Ziona Riley, Neil O’Neil, Dylan Whitlow
Brown’s Diner
Nashville
1/25/24
With a strip of computer paper taped on the shelves behind the bar that reads “booking email” in black Sharpie, Brown’s Diner is as analog and old-school Nashville as it gets. Award-winning food, local music, and an undeniable air of longevity combine to create an entirely unique “dinner-and-a-show” environment.
It’s difficult to have a bad time at Brown’s. If the music isn’t good, the food is still exceptional, and if the music is good then the food is euphoric, and if the music is great then, well, magic happens. On Thursday night, the experience drifted between the last two scenarios for the stripped-down sets of three local songwriters, Neil O’Neil, Ziona Riley, and Dylan Whitlow, with Riley’s songs being the highlight.
Brown’s Diner’s construction represents several eras, but the core of the establishment is a converted trolley car where the business began in 1927. It still houses the stage and the bar. At some point in the last 50 years, a backroom filled with modest tables and chairs was added to create more of a restaurant environment, and a new deck and outdoor seating area now hangs off the trolley car entrance.
Last night, I chose to sit at the trolley car bar to be close to the music and enjoy the cozy, low ceiling and hardy wooden counter lined with old leather swivel chairs. I ordered a smashburger with cheese, a local craft Black Abbey Brewery IPA, tater tots, and pound cake. (Yes, I did have to drink a large mug of peppermint tea when I got home.) Whatever they were up to back there on the grill created the most crispy and caramelized patty situation I’ve ever had on a smashburger. The entire circumference of both patties had a perfect crunch without any overly charred flavor and all of the toppings worked together for a lot of satisfying texture variation. Tater tots were standard, well-fried and seasoned, and the real star was the pound cake.
Let me tell you about this pound cake. One would think that a cheeseburger, beer, and tots was enough, but after learning from the bartender that the owner’s mom bakes all of the desserts at Brown’s Diner, we had no choice but to order some. The pound cake was sliced and pan-toasted, so its gooey interior was contrasted by a warm and crispy shell. It was topped with several generous scoops of vanilla bean ice cream, which was again topped with whipped cream. It was not too much. It was perfect.
I took my pound cake and moved from the bar to a chair right in front of the speakers to be sure I could hear the meticulous detail of Ziona Riley’s songs. Now, the sound at Brown’s is not spectacular. Every time I’ve been, performers run their own sound through a very no-frills system, which makes sitting close to the stage pretty essential to hearing lyrics. This is Brown’s Achilles heel as a venue, but perhaps not paying a sound person every night keeps food prices accessible and artists’ personal investment low, so it can be forgiven.
I was very glad I moved closer, though, because not a line of Riley’s songs was to be missed. Her lyrics winded and turned, folding back on themselves to paint vivid and complex images. But she wasn’t just creating visual landscapes with her words, but emotional ones as well. The way in which she was able to touch on so much in one song was quite stunning. Her guitar playing was similarly mesmerizing. Spinning finger-picked parts evoked qualities of classical guitar music, and the end of each song had the same energy and triumph as a soloist finishing a piece at a recital. The other two artists on the bill, Neil O’Neil and Dylan Whitlow, gave solid performances as well, but due to the nature of the space and sound system, an audience member kind of has to choose their moment for really tuning in to the music, and that was Riley’s set for me.
Brown’s Diner stands as a testament to all of the genuine goodness Nashville still has to offer, and its charm is not a facade. People are rightly disappointed at the rapid change and sterilization that Nashville has undergone in the last decade or so, but Brown’s and other places like it persist.
