When did you last walk through The Arcade instead of past it? If the answer is sometime in 2025, you saw a building that had just reopened. The one standing between 4th and 5th Avenues North this fall keeps much longer hours.
The Arcade opened in 1902 as Nashville's first shopping center. It reopened to the public in early 2025 after about two years of renovation, and Visit Music City's guide said it would keep developing through 2026. It has done that. Look at this year's openings by time of day instead of by storefront, and the pattern is clear. The ground floor now covers breakfast, lunch, dessert and a cocktail hour. The second floor, which has always been the building's quieter half, is where the next stage is still underway.
What the renovation cost before it paid off
The Arcade spent two years under renovation with Nashville-based Dryden Architecture. That work came at a cost to at least one long-running tenant. In August 2023, Axios Nashville reported that Manny's House of Pizza had closed right away after 39 years. The restaurant could not run with a full kitchen while the renovation was going on.
The Peanut Shop came through the renovation. It still operates at 19 Arcade and has served customers in the building since 1927. That makes it the longest-running thread in a building that now holds more than 30 restaurant, bar and retail concepts.
The first wave after reopening was mostly retail. The Arcade's tenant directory lists Faherty, Flea Style, Savannah Bee Company, Any Old Iron, H Bar C Ranchwear, From Nashville with Love and Tony's Shoe Service. It also lists food counters like Ugly Bagel, RSlice By Roberta's and Playa Bowls, plus Urban Cowboy Bar. That made the building a good place to shop and grab lunch. The openings since then have made it a place to stay into the evening.
2026 filled the hours, not just the storefronts
The openings came one after another, and each covered a time of day the building had not fully served before.
Late 2025: the honky-tonk in the alley. Buddy's Tiny Tonk opened in Arcade Alley in fall 2025. It comes from the team behind Pearl Diver and Lucky's 3 Star, and it pairs classic honky-tonk music with cold drinks and sloppy joes. That gave the alley its first real reason to stay busy after dark.
Winter: an early start at the Fourth Avenue door. Beignets & Brew took the space next to The Arcade's Fourth Avenue entrance and serves made-to-order beignets and coffee. Local trackers disagree on the month: one lists December 2025, another February 2026. Either way, the building's most visible doorway now opens on a breakfast counter.
February: a burger with a following. In February, the Nashville Business Journal reported that NADC Burger had opened at The Arcade. The Austin concept grew nationally on two items, a backyard burger and beef tallow fries. NADC stands for "Not a Damn Chance." It was created by chef Phillip Frankland Lee and pro skateboarder Neen Williams, and its burger is a double Wagyu patty with American cheese, secret sauce, onions, pickles and jalapeños.
May: a cocktail bar built for a second round. Bar Roza opened at 211 Arcade Alley. It is the newest project from Julia Jaksic of Cafe Roze and Roze Pony, and she co-owns it with Roze beverage director Owen Gibler. Its menu opens with the Astors, a set of smaller, lower-alcohol cocktails meant for trying several. They pair with shareable plates like n'duja gougères and mortadella focaccia with Calabrian ricotta. For someone who lives a few blocks away, a smaller pour makes a weeknight drink easy to fit in.
July: a full lunch and dinner kitchen. Naked Farmer opened on July 6 at 217 4th Avenue North and serves lunch and dinner from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. The menu changes with the seasons, uses ingredients from family-owned farms in the region, and the kitchen cooks only with avocado oil and extra virgin olive oil. It also offers pickup, delivery and catering. That makes it an everyday kitchen as much as a sit-down restaurant.
Summer: gelato with a permanent address. Zio Matto Gelato now has a permanent home at The Arcade. Founder Matteo Servente makes small batches of Italian gelato inspired by his hometown of Torino.
Put those together and you can spend a full day in one building. Morning beignets, a burger or a seasonal plate at lunch, gelato in the afternoon and a cocktail or a honky-tonk set at night are all within a few dozen steps. A year ago, few of those hours had a dedicated tenant.
Upstairs is where the building is still filling in
The second floor works on a different schedule. Arcade Arts runs resident-artist studios and Gallery 56 at 65 Arcade Alley, and on the second Saturday of each month from 6 to 9 p.m. the studios open for a walk-through. Visitors meet the artists and see their work, and many crawl nights include an opening or closing reception for Gallery 56's rotating exhibitions.
The monthly event is the Second Saturday Art Crawl, hosted by the Downtown Arts District Alliance. Anyone who still has the old First Saturday in their head will be a week early. The Alliance's suggested route starts at Browsing Room, 154 Rep. John Lewis Way North. From there it goes to Tinney Contemporary at 237 Rep. John Lewis Way North, up to Arcade Arts, then Swipe Right Art at Studio 208, 208 3rd Avenue North, and ends at Untitled Hotel, 221 2nd Avenue North. The remaining 2026 crawls, each from 6 to 9 p.m., are:
- Saturday, October 10
- Saturday, November 14
- Saturday, December 12
The second floor is also where the building's biggest dining addition is still on the way. Sushi by Scratch, the Michelin-acclaimed omakase group, plans a 10-seat counter upstairs with a 16-course menu. The original announcement in May 2025 targeted late 2025. As of the end of September 2026, the restaurant's own Nashville page still says "Opening Soon!", and local tracker Nashville Guru now projects 2027. Until it opens, the art crawl is the main reason to climb the stairs.
The block outside the doors filled in too
The change reaches past The Arcade's walls along 4th Avenue North. Jo's Coffee, the Austin coffee shop, opened on April 10 at 210 4th Avenue North inside Dream Nashville, a few steps across from the building. It serves coffee, breakfast tacos, pastries and sandwiches. With Beignets & Brew at the Fourth Avenue door, that one stretch now has two morning coffee stops where it had none.
A few blocks north, WeGo Market sets up every Wednesday from 3 to 6 p.m. on the plaza at the Elizabeth Duff Transit Center at WeGo Central. It sells locally grown produce at discounted prices, and it runs through November 18. The market sits on 4th Avenue North between WeGo Central and Municipal Auditorium. It is a partnership among WeGo Public Transit, The Nashville Food Project and Cul2vate.
"We want our community to have access to the best, freshest local produce at prices they can afford while ensuring our local farmers aren't shouldering the cost," said Rebecah Boynton, Community Markets Manager at The Nashville Food Project, in WKRN's coverage of the launch.
For downtown, a weekly produce stop matters as an errand, not an outing. Between the market, Naked Farmer's pickup counter and two morning coffee options, 4th Avenue North now handles more of an ordinary weekday than it did at the start of the year. The Arcade sits in the middle of that stretch.
Six weeks of overlapping fall dates
The coming weeks bring both the building and the block onto one calendar. The October 10 and November 14 crawls fall while WeGo Market is still running on Wednesdays, and the market ends November 18. The December 12 crawl is the last of the year. All the while, Bar Roza, Naked Farmer, NADC Burger and Zio Matto keep their regular hours on the ground floor, and the second floor waits on Sushi by Scratch. The Peanut Shop is still at 19 Arcade, as it has been since 1927.
Living near The Arcade means living near one of the oldest and fastest-changing addresses downtown. If you are thinking about a residence within walking distance of 4th Avenue North, or about how the blocks around The Arcade affect the value of a downtown home you already own, Jack Miller and Robert Stutts can walk you through it discreetly. Request a private consultation.
