Nashville for Free

Believe it or not, Turnip Truck has been East Nashville’s go-to natural marketplace at 970 Woodland St for 10 years right now. That’s a huge achievement, and they’re celebrating by having a huge birthday party and inviting every. Yeah, you too!

The party is today from 11am-4pm. It’s free and will feature free samples from some of the vendors (LOCAL vendors) who sell their products at Turnip Truck. There will also be live music, children’s activities, and prizes like gift certificates for the store.

Have a little fun and pick up some milk while you’re at it. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Happy birthday Turnip Truck!

-Emily

You may not have realized this, but today is the blog’s second birthday. Back when I started this website the Twitter account was going strong at about 2500 followers. Today we have 9200. Holy crap, I’m floored.

This hasn’t been a journey made by one person. Hilary and I dreamed up the idea of Nashville for Free one night in the dorm rooms at Belmont University. We started a pitiful Facebook group that still kind of exists (though I’m certainly not in it) and now it’s a website that gets more page views per month than I have dollars in the bank. It hasn’t been an easy journey here, I’ve made friends, lost friends, gotten to know the city I live in more than I ever expected to, and have spent many hours researching and blogging. To be honest, running this website made truly fall in love with Nashville, and it’s thanks to you all.

My readers, you’ve been supportive through the good times and the dry times, whether I could write about free Chipotle or Conan shows at Third Man, or if my only blogable material involved tacos at Jack in the Box or the Belmont Chamber Orchestra. You guys kept reading. And we kept blogging.

I want to thank not only each and every person who reads this blog, but everyone who’s contributed to it. Matt, Hilary, Kate, Meryem, Rachel, Katie, Jessica, Michelle, and Lance. Thank you all. I hope you have as much pride in this blog as I do. You deserve it.

-Emily

They grow up so fast! Holy crap guys, can you believe that it’s the Frist Center’s 10th birthday already? I know I can’t, but when they opened I was 11 years old and living in Ohio, so I sort of missed out on most of its youth. But still, 10 years is quite the wonderful achievement and Nashville’s biggest (and really, only) art museum is celebrating by having a party for all of its friends. That’s right, this Friday and Saturday you’re all invited to experience the Frist Center for free!

Today it’s just a regular museum day, but if you can only head over after you get off work you might want to consider hanging in the lobby for a bit and listening to the bluegrassy sounds of Belmont’s Bluegrass Ensemble.

Saturday is a little more packed with events and will, presumably, be a little more packed with people. There will be different artsy-crafty stations all over the museum; perfect for kids or the lovable artistic soul in you.

But what’s there to see at the Frist? Right now you can see:

• Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior
• William Eggleston: Anointing the Overlooked
• Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes
• Hindu Home Shrines: Creating Space for Personal Contemplations
• Young Tennessee Artists: 2010 Statewide Advanced Placement Studio Art
• Boaz Vaadia Sculpture

I guess that this awesome free admission thing means we’re going to have to go easy on you for not getting a birthday cake, eh Frist Center?

-Emily

I hope you remembered to buy them a birthday card, because Starbucks is celebrating its 40th year starting today, and really, who would celebrate a birthday without having a party?

To celebrate their 40th year, today through Saturday from 2-5pm if you buy a drink of any kind Starbucks will throw in a free Cake Pop which is, as you might expect, a little piece of spherical cake on a stick. I wouldn’t recommend licking it though. If a cake pop isn’t really your style then don’t huff and puff, you can try any of their new petite pastries for free as well.

But that certainly isn’t all. Starbucks has partnered with Foursquare to create a Starbucks “Tribute Badge” for all users who check in at a starbucks 12:01 a.m. PT - 11:59:59 p.m. PT. Yeah, I agree, who cares. The cool thing is this: if you check in to a Starbucks today you’ll not only get the badge, you’ll get entered to win one of 500 $40 Starbucks gift cards. Don’t have/want Foursquare? Then you can just email your submission in by sending a message with the subject line “Starbucks Foursquare Entry Submission” to foursquare@starbucks.com. Winners will be drawn March 16th.

-Emily

I can’t even believe it, but the N4F blog has officially been around for a whole year, and I think we’re finally getting our act together! We’re posting with relative frequency, we have a pretty solid readership, and we’re having a blast.

A ton of free events happened in Nashville this year, and I went to a lot of them. Sometimes I had awesome experiences and got lots of free stuff, and sometimes I got food poisoning. From free screenings of old Burt Reynolds movies to not-so-secret Conan O’Brien shows at Third Man Records, if it was free and in Nashville then we did our best to cover it.

