Ode to Jack’s

I woke up to the sad news that Jack’s Barbecue is closing their downtown location and selling the building to Robert’s Western World, their next-door neighbor. Although Jack’s will be keeping their other locations, and even though Robert’s Western World will be adding Jack’s brisket to their menu, it just won’t be the same.

When we first moved to Nashville in the early 1990s, we would frequent Jack’s, back when you had to go before six because everything shut down on Broadway and Second Avenue at night except the honky tonks. Back then it was dangerous and scary to walk around downtown after dark. We were happy when there was an effort made to revitalize the neighborhood. Shops started appearing that were more than Ernest Tubb’s record store. I remember the exciting day that Lower Broadway became safe enough for Jack’s to open for dinner. The dining room was all on one level back then, with the kitchen and ordering counter taking up a lot of the space. One of those evenings we actually saw Jack himself, complete with the outfit and the hat. 

If you needed to use the bathroom, you could go halfway up the stairs to the little closet-like restrooms off the landing. If you weren’t paying attention, you might mistake them for storage. The last time I went to Jack’s, they were still there, although only a few of us local customers knew it. It was another exciting day when Jack’s expanded into the upper floor and added a patio onto the alley. That was another local trick, to know we could go upstairs to eat instead of waiting for the few tables on the ground floor. The view of Broadway is amazing from those ripple-glass windows. 

Part of my sadness about losing the downtown Jack’s is those memories before children, and then of taking my children there. My sons both graduated from Hume Fogg High School just down the street, and Jack’s was a frequent place for dinner before an orchestra or band concert, or a place for lunch when they were seniors and were allowed to venture off campus by themselves. But part of my sadness is Jack’s was the last “normal” place to go downtown. A restaurant without a bar or a band. A place to take the family. A place to take guests visiting Nashville who wanted to see the honky tonks but not necessarily enter them. A place that was authentically Nashville without the hype. 

I’ve never been to Robert’s Western World, but comments on the article announcing the change showed that locals were glad it was going to Robert’s, that they would keep things authentic even while expanding. Apparently the building used to be all one thing, so Robert’s expansion is really going back to the original in some ways. We can have the relief that it isn’t going to be another pretend honky tonk with a country music star’s name on the sign intended to lure in the tourists and the woo-woo girls. But Jack’s closing their Pigs Over Broadway location feels like the end of something. Something we’ve been losing for a long time. Something I don’t know if we’ll get back. 

There are very few shops downtown any more, and few restaurants that are only a place to eat. The push to entertain tourists and out-of-staters trying to make a buck off of us are literally tearing down what we used to be. The Christmas Day bomber helped; many of those buildings that used to house normal restaurants like the Old Spaghetti Factory are now being turned into the same fake honky tonks with celebrity names. Oh, there’s 5th and Broadway where at least you can get Prince’s hot chicken, but the atmosphere feels like a mall. 

While I understand things change, they don’t always change for the better. The revitalization of Broadway and Second Avenue started out a good thing. It brought business back downtown. It cleaned up the riverfront. But over the last decade, the changes have not been so great. Downtown is no longer for us. It’s for people coming from out of town. It’s for tourists and out-of-state investors who don’t care about our history. Who don’t know it. Who don’t live here. And while we would like to continue to be hospitable to those who want to visit, does it have to be at the expense of those of us who live here?

Jack’s decision is his own, and I don’t fault him for it. He has a business to run, and thankfully, he’s not closing up shop completely. But that location will be missed for all of the reasons I’ve stated, and I can’t help but mourn the loss. To me, it feels like more than just the loss of a restaurant. It represents the continual loss of Nashville’s authenticity, both physically and culturally. Where does progress start to become regression, and how do we reverse it? These are questions I don’t know the answer to.

But don’t mind me; I’ll just be over here crying in my beer.