There are two major construction projects underway, the completion of which will bring ever more restaurants and retail options but also more traffic, tourists, and pedestrian congestion. On Saturday afternoons like today, it's hard to walk down the sidewalk because the neighborhood is so packed with people from in and out of town, walking and gawking. Parking is non-existent, so much so that it's difficult for actual residents like us to park on the street anywhere near the front of our house.
Longtime restaurants and favorite spots of ours have closed - Josephine's and Taqueria del Sol - due to the expiration of longtime leases and greedy landlords. It's sad to see a 12South original anchor like Mafiozza's on it's last leg with fewer and fewer customers dining and drinking there but I guess most restaurants have a shelf life. The owners recently negotiated a 5-year extension when their original lease expired but I'll be surprised if it lasts that long.
Several new restaurants are nearing completion in the two new developments that are going up. Others will fill the spaces left behind by other dearly departed eateries. It's crazy but I still mourn the loss of Mirror and Rumour's Wine Bar, a generation of restaurants ago. Now, I miss Josephine, which was on the ground floor of a development project that resulted in the razing of Rumour's.
I'm sitting in Portland Brew, in the heart of 12South, as a write this. Thankfully, it looks the same, feels the same, and is the same, in spite of all of the change occurring nearby. It's 4:30 p.m., almost closing time, and I'm the only customer inside, smiling to myself from my vantage point on the leather couch on the left side of the coffee shop. It's comforting, somehow, to listen to the baristas laughing and talking as they clean up after what they told me was an incredibly busy day with Belmont, David Lipscomb, and Vanderbilt holding graduation ceremonies.
I'm loyal to Portland Brew, through thick and thin, because it stayed open for takeout coffee during the pandemic, unlike Bongo Java and many other coffee shops and restaurants. Although it seems like a fever dream, I'll never forget grabbing a latte from Portland Brew, extra hot, in a thermos, then pouring it into a coffee mug from home as I sat in a chair in front of Burger Up (which was closed) and watched the world walk by as I read The New Yorker in the early morning. It was a scary, uncertain time, to be sure, so knowing I could still have a coffee from Portland Brew in the mornings meant everything to me.
On an afternoon like this one, with throngs of people walking through 12South amidst the new development and construction projects, it's hard to believe that the pandemic ever happened. Isolation? Social distancing? Masks? All part of that fever dream or so it seems.
This is my neighborhood I guess, for better or worse. As it's changed, so have I. I've had children and they've grown older and I have, too. The nights I finish a run at Edley's and have a beer or two while I take to Cara, Julie, or Ashley are long since past. It's been ages, too, since I sat at the bar at Burger Up and had a "Friday Night" with Troy, while reading the New Yorker on my iPad. The nights - weeknights and weekends - are so busy. Work, teaching at NSL, or watching one of the boys play baseball, soccer, basketball, etc.
After a morning of rain, Joe's baseball games were rained out. JP drove himself to the MBA lacrosse playoff tame this afternoon. Tonight, we'll probably walk down to 12South and eat dinner. Maybe at Locust or Epice.
I still love where I live and I'm grateful to have spent the past two decades in and around Belmont and 12South.
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