I’ll admit that I pick favorites with these events. I mean, some rocked, and some sucked. Here’s a list of a few of my favorites from this past year:

• Our 8 off 8th (duh)
• Belcourt Drive-ins
• United Record Pressing plant tour
• Drakkar Sauna in-store at Grimey’s
• Tomato Art Fest in East Nashville
• Record Store Day
• Imogen Heap and Band of Horses giveaways
• Getting free Bonnaroo tickets

How about you guys? What free events totally rocked your socks? Is it something that we covered here, or did we miss the most incredible free event of the past year? Let us know in the comments!

On behalf of the whole extended N4F family, I also wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH! If it hadn’t been for you, the readers, this blog wouldn’t exist. We keep updating every day (or so…) because YOU read it. You read it, love it, and tell your friends about it, and that means more to us than all the free shit we get. You all are absolutely fantastic, and we love you.

Don’t you go changing.

-Emily

My actual birthday cake

In honor of today, my 21st birthday, I’ve decided to put together a list of the many wonderful birthday freebies around town.

I’m going to start with the one I got to enjoy: free sopapillas at Chuy’s in Cool Springs. Mmmm

Another one close to my heart: free Ben & Jerry’s.

According to my followers @thexhorde and @kellybeltran, The Villager in Hillsboro Village will give you a dog bowl full of beer if you’re of age. I don’t think I’m gonna go for that one.

Some other places in the area where you don’t have to join a club/newsletter to get free stuff are 5 & Diner in Franklin, where you’ll get a free dessert just for showing your ID, Country Kitchen, which will give you a free birthday meal, Orange Julius (minus the one at Opry Mills, obviously) will give you a free pasta dinner which includes salad, rolls, AND dessert too, and Old Spaghetti Factory will give you a free caramel pecan friazos dessert.

There are a lot of restaurants that will give you free stuff on your birthday (mostly desserts) if you sign up for their newsletter or cards, including the following

• Red Robin (thanks Jessica Zeitler)
• Firehouse Subs (thanks Becca DuBose)
• Baskin-Robbins
• Atlanta Bread Company
• Moe’s
• Maggie Moo’s
• Sonic
• TGI Friday
• Zaxby’s
• Chili’s
• Coldstone Creamery
• Denny’s (is there a Denny’s in Nashville?)
• Hard Rock Cafe
• Maggianos

Also, you can get into Disney World for free on your birthday. Road trip!

There are a ton of other freebies that you can get if you sign up for their clubs, etc. I think free stuff is worth dealing with junk email, but you’re gonna have to make that call. I got most of this info from my fantastic followers on Facebook and Twitter, and the rest from FreeBirthdayTreats.com.

Did I leave something out? Let me know in the comments! I want to milk this birthday for all its worth…

You might have already heard this,  but it’s the Mercy Lounge’s 7th birthday this week and they are doing it UP! For the 21+ crowd they’re putting on 7 FREE shows with some of Nashville’s favorite artists like De Novo Dahl, the Protomen, special guests, and more!

The fun starts this Saturday and goes until next Saturday. Let me break it down for you…

Saturday 1/16
Guilty Pleasures, The Long Player, My-So Called Band, Weekend Jimmy and the Easy Party

Monday
Fleetwood Mac Night!
brought to you by the fine folks at Dean Shortland
The Bridges, Pico vs. Island Trees, Caitlin Rose & Jordan Caress, Tyler James & Kate York, Keegan Dewitt, Judd & Maggie, Weekend Jimmy & The Easy Party

Tuesday
Happy Salmon presents:
The Hollywood 10, Mike Younger, Majestico, Gabrham Vitek, Rayland Baxter, Fly Golden Eagle

Wednesday
Naked Without Us presents:
BRENN, The Wailin’ Canes, Modoc, Cassino, The Effects, The Jane Shermans

Thursday
The Protomen, AutoVaughn, Kyle Andrews, the debut of The Dozen Dimes, Pico vs. Island Trees, & more!

Friday
The Non-Commissioned Officers, De Novo Dahl, The Ettes, Apollo Up, TWO VERY SPECIAL GUEST ARTISTS, & more!

Saturday
Space Capone, Heypenny, How I Became the Bomb, Madi Diaz, Tallest Trees, Armed Forces, and more!

It sounds like a sweet week that has a little something for everybody, assuming that everybody likes the Nashville underground rock scene. Also, I’m going to assume that the special guests Friday are NOT the Kings of Leon. Seriously guys, it’s not gonna happen, even if the guy from Max and the Wild Things keeps trying to trick us into believing it is. By they way, Max and the Wild Things are giving away their EP for free here.

(more…)