East Nashville | Nashville Traveler

Nashville's creative capital. Separated from downtown by the Cumberland River, East Nashville has been the city's artistic heart for decades — where songwriters, chefs, and designers all landed when they wanted something real. Five Points is the neighborhood's commercial core; Lockeland Springs and Eastwood are its quieter residential gems.

East Nashville's current identity was, in a strange way, forced into being. A 1998 tornado tore through the area and destroyed a large share of its older residential housing stock, and the rebuilding that followed tipped several blocks from purely residential toward the commercial district that exists today. Five Points — named for the five streets that converge there — became the neighborhood's commercial epicenter almost by necessity, and it's now as dense with restaurants and bars as any strip in the city.

The three sub-neighborhoods read differently on the ground. Five Points is where you go for a night out — restaurants, bars, and shops packed into a walkable few blocks. Lockeland Springs, just north, has some of the oldest and most architecturally significant homes in East Nashville, along with the city's oldest fire hall on Holly Street, plus its own strong restaurant run (Lockeland Table, Dino's, Five Daughters Bakery, Bar 308). Eastwood, developed in the early 20th century, is quieter still — modest cottage-and-bungalow blocks that are an easy walk to the shops on Eastland Avenue but feel like a different, more residential neighborhood entirely.

What ties the three together is that East Nashville never stopped being where the city's songwriters, chefs, and independent shop owners actually live, as opposed to just work. It's the neighborhood locals point to when they want to make the case that Nashville has a creative culture independent of the tourist-facing honky-tonk version of the city.