Barista Parlor

We hit many coffee shops on our trip to Tennessee in February. I think our family thought we were avoiding them. We weren't. We are just weird about coffee shops. We love the community. We like talking with strangers. Getting restaurant recommendations from locals. It's our opera. 

Barista Parlor was one of our favorites along the Coffee Pilgrimage highway. It was cold as h.e.l.l. on our trip. Cold. Cold. I can only imagine how gorgeous and fun this place would be with the garage bays wide open, birds chirping, or bands playing outside on the stage. East Nashville is our kind of village. We are the furthest thing from hipster, but we love a good beard, leather apron and chalkboards. I think part of my love of the coffee shop is to see when this trend will change and go back to the tea house feel with oriental rugs, gold rimmed china and tea sammies at 3:00 pm.

Apron alert.

This giant chocolate bar saved us on our most awful, terrible, very bad drive home in the ice storm of 2015 that hit Nashville. Wowie that was nuts. After the wedding we woke up at 3:30 am to try to miss the ice. No sir. We slipped and slid straight out of Tennessee. But this spiced Mexican chocolate truly warmed our broken, scared souls in the car ride home. I wish we had time to have gone to Olive and Sinclair in Nashville. Touring a chocolate factory sounds like a great use of time.

I always get a latte. I need to venture out more, but I just love milk and a little less espresso.

You order at the counter and get this cute little dude with your letter to stick in your table. It truly took forever for the drinks to arrive. Our AirBnB host warned us. Don't go in a hurry. We weren't and enjoyed every minute of the wait. Uncle E got a flat white. Our buddy Allie at Toby's Estate explains a flatty, flat flat here. I recently ordered my first Flat White at a local spot in Baltimore. The barista gave me an eye roll and asked, "Is it because Starbucks is now offering them?" Hardly. It's because Allie talked about it. Duh. Allie is my coffee sensei. 

The space is really pretty great. Large high ceilings, simple decor, nice baristas that weren't too stuffy despite the air of fancy coffee and expensive chocolate bars. The space was almost too big. We didn't really get to talk to our neighbors because there was so much space, even on Valentine's Day, that we weren't crammed next to each other.

The garage bay doors made us dream and scheme. They have another location in Nashville called Golden Sound. We passed it but were pretty hopped up. Two lattes in and my heart starts to race. We rushed home to get ready for our fun night on the town.