Your Daily Guide

🏠 Nashville’s Luxury Real Estate Market

While Nashville struggles to build enough affordable housing, we’re one of the nation’s fastest-growing markets for multimillion-dollar home sales. We’re chatting about our ultraluxury real estate market on today’s Friday News Roundup. Plus, we discuss Michelin star recommendations and bid farewell to some local greats. [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

🍽️ A String of Local Restaurant Closures

Several locally owned restaurants have closed this week, including 51 North Taproom, Punk Wok, and Deacon’s New South. According to Christine Wheatley, founder of the food tour company A Little Local Flavor, more than 30 locally owned Nashville restaurants have closed this year. She cites high diesel prices, rising food costs, and triple-net leases as some of the reasons. [WKRN]

• In Punk Wok’s closure announcement, the owner commented that people just stopped showing up. 😩 Let’s give our locally owned restaurants some love! Send me a brief review of one of your favorite local restaurants, and I’ll round them up for the newsletter. These places need our business to survive! [Instagram]

😞 Two Local Legends Pass Away

Jefferson Street Sound Museum founder Lorenzo Washington has passed away. The 83-year-old saw Jefferson Street go from a thriving center of Black culture — with Black-owned music venues hosting the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Tina Turner, and James Brown — to its sudden uprooting after the construction of I-40 in the late 1960s. [Nashville Banner]

• Earlier this year, the Jefferson Street Sound Museum was added to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. [Nashville Scene]
• Local barbecue legend Jack Cawthon also died this week. The 80-year-old opened Jack's Bar-B-Que on Broadway in 1991. [NewsChannel 5]

🏫 School Voucher Program Survives Legal Challenge

A three-judge panel has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s private school voucher program, which uses taxpayer dollars to help families pay for private education. The lawsuit was filed by a group of parents who argued that the program diverts hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding away from public schools. [Tennessee Lookout; 🎧 City Cast Nashville]

• In another case, a Nashville judge has temporarily blocked immigration status checks for HIV patients enrolled in a low-income healthcare program. [Tennessee Lookout]

Meet Cheatham County Carl, Dan, and Benny! 18-year-old Carl (left) is a cancer survivor with dementia who has lived in Inglewood for the past 15 years. He loves playing with his bro Dan (ginger), but recently adopted Benny (corgi) is his arch-nemesis and has given him a new reason to live … to hate the dog.

I’m simultaneously cheering on Carl and sending lots of hugs to Benny. 😂

Do you have any Halloween pics of your furballs? I’d love to share them next Friday!