Nashville businesses continue to feel the pressure of rising property taxes, and one restaurant is having to close its doors because of it.
As if Music City wasn’t corporate enough already (it recently ranked in the Top 5 of the world’s biggest tourist trap cities), the next decade could cause Nashville to push even farther away from what it used to be. Why, you might be asking? Basically, 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 shuttering.
Acme Feed and Seed owner Tom Morales and Layla Vartanian of Layla’s Honky Tonk on Broadway have been doing their part to sound the alarm about the rise in taxes. They are seeing 300% to 400% increases in property taxes, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to survive those costs.
Simply put, those types of increase are nearly impossible for a locally owned business to offset. Conveniently, most of the corporate owned businesses (many of the artist-owned bars on Broadway) are able to withstand raises in property taxes like the ones that have happened in the past couple of years.
That’s created quite the dangerous situation – in terms of trying to preserve the history and local owners of Nashville.
One of the latest casualties from the current property tax fiasco is the Pelican & Pig restaurant, which is owned by Nick and Audra Guidry. The award-winning eatery announced earlier this week that, after operating for seven years in Nashville, they’ve had to make the tough decision to close down. Their announcement mentioned that the expenses of operation have become too great to overcome:
“To our Guests, our friends, our family and all of those who have supported us throughout the last 7 years: It is with great heartbreak that we tell you Pelican & Pig has reached the end of the road. We have come to the very difficult decision that we cannot continue on as we have, and that our final service will be this Saturday, March 14th.
We owe so much to Nashville, and have been continually blessed by the people we’ve met, had the honor to employ, and have befriended along the way. We have always loved being a part of Nashville and we feel we gave it the best of us and what we had to offer. Unfortunately, it’s become incredibly expensive to operate a business in this city and we’re left with the difficult to decision to put the fires out.”
Such an unfortunate situation.
The Pelican & Pig also sent out a message to their staff within the statement, saying that they greatly appreciated all of their hard work, and know they’ll land on their feet at other restaurants in the area:
“To our staff: It’s been our pleasure to know you. We cannot tell you how greatly appreciated you are, and how proud of you we are. We have peace knowing you’ll go on to make so many restaurants feel lucky to have found you. We hope to see so many familiar faces in this week for one final meal and a proper goodbye.”
As you can see with the closing of this restaurant, any help or relief that could be on the way for local business owners could be too little, too late.
The state government has been actively working on alleviating the situation. The Tennessee General Assembly is currently considering two different bills, and both would set out to limit annual property tax growth (one is tied to inflation, while the other caps increases at 2% a year).
Unfortunately, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is against a state-imposed cap, saying it could create budgeting issues for Nashville. He’s actually been against any sort of modification of current property taxes, and told FOX 17 previously that it wasn’t up to him – the Mayor of Nashville – to keep certain businesses in the city afloat:
“It’s not up to me whether he keeps that business open. The market evolves. New businesses start even as beloved old businesses close.”
And a lot of those “new businesses” will be owned by corporate entities, since they’ll be the only ones that can afford to continue to operate.
All I know is that it’s truly sad to see a beloved restaurant like Pelican & Pig close down because it’s just become too expensive for a locally owned business in survive in Nashville. If folks have thought that Music City has changed too much over the years… there’s an even bigger storm coming.
