If you have lived in Sylvan Park for any stretch of time, your mental map of the neighborhood is built on Murphy Road. Post office run, coffee, the walk down to McCabe, the corner where the pub used to be. That corner is where the neighborhood shifted this year, and the shift is bigger than one restaurant.
For most of the last decade, the food story in Sylvan Park lived on Charlotte Avenue. Murphy Road held McCabe Pub and a handful of longtime holdouts and not much else. In 2026 that flipped. A three-block stretch between 44th and 46th now holds more chef-driven seats than the neighborhood has ever carried at one time, and the reopening of McCabe Golf Course is happening in the background rather than as the main event.
The Corner That Used To Be McCabe Pub
The clearest signal is at 4410 Murphy Road. A new restaurant has opened in Nashville's Sylvan Park neighborhood, moving into the former McCabe Pub space and giving the building new life after the longtime tavern closed in 2024. The concept is Lion's Share, and it opened on April 11.
The people behind it matter, because they explain why this is not a like-for-like replacement. Centrally located at 4410 Murphy Road, Lion's Share marks owners and partners Emily Perry-Wilson and Chef Robbie Wilson's celebratory return to the city. "We're genuinely thrilled to be back in Nashville and bringing Lion's Share to the west side," says Chef Robbie Wilson. The former culinary director of M Street Hospitality returned to Nashville last year after earning a semifinalist nod from the James Beard Foundation for his work on several California restaurants.
What that produces on the plate and in the room:
- Dramatic live-fire cooking over an open hearth, with proteins and local vegetables sharing billing
- An expansive 32-seat bar and lounge designed for a snack or a nightcap rather than a full reservation
- A freshly-designed space that channels the spirit of a London drinking club reimagined, courtesy of Anderson Design Studio
- Reservations through the restaurant's own site rather than a portal
Wilson himself has said the reception has been in keeping with the block: "It's a very close-knit community. We love how quiet it is, and being on a corner, and there are trees."
And The Lot Next Door
The move that turns Lion's Share from "one nice restaurant" into a genuine shift is happening on the adjacent lot. The Wilsons have added another concept, SuperNormal, with plans to open it next door to Lion's Share. They are using the overflow parking area on the site to create a dog-friendly artificial lawn with lights, picnic tables and a small white building. The spot will serve as a gathering space, serving American classics like burgers, soft serve ice cream, hot dogs and fries.
Two things about that are worth pausing on. First, it is a rare case of a fine-dining operator building the casual counterpart in the same footprint, which means the block gets a linen-napkin dinner and a soft-serve-after-the-greenway option under one ownership. Second, the parking lot conversion is the kind of move that only pencils out on a block where owners believe foot traffic is durable. That is a read on the neighborhood, not just on the corner.
Tantísimo, Antoinette's, And A Charlotte Avenue Permit
The Murphy corner is the anchor, but it is not alone. The restaurant, in the old Vegan Vee location in Sylvan Park, will be open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. for breakfast and lunch, and 5 to 10 p.m. for dinner, Tuesday through Sunday. That is Tantísimo, from Ana Aguilar and Josh Cook, who first met at Husk Nashville, and since the pandemic have been serving Latin American pastries and breakfast foods at farmers markets and at the now-shuttered Henry James bar. On April 29, the pair soft-launched Tantísimo's brick-and-mortar restaurant, which they say is the city's first farm-to-table Latin American restaurant. The restaurant has 82 seats, including a bar and a private room, plus a patio is in the works.
The other addition is quieter and worth catching before it fills up on Fridays. Antoinette's Wine + Provisions from Lauren Maranto opened this spring as a neighborhood wine bar and bodega to emphasize approachable wine, stay-awhile atmosphere. Between the three, the neighborhood picked up a hearth-fire restaurant, a Latin American café-to-dinner room, and a wine bar in a single season.
