Nashville business owners are banding together to do what they can about the rising property taxes.
Chances are you’ve heard of the property tax problem that many local business owners in downtown Nashville are trying to navigate at the moment. Basically, the new property appraisals that were completed in 2024 have raised property taxes to heights that have never been seen before. So high, in fact, that many Broadway staples are in danger of closing their doors.
The issue has gotten even more attention because of comments that Nashville mayor, Freddie O’Connell, made when he was asked about what could be done to alleviate the rising taxes. In a local news interview, O’Connell didn’t show much empathy for locally owned businesses… so now the locally owned businesses are showing compassion for one another.
Carey Bringle, the founder and owner of the Peg Leg Porker (which he opened in 2013), shared a video yesterday calling for people in Nashville to start calling politicians to help fight the good fight. The barbecue restaurant owner says that he first sounded the alarm on this issue five years ago, when former Mayor John Cooper initiated a 34% property tax increase right in the middle of the COVID pandemic.
That knocked out a lot of small, independently-owned businesses… and Bringle believes that history is about to repeat itself in 2026.
The Nashville business owner described the property tax hike as a nonpartisan issue, and warned that if nothing is done about it, the city people have come to know and love will no longer look the same. Bringle believes it’s a spending problem by the government more than anything else:
“If we continue down this road, with the reckless spending from our current mayor and his city council, then this town will lose almost all the things that brought most of the people here in the first place…
This city just isn’t about lower Broadway or the hot areas in town. This is about all around Nashville. These new assessments are devastating to small businesses. They’re unsustainable. This isn’t about a money problem for Nashville. This is about a spending problem.”
The Peg Leg Porker founder went on to urge people to call city council members and the mayor’s office to voice their displeasure and disdain with the property tax increases. He says that’s one of the effective ways regular, everyday people can help work to hopefully promote fiscal responsibility and growth management.
Fortunately for Carey Bringle, he and his business are going to be able to absorb the property taxes in the part of town he’s located in. But even he has seen close to a $70,000 increase in annual property taxes since he first opened his doors. Bringle really feels for his fellow local business owner, Tom Morales (of Acme Feed and Seed), and is hoping that enough people speaking out will enact change:
“Once we lose these businesses, they’re gone. I’ve been lucky enough to absorb these challenges and absorb these taxes. Mine have gone from $9,900 when I opened the Peg Leg Porker now to $77,000 a year. That’s nothing that any business plans for. And certainly, an increase like they got down on Broadway with businesses like Acme Feed and Seed – a $500,000 increase in your tax bill in a year – is whole heartedly unacceptable for any business in any city in this country.”
Amen to that.
This might be a situation where it takes all of Nashville to come together and fight to keep locally owned businesses alive. Residents and business owners like Bringle are going to have to tirelessly oppose the rising property tax trend, and in some way, convince the people who have the power (the politicians) to actually do what they were elected to do: represent the people.
Carey Bringle, the owner of the Peg Leg Porker, is doing his part:
