Downtown businesses thrilled with Nashville Takeover success

Fawn Adair of revel, one of the Downtown Stratford restaurants that had a Nashville Takeover-inspired menu featuring items such as cheddar cornbread muffins, peach sweet tea and spiced honey pecan donuts.

Stratford was filled with people in the core walking from venue to venue in their Nashville best with denim jackets and dresses, cowboy hats and flannel on the weekend.

The Nashville Takeover stopped by Stratford from April 10 to 12 and had a variety of country singer-songwriters from Canada and the United States perform across eight Stratford venues like the Bunker Performance Lounge, Copperlight and Chuck’s Roadhouse.

Downtown businesses also got into the Nashville spirit by either serving special menu items inspired by southern flavours like sweet tea, peaches and cornbread, or offering promotions like earning a free cowboy hat with a qualifying purchase and Dolly Parton-inspired salon blowouts.

"I think it went very well. It was very well attended. Stratford was alive and buzzing,” said Jamie Pritchard, Downtown Stratford Business Improvement Area (BIA) general manager. “I spoke with some restaurant owners that were involved in it and they were very busy serving dinners and lunches and all that kind of stuff, so it really brought (a) bustling feeling early April, which is usually not there as much because April is kind of a shoulder season month and in-between things." 

Pritchard added that each of the participating performance venues offer a unique entertainment experience, even for the same event.

“Each offered their own flavour or different style from the Copperlight that had theatre-style and sanctuary to the Bunker that had a great little listening room there. Chuck's was alive. I talked to most of the venues and they were all very pleased with how things went,” he said.

There’s still a chance to try a taste of Nashville throughout the month of April with nine participating restaurants serving Nashville hot chicken sandwiches throughout the month of April as part of a contest. Spicy sandwiches can be purchased at either the Bunker, Black Swan, Gilly’s Chuck’s Roadhouse, Features, Joe’s Diner, Mercer Hall, Fosters Inn, and Work Pub & Eatery. Diners can rank the sandwiches for a chance to win Downtown Dollars.

Stratford was one of the 13 cities across Canada selected for the Nashville Takeover. The music showcase will next be at Essex County from June 5 to 6 and will be in Port Stanley, Chatham-Kent, Burlington, Orangeville and others throughout the year.