Second Avenue Shopping

Before Lower Broadway was the Honky Tonk Highway, before Nashville was a bachelorette capital, before Music City vacations were in demand, there was Second Avenue.

Second Avenue, once called Market Street, was the street that created downtown Nashville. In 1786 (that’s even before Tennessee became a state!) the first store opened on Market Street. It was the place where goods would come in from the river and head to warehouses that lined the street. After the Civil War, the street’s wood buildings were replaced with brick Victorian-style architecture. These storefronts are some of the prettiest in Nashville and have helped land part of the street on the National Register.

But Second Avenue (the name was changed in the early 1900s, when the city’s downtown started using a grid system) has been through a lot. The buildings from the late 1880s still stand tall, despite suffering a fire in 1995 and a bombing on Christmas Day in 2020. And, since then, there’s been a lot of construction. (Yes, Nashville in general has a lot of construction, but Second Avenue has had more than elsewhere.) Since the 2020 bombing, the city has been restoring and rebuilding Second Avenue, putting in wider sidewalks that will be great for dining outside, planting more trees, and doing other improvements. It will be fantastic when it’s done, but in the meantime, the businesses that are located on Second Avenue have been struggling. The overwhelming majority of businesses on the three blocks on Second Avenue that are north of Broadway are locally owned (more than 70 percent). As there has been construction, they’ve noticed visitors avoiding the mess of construction (some of that mess also came from the building of Eric Church’s Chief’s on Broadway, which is now complete).

It's a shame, because Second Avenue offers some seriously great shopping, and it is an easy walk of just two blocks from The Bobby Nashville. If you’re looking for boots (and who isn’t in Nashville?!), you have three options on one street: French’s Shoes and Boots, Boot Barn, and Freebird. MODISTE sells high-end clothing (mostly women’s, but there’s a small men’s section). These are designers whose work is not available anywhere else in Nashville. Snag gifts to take to friends back home at Agora International Jewelry and Gifts and Market Street Mercantile.

All that retail therapy might make one hungry, and, no worries, these blocks are lined with restaurants and bars, including the aforementioned Chief’s and Taco Bell Cantina. Yes, that’s a Taco Bell, although one with a liquor license and a bar, and an open kitchen with different menu items.

The Nashville Downtown Partnership has a complete list of all the Second Avenue retailers, and you can also just walk and wander. The business owners will be thrilled to see you.