For your next New Year’s Eve celebration, consider Nashville, an exciting city to celebrate in since it is the country music capital of the world. Besides the exciting downtown with bars and restaurants, Nashville hosts a New Year’s Eve celebration with live performances, fireworks, and a music note dropping at midnight instead of a ball. This year’s celebration was held in Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park with free performances from Keith Urban, Styx, A Thousand Horses, Moon Taxi, and more. This exciting event always brings thousands of people from all over the country to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Music City. 

Dinner is often a start to a New Year’s Eve celebration, and Nashville is a city with a variety of different types of restaurants with dinner specials for this holiday. I recommend making dinner reservations ahead of time because all of the restaurants will be packed with long waits. My dinner celebration was at Maggiano’s Little Italy, an authentic Italian restaurant located on West End Avenue. This restaurant was very upscale and included live piano music, which made for the perfect atmosphere for this occasion. You could tell this restaurant would be good since there were many people waiting to get a table and there were several private events happening on the first floor. With great food and an energetic setting, Maggiano’s was a great start to my New Year’s Eve celebration.

On New Year’s Day, I had to eat at my favorite breakfast spot in Nashville, the well-known, Pancake Pantry. This restaurant, located in Hillsboro Village, has been established for over 55 years and is so popular among the Nashville community and tourists that there is usually a line out the door! Known for their unique and delicious pancakes, this restaurant also serves other breakfast foods such as eggs, waffles, and French toast. My favorite pancakes are the sweet potato pancakes, but you can’t go wrong with anything you order. This is a must-eat restaurant for your next trip to Nashville!