City Winery Nashville — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

It was my first time at City Winery this past week for the CMT Next Women of Country show. While the show itself was wonderful (what we saw of it) and the venue is beautiful, the horrible service we received ruined the experience and I can honestly say will prevent us from ever going back. We arrived at 6:30pm, an hour before the 7:30pm show time, and were promptly sat, at which point we ordered a bottle of wine from the menu. Right away, 1) The server was not familiar with the bottle of wine and actually took my menu from me in order to remember the name and 2) It then took over 30 minutes to actually receive the wine, and when she did finally bring it to our table, she made the comment that whomever was supposed to be looking for it “forgot”. No apology given for the delay. We then ordered food (hanger steak and risotto balls); at this point it was around 7pm. The steak came out about 7:20pm, and because we were told when ordering that whatever was ready first would come out as it was prepared, we didn’t initially ask about the status of the risotto balls. However, the show then started at 7:30pm and our waitress did not come back to the table. Around 8:15pm (over an hour after we had ordered), we had to physically get up and track down our waitress to inquire about the status of the risotto balls. We were immediately met with an attitude from her and she stated she had already been down several times to check on it, and there was nothing more that she could do other than “set the kitchen on fire”. At this point, I was starving (this was supposed to have been my dinner and I hadn’t eaten since around noon when I took lunch at work) and extremely upset with the lack of customer service and empathy that we received thus far (I work in customer service myself and understand there can be a back up in the kitchen on especially busy nights, so had she just checked in on us at any point to let us know they were running behind, i would have completely understood) but we were genuinely trying to enjoy the show and our evening and so we continued to wait for the food. A different person (male) brought the plate up about 15 minutes later (now 8:30pm) and before I had even really taken a look at what was in the dish (it was dark at this time because the show was going on), he had disappeared. I then realized the meal was incorrect, as again, I had ordered the risotto balls (with cheese and mushrooms), but they brought me the lobster risotto (which I cannot eat due to an allergy). I waited several minutes to see if our waitress would come over and check on us, but she never showed, so again we had to track her down and at this point, we just asked for the check, as we’d decided it was best to just leave and get me food elsewhere. While she did remove the risotto from the bill, she did not apologize for the incredible wait time or the fact that the dish then came out wrong, nor did she try to make anything further right for us to try and turn the experience around. We left before seeing the second round of artists, and were truly shocked by the whole experience. There are so many other great options to see live music in Nashville that genuinely value their patrons, so I would recommend looking into those before purchasing a ticket at...

I've been going to concerts at City Winery in Nashville for a long time, and it's usually a pleasant experience. The intimacy the venue provides is great and the food and wine selection is decent. It's generally a nice place to dine and see a show.

But I went this last Friday to the Dar Williams concert, and it was my first time back at City Winery in a few years. I don't know if they have new management, but the experience was different than what I was used to and kind of off-putting.

To start, it seems like there was some sort of private event or other gathering taking place in one of the other sections of the building, and the noise from that event was pretty constant throughout the concert. I could generally hear talking, laughter and dishware clanking the entire time Dar Williams was performing. City Winery bills itself as a "listening room," a venue meant to allow you to focus on the music and the performer without outside distraction, but that's not achievable when your ears are being bombarded by noise from the other side of the building. In all my visits to City Winery I've never had this experience, so I am not sure if it was just my bad luck/someone forgot to close a door, or if something has changed systemically and you can expect to hear cocktail chatter during an artist's otherwise intimate performance at every show. If it's the latter, then I won't be coming back to City Winery.

Additionally, in the past, in the last 15-20 minutes of the show, servers would discreetly drop your check in front of you and then swing by to pick up your credit card. Or you could wait until the show had ended and pay then. When I was there on Friday, during the last 15 minutes or so, servers came up without paper receipts and instead would stand by each dining group with a Toast tablet and take and process payment then and there. This means that, during the closing minutes of a concert, a server is pretty much constantly hovering or weaving around your table and talking over the performer. That's obviously extremely distracting from the performance and pretty irritating. This change in how payments are collected and processed ruins the atmosphere, and City Winery should return to a payment collection process that minimally disrupts the show.

I'll give City Winery one more chance to see if the changes noted above are permanent. If they are, I will be crossing it off my list of venues in Nashville that are worth going to. That would be disappointing, because some of my best concert memories in this town have been there. But the point of going to a concert is to be able to see and listen to the performer. It unfortunately seems like City Winery is creating an atmosphere that actually makes it...

Rolled in at 7pm on a monday to see grammy winner bobby sparks play the organ and man what a show! The hostess was more snarky than friendly but we didn't let it bother us. Upstairs waited for a bit to get the waitress and again the bartender swoops in and picks up our table. What's with these incredible Nashville bartenders? We had tried the cab franc which I highly recommend. It was dry and balanced a little sweeter on the back end but quite oaky and floral for a cab. It was a very intriguing glass of wine. We ordered the humus which was only so so, the kung pao cauliflower which was also just ok the flavor was there but just missing something its hard to explain here. You should try it and let me know what you thought. The Brussels were my favorite thing we ordered but if you like crispy Brussels you won't like these and if you have an aversion to dairy ask for no cheese. The staff was excellent and the show was amazing in the upstairs lounge area. All in all its a dynamic venue that feels intimate in the right places. The acoustics in the lounge were awesome. I recomend watching a show for date night and grabbing some wine or one of their awesome house cocktails. Nashville has so many better options for food I would skip the dinner here and save room for somewhere better. Drinks and service get 5 stars but only 3 for the food.

*Came back on a Thursday to check out the main room and a couple more dishes. The service was way better this time. We ordered duck quesadilla which was a bit cool, very small portion which we actually like. A bit overpriced at 19 but it is duck and you get what you pay for when it comes to meat quality these days. Also ordered the poke bowl now this dish was made very well you can sub the tuna for salmon or chicken. I subbed the chicken on the side and accidentaly stumbled into the best vegan/vegetarian dish on their menu so far. Unfortunately its still just good and food doesn't quite stack up to most of the amazing resturants in this city. We will try again maybe on a saturday night. They have a whiskey barrell aged cab and I highly recomend it. That was probably the best cab I have tried in this city. The band we saw was the verve, a legendary alt rock band that blew up in the 90s out of Michigan. City winery remains one of the best places to see amazing acts at a super reasonable price. We were in the main room this time and its something you need to experience. Most places do not have venue's like this one. The acoustics were awesome. The seating is intimate. The lighting was perfect. Great for a date night. Make this a stop...