But the dish people talk about after is the PB&J Chicken Biscuit — pimento cheese, bacon, and tomato jam stacked on a fried chicken biscuit, which is more harmony than chaos once you bite it. Get the Bronuts for the table: battered, fried, cheesecake-filled, finished with blueberry compote, somewhere between a doughnut and a dessert and not apologizing for either. The biscuits arrive fluffy with those house jams, and there is a patio for weekend mornings. Daily, 8 to 3.

Coffee, Pastry, and the Glass-Blowing Situation

Berry Hill is weirdly stacked on coffee for a place this small, and as of last summer it finally has a real bakery anchor. Perenn Bakery took over Stay Golden's old space at 2934 Sidco Dr — the Oak Barrel Building — and opened in August 2025. It is a husband-and-wife European bakery with an open production floor you can watch, and the signature is the vanilla crème brûlée kouign amann: caramelized and crackly on the outside, soft and laminated inside, with a custardy vanilla center that makes the whole thing feel a little illegal for a pastry counter. Pair it with a croissant — hand-laminated, properly shattering — and if you want something hot, get the egg-soufflé-and-cheddar breakfast sandwich on an English muffin or croissant. The ricotta toast and the prosciutto cotto baguette are the lighter plays, the kale salad if you are pretending, and the iced herbes de Provence latte and matcha cloud are the drinks people order to feel fancy at 9 a.m. Open daily, 7 to 2:30.

Sam & Zoe's at 525 Heather Pl is the other end of the spectrum and just as essential — one of the oldest coffee shops in Nashville and still cheap, no-frills, the spot that was here before coffee got expensive everywhere else. The order is the BLT breakfast Sammie: farm eggs, bacon, lettuce, and tomato on whole wheat, and the whole thing is about balance — nothing dominates, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. 'The Mac' breakfast sandwich has its own loyalists, and the vegan TLT with Cajun tofu and vegan pesto is the rare plant-based item locals order even when they eat meat. The breakfast burrito, the California, and the lox and cream cheese round it out. Open early on weekdays and a little later on weekends.

Paper St Coffee at 2600 Fessey Park Rd is the tucked-away one, connected to a fitness studio and built into an apartment complex — the kind of place you only find because a neighbor told you. It is a third-wave, single-origin, small-batch roaster, and the coffee is bold and built to taste like something, not just wake you up. Get a cortado or a flat white off their single-origin beans and let it tell you what it is. There is cold brew, matcha, chai, dairy-free options, and a few food items, but the espresso is the reason to find the door.

And then there is Nashville Glasshaüs at 483 Craighead St, which I cannot describe in one word because it refuses to be one thing — roughly ten thousand square feet of coffee shop, bar, restaurant, gallery, and a working glassblowing studio, the city's first. There is an in-house roastery, so get a latte, then stay for the Saturday glass-blowing demo from noon to one and watch somebody pull a vase out of molten glass from a forty-foot bar overlooking the hot shop. I will be honest with you: the food here is light bites, chef-curated and fine, but it is the supporting act. You go for the coffee and the spectacle, and you leave a little rearranged. Cocktails too, if it is that kind of afternoon.

Where to Drink

The neighborhood's beer story changed this year, so let me be straight about it: Berry Hill no longer has a standalone brewery taproom. Black Abbey Brewing's Sidco Drive taproom closed after Jackalope Brewing acquired the brand in January 2026, and the Sidco brewery is not expected to keep running long-term. The good news is the beer survived the deal — same recipes, founder along for the ride — so if you were chasing The Rose, their popular Belgian blonde, or the Original Lager, the Tennessee IPA, or The Special, you will now find them on tap at Jackalope's taproom at 429B Houston St, which is a short drive out of the neighborhood. Worth knowing before somebody hands you a two-year-old guidebook and sends you to a locked door on Sidco.

What is actually open and pouring inside Berry Hill is Big Machine Distillery & Tavern at 2824 Bransford Ave — a working distillery and full Southern tavern tied to the Big Machine record label, with a warm, woodsy room. The signature plate is Nashville hot chicken and waffles: fried chicken in hot sauce stacked between two Belgian waffles with maple syrup, which is exactly the kind of sweet-heat thing you regret ordering for about one bite and then stop regretting entirely. Pair it with a Pickers-brand cocktail. The pulled pork sandwich comes with their own Clayton James whiskey BBQ sauce, the whiskey wings do what whiskey wings should, and the pretzel bites and cheese curds are honest bar snacks. They run brunch seven days a week with bottomless 'vimosas' — vodka mimosas, yes — and the Nashville eggs Benedict is the brunch pick. Live local music on weekends.

