Date Night: The Great Midtown Fail, Joyland and Up-Down

Date Night is a multipart road map for everyone who wants a nice evening out, but has no time to plan it. It’s for people who want to do more than just go to one restaurant and call it a night. It’s for overwhelmed parents who don’t get out often; for friends who visit the same three restaurants because they’re too afraid to try someplace new; and for busy folks who keep forgetting all the places they’ve driven past, heard about, seen on social and said, “Let’s remember that place next time we go out.”

Last year, in a North Nashville elementary school gym, I struck up a conversation with a husband and wife who were noticeably overdressed for youth basketball. I wasn’t surprised to hear they had post-game reservations at a new restaurant they’d heard good things about — I know a Date Night hustle when I see one. What blew my mind was their backup plan.

“Any time we try a new restaurant and feel disappointed, we go to Burger Up afterward for a cocktail and truffle fries,” the husband said. “It always satisfies, then we can go home happy.” 

Fascinating. If you go out on the regular and a new spot misses the mark, you cross it off your list and move on. But if you don’t get out often, and you try something new and it disappoints, it can ruin the few precious hours you’ve carved out. The backup restaurant covers you no matter what. You could apply the same theory to sex: You’re up for trying something new, but if it doesn’t work out, cut your losses and go back to what makes everyone feel good.  

Until now, I haven’t needed a backup plan because I can usually tell if a restaurant isn’t for me long before I walk in the door. But recently, when planning for this column, I ignored my gut and embarked upon The Great Midtown Fail. Midtown is an area I haven’t covered in my previous nine installments of Date Night, and even though I avoid that part of town at all costs, I thought I could find something redeeming about it. I was wrong. With apologies to Randy Rayburn and Midtown Cafe, who’ve outlasted many other institutions in that slice of the city (RIP Ken’s Sushi, Bound’ry, South Street, Granite Falls, Mario’s, etc.), Midtown has become Broadway South — a place where tourists go to feel like they’ve ventured out of downtown and seen the real Nashville. It’s for them, not for us. 

Stop 1: Hopsmith

Part of the Chicago-based Big Onion Hospitality group, Hopsmith felt oddly dead even though it was full. We waited too long for a host to acknowledge us, then too long for a server, and the food came out in minutes, which is a sure sign it’s slop-and-serve. The side panel of a Jeep Grand Wagoneer behind the beer taps gives strong Planet Hollywood vibes. There’s a defunct tube across the ceiling that’s used to propel a shot glass made of ice from one end of the bar to the other, and a breathalyzer machine by the bathrooms — as if anyone drunk enough to need a breathalyzer before driving home would have the presence of mind to use it. The whole experience felt transient and sad.

Stop 2: Hi-Fi Clyde’s

Hi-Fi Clyde’s on Church Street, from the same people behind Taco Mamacita and Milk & Honey, is a huge, bright space full of TVs, shuffleboard, ping-pong and foosball, and I was intrigued by their all-day brunch menu. But we couldn’t get anyone to wait on us for so long that I seriously wondered if people over the age of 25 were invisible to Hi-Fi servers. We walked back out the door, and into what will be my backup plan for all disappointing Date Nights moving forward.

Stop 3: Joyland

The smell of fried food will hit you first at Joyland. Breathe it in: It’s the scent of a sure thing. 

At the corner of Woodland and South Ninth Street in East Nashville, Joyland is fast food without the drive-thru. Glorious wall-to-wall grease. Order, take a number and find a seat among real people, young and old, who aren’t showcasing the shirt they just bought at Garth Brooks’ new honky-tonk. Why cross the mighty Cumberland when we could’ve gone from Hi-Fi Clyde’s to Cook Out in four minutes, and remained in the comfort of our car? Because Joyland doesn’t just serve burgers, fries and shakes — they serve Sean Brock’s version of burgers, fries and shakes. And if you don’t respect his incredible range by now, or trust him to give you the absolute best version of every dish in whatever concept he’s created, it just means one less person in line between me and the curly fries.

While Joyland doesn’t scream Sean Brock — and certainly isn’t overworked, overbranded or (thank you, Jesus) over-merched — it’s clear the acclaimed chef is having fun with the food. The fried Springer Mountain chicken thighs on a stick is called a Joystick, which can be dipped in ranch, Joy sauce or fancy sauce. Monday through Friday you can get a version called the Dip Stick, which is a Joystick bathed in a sauce of duck fat emulsified into hot sauce and sorghum. It reminded my husband Dom of the Hooters wings he had as a child. (Yes, his mother let him host his 12th birthday there.)

With the exception of a Chicago dog and its signature neon-green pickle relish, Joyland is mostly about their Bear Creek Farm beef burgers, the most popular being the Crustburger — so flat that even the buns look like pancakes on either side of crispy splayed meat. I was most curious about the Impossible™ JoyBurger, and whether or not it’d be a throwaway “I guess we need to offer something for the veg-heads” version, as so many of them are. But it was — and I say this with zero exaggeration — the closest any meatless burger in the past three decades has come to tasting like the beloved McDonald’s of my youth. Next time I see Brock grocery shopping in the White Bridge Trader Joe’s, I may have to hug the man.

Joyland’s waffle hashbrowns are just that — hashbrowns crisped in a waffle maker — which made them more brown than hash. The curly fries are where it’s at: reminiscent of the ones you might’ve had alongside a classic roast beef and cheddar, but better. Crinkle fries were just as good. I wish they offered a side that’s half-curly and half-crinkle fries for those of us who can’t bear to miss out on either.

I’ll admit it’s a little jarring to look at a backlit fast-food menu and see $16.95 for a fried chicken sandwich combo, but when you elevate the fast-food experience, the prices come along with it. That didn’t stop us from getting back in line for dessert, as there was no way I was leaving without a chocolate malt shake — so thick you need the extra-wide straw that could double as a vacuum attachment. The woman who’d originally taken our order at the counter noticed us in line as she walked by, asked if we were ordering dessert and said she’d get my shake started and pull Dom’s custardy vanilla soft-serve right after we ordered. Who’s lovin’ on you like that at Micky D’s?

Stop 4: Up-Down 

Joyland has a retro tabletop arcade game in the back with all the classic games, and if we were in a rush I would’ve crushed Dom at Ms. Pac-Man quickly and headed home. (I am not remotely humble about this, as it’s one of the few competitions in which I’ve consistently beaten him.) But we had a little more time to kill, so we made a left out of Joyland’s patio door, walked east on Woodland Street for two minutes and entered the arcade bar Up-Down — and I became 10 years old again.

When arcades became popular in the ’80s, my dad would grab a roll of quarters on Saturday afternoons and take my sister and me to the Quarterhorse in Franklin. I thought it was a fun father-daughter thing to do at the time, but looking back, I can see he was buying my mom time to wash her perm in peace. That’s where I honed my considerable Ms. Pac-Man skills, as it was certainly not on our Texas Instruments home gaming system, which offered only off-brand Munch Man. 

Up-Down is 21-and-up and centered around a bar, with sports and movies showing on various screens and huge graphics of ’80s and ’90s icons on the walls. They offer pizza by the slice from a walk-up window near the photo booth, which makes the whole place smell like bread and cheese and, not to be redundant, heaven. 

Dom and I took our plastic shot glass of tokens and went separate ways — he to Pop-A-Shot and NBA Jam, and me to Skee-Ball because Ms. Pac-Man was taken. Few sounds take me straight back to childhood like the computerized doo-doo-doo-DOO-doo-doo! and clack of the wooden Skee-Ball balls knocking against each other as they roll down the ramp. After two restaurant fails and copious comfort food, nostalgia was just the nightcap we needed.