Margaret Littman

“The Hermitage Hotel is really a character in the story of suffrage. It served a bigger purpose than a venue,” explains Carole Bucy, the county historian. Bucy has spent considerable time researching the city and state’s connection to the women’s suffrage movement, particularly leading up to the 2020 centennial of ratification. “I cannot think of another hotel in Tennessee that has the history it has.”

Most American distilleries buy neutral grain spirit in bulk from ethanol factories in the Midwest; many craft distillers even skip the part of making their own base alcohol, buying their neutral spirit after corn has been germinated, fermented, and distilled. But when Rob Forster, Chand Harlow, and Thomas Alexander launched Wonderbird Spirits in Taylor, Miss., in 2018, they didn’t want to do things that way.

Working in concert, Music City's most talented artists and makers prove that creativity and collaboration go hand-in-hand. Here's where to join them.

Structural racism, access to transportation and income disparities can make it hard to buy healthy plant-based foods.

When Andy Mumma opened the first Barista Parlor location in an old East Nashville transmission shop a decade ago, it was hard to imagine it would become an essential neighborhood destination. It didn’t even have a street-facing storefront. He wasn’t sure if people would show up to buy coffee from the old garage he overhauled (with help from his friends and his dad).

When Scott Jordan, the SCOTTeVEST’s CEO and co-founder, wanted to take the pups for a hike in the summer of 2021, he didn’t have a staff member to mind the store. So, he bought a couple hundred dollars of electronics, including a Ring doorbell, motion sensors, an Alexa Echo speaker, and security cameras. He put a sign on the door explaining the concept of “honor shopping.”

It started out modestly.
Melvil Arnt wanted his parents to immigrate to Nashville from their native France so they could spend time with their two young grandsons. So the three of them opened a no-reservations bistro with a focused menu and limited hours. Once Upon a Time in France opened in December 2019, and even with the dining restrictions from the pandemic, the restaurant has been a success. On a recent Saturday afternoon, a line of more than 30 people snaked along Gallatin Avenue...

Dismayed at the lack of business ownership opportunities and advancement afforded to entrepreneurial women, Marianne Markowitz spearheaded a consortium to form a women-founded, women-owned and women-led de novo in search of a national solution.

“Our goal is really to work ourselves out of a job,” says acclaimed Dallas chef Chad Houser. Café Momentum is Houser’s brainchild.
Café Momentum’s goal is to help kids ages 15 to 19. Yes, to give them skill sets and jobs, but Houser wanted to address more than that. He wanted to address the long-term hurdles formerly incarcerated young people face, like finding housing, support systems and health care.
Now Café Momentum is opening its first Nashville restaurant, using the non-profit model that worked in Dallas.

If it opens its doors as planned in January 2022, Walden Mutual Bank will be the first new mutual bank charter in New Hampshire in a century and the country’s first new mutual charter in five decades. The planned de novo in Concord, N.H., submitted its application to the FDIC at the end of August with the intent to serve New England’s local and sustainable food community with a bank owned by its depositors.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Still yes, and here are the reasons why.

When the kids are in bed and our Slack notifications are turned off for the day, few of us want to forgo another episode of Succession in favor of burdening our friends, siblings, or spouse with a convo about what we would want to happen were we to become incapacitated and unable to make decisions for ourselves. No? Just us?

Benjamin Franklin supposedly said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. But if he were alive in 2021, he probably would add health care expenses to that list.
But there's a tool in your arsenal, one that many experts say Americans overlook: the Health Savings Account (HSA).

Seven tips to get the best of both worlds: going out and enjoying pre-pandemic passions, but also having a budget that resembles our collective year of spending less.

Being back out in the world after a year of austerity is a boost of dopamine. I get a little hit when I see live music, hang with my friends and family, travel, and eat at a restaurant.

I love it all. Well, almost; one of the good things about the hard year that was 2020 was that I spent less money.

There are fewer than two dozen lesbian bars left in the entire United States. One of them is in East Nashville. I wrote about the Lesbian Bar Project and The Lipstick Lounge and while it all matters.

Visit Mississippi's massive Vicksburg National Military Park — it covers more than 1,700 acres just two miles from Vicksburg — to relive a pivotal battle in the Civil War. There's much to see: 1,325 historical monuments and markers, 20 miles of reconstructed trenches, two antebellum homes, 144 cannons, a national cemetery, and a restored ironclad gunboat. Plus, it's beautiful. “Visitors are usually overcome with the park's unique topography of rolling hills and steep ravines, and many remark how stunning every monument is,” says Brendan Wilson, VNMP's chief of interpretation.