Dessert

I will give you the honest version: Berry Hill does not have a dedicated ice cream shop or dessert counter inside the studio core. Nobody has opened the scoop shop the neighborhood is quietly waiting on. What you do have is two genuinely strong sweet endings hiding in plain sight. Perenn's crème brûlée kouign amann is a dessert pretending to be a breakfast pastry — get it in the afternoon and stop calling it anything else. And The Nashville Jam Café's Bronuts — fried, cheesecake-filled, blueberry-compote-finished — are the closest thing to a sit-down dessert in the neighborhood, and they travel well enough to carry to the table or the car. Common Ground's bar and dessert situation can carry the after-dinner part of an evening on Thompson Lane. So you are not stuck. You just have to know that 'dessert' here means 'a bakery and a brunch spot did it better than a dessert shop would have.'

If You're Moving Here From Out of State

A few things that will save you a confused afternoon. First, Berry Hill is tiny and tightly woven — the good eating is genuinely walkable in clusters, with Common Ground, Calypso, and Perenn all within a short stretch, and Vui's, Big Machine, and the Jam Café a few blocks over. Second, the neighborhood bleeds into the 8th Avenue South and Melrose edge, so a lot of 'Berry Hill' lists online will throw in spots that actually sit outside the studio core; before you plan a walking lunch around an address, confirm it is in the neighborhood and not a ten-minute drive. Third, the lineup changed recently in two big ways — Stay Golden moved out and Perenn moved into its old space, and Black Abbey's taproom closed — so any guide more than a year old will send you to the wrong doors. When in doubt, call ahead. I have driven over for a place that closed three months earlier. It is a long, quiet walk back to the car.

Recently Closed (or Moved)

• •Black Abbey Brewing Company taproom (2952 Sidco Dr) — closed after Jackalope Brewing acquired the brand in January 2026; the Sidco brewery is not expected to operate long-term. The beers live on at Jackalope's taproom at 429B Houston St, outside Berry Hill.
• •Stay Golden — left Berry Hill after five-plus years in its Sidco Drive space and relocated to The Nations at 904 51st Ave N. If you remember the yeasted waffle or the 'Country Grammar' biscuit plate fondly, the food is excellent and still exists — just not here anymore. Perenn Bakery now occupies the old space.
• •The Yellow Porch (734 Thompson Lane) — the long-running institution that closed a few years back. Common Ground took over the space and has been open since August 2023, so if an out-of-town friend tells you to go to the Yellow Porch, you will have to gently break the news, then take them to the smashburger instead.

What's Missing (Honestly)

• •A standalone brewery taproom. Black Abbey's closure left a real gap; Big Machine is the in-neighborhood place to drink now, but it is a distillery-tavern, not a craft beer hall.
• •A dedicated dessert or ice cream shop inside the studio core. Perenn and the Jam Café cover the sweet tooth well, but there is no scoop shop yet.
• •A grocery store inside the neighborhood proper. Errand runs lean on the surrounding 8th Avenue and 100 Oaks corridor.
• •A clean boundary. Berry Hill is small and bleeds into its edges, so confirm any address is actually in the studio core before you build a walking afternoon around it.

One on the watch list, not the open list: Harvey's New York Style Bagels, from the team behind Charleston's award-winning Ruby's Bagels, announced a Berry Hill flagship in early 2026 — classic New York-style bagels, bagel sandwiches, and coffee. As of mid-2026 there is no opening date or menu, so do not drive over for it yet. But it is the kind of addition that would fill a real hole, so keep it in the back of your mind.

Quick Questions

What's the best restaurant in Berry Hill?

Common Ground at 734 Thompson Lane is the best-reviewed sit-down room in the neighborhood right now — get the smashburger and the chicken katsu. For a cheaper, just-as-loved meal, Vui's Kitchen and Calypso Cafe are the locals' fallbacks.

Where's the best brunch in Berry Hill?

The Nashville Jam Café (daily 8 to 3) for new-Southern brunch — shrimp and grits, the PB&J Chicken Biscuit, and the Bronuts. Big Machine Distillery & Tavern does a bigger, boozier brunch seven days a week with bottomless vimosas and live music on weekends.

Is Berry Hill kid-friendly for eating out?

Yes — Calypso Cafe and Vui's Kitchen are casual, fast, and easy with kids, and The Nashville Jam Café's daytime brunch and patio work well with a family. Big Machine is more of a tavern, so it leans toward a daytime visit if you have little ones along.

Where do locals get coffee in Berry Hill?

Perenn Bakery for coffee plus pastry, Sam & Zoe's for the old-school cheap breakfast favorite, Paper St Coffee for single-origin espresso, and Nashville Glasshaüs if you want a latte with a glass-blowing demo attached.

Can you still get Black Abbey or Stay Golden in Berry Hill?

Not in Berry Hill anymore. Black Abbey's taproom closed in early 2026 and its beers now pour at Jackalope on Houston St. Stay Golden moved to The Nations; Perenn Bakery took over its old Sidco Drive space.

Read Next

• •Best of Berry Hill: Recording Studios, Creative Businesses, and Daily Life — the cultural-anchor and weekly-rhythm read on the neighborhood.
• •Buying in Berry Hill: What Different Price Points Actually Get You — the honest price-band and gotcha guide before you make an offer here.