Charlotte Avenue is not standing still either. The Sylvan Park building that most recently housed Smokin Thighs is now slated for a restaurant seemingly to be called Vita 4400. A permit has been filed, with the owners of the future restaurant seeking interior updates. The address is 4400 Charlotte Ave. Vita 4400 LLC, which is affiliated with Anthony Sanfilippo and Jake Sudduth, owns the West Nashville property, having paid $3 million for it in October 2023. In March 2023, Sanfilippo's Nashville-based Sorelle Hospitality acquired Strategic Hospitality's remaining percentage of ownership in Pinewood Social. Sanfilippo's two properties are sandwiched by M.L. Rose Craft Beer and Burgers to the west and LeQuire Gallery to the east. No opening date yet, but if you drive past and see interior work, that is what it is.
McCabe, In The Background For Once
Here is the part that reverses the usual order of business. For years, the McCabe Golf Course clubhouse was the loudest thing on Murphy Road and the restaurants were the quiet ones. This year it is the opposite. McCabe Golf Course said in late February that tree cutting and removal was 50 percent complete. "While they work on the course, we are renovating the clubhouse interior."
Context, because the losses matter for how much attention the reopening will get. Set in the heart of Sylvan Park and hemmed by a popular greenway loop, the 27-hole McCabe Golf Course is both the most expensive to run and the course that brings in the most money. The 27 holes were built in 1942 and have large, tree-lined fairways and sand bunkers, and the driving range remains one of the reasons in-town golfers keep coming back to a muni course. What returns after the storm cleanup will be the same footprint with a refreshed clubhouse, which is a smaller story than a redesign but a bigger deal for the neighbors who use the greenway loop around it every morning.
Saturday Still Starts At Richland Park
None of this displaces the routine that most Sylvan Park residents already have on the calendar. The Richland Park Farmers Market is every Saturday of 2026, at Richland Park (4711 Charlotte Avenue, Nashville, TN 37209). The market features 80+ local farmers, bakers, cheese-makers, producers, chefs, and food entrepreneurs. Hours are 9 a.m. to noon from April through December and 10 a.m. to noon the rest of the year.
Two details you may not have known about a market you have been walking to for years. The organizers receive over 300 applications each year for just 75 booth spots, and with around 98% of vendors returning each season, openings are rare. And the pipeline is not open call. The primary pathway into Richland is through its sister market, East Nashville Farmers Market. When a spot opens, it is filled by inviting an active East Nashville vendor in the same category. The turnover you notice at Richland is essentially curated, which is why the tent lineup feels consistent from one Saturday to the next.
The Association Calendar
The other thing that has not changed, and probably will not: the Sylvan Park Neighborhood Association still meets at McCabe Park Community Center at 101 46th Avenue North. The mural on the Murphy Road underpass is finished, the string lights around the roundabout have been refreshed, and the July 3 parade in Richland Park continues to be scheduled at 9 a.m. so it does not collide with the Saturday market crowd. If you have not been to a meeting, the community center itself is worth a look. It was the first LEED certified community center in the city.
A Late-Summer Week That Only Works Here
If you strung the current lineup into a single week, it looks like this:
- Tuesday morning at Tantísimo for breakfast in the old Vegan Vee space
- Wednesday wine and a plate at Antoinette's, early enough to still walk home
- Thursday dinner at Lion's Share at the bar rather than the dining room
- Friday an evening walk on the Richland Creek Greenway loop while the golf course is quiet
- Saturday at the Richland Park Farmers Market at 9, back home by 10:30
- Sunday soft serve at SuperNormal once it opens, or M.L. Rose on the Charlotte side in the meantime
None of that requires driving out of the neighborhood. That is the actual change. For a long time Sylvan Park's charm was that it was quiet and you had to leave for the good stuff. In 2026 you no longer do.
If you are already in the neighborhood and thinking about what your home is worth in a market where the block one street over is being reinvested in this hard, or if you have friends asking what changed on Murphy Road and whether it is worth a look, Ravi Sachan Real Estate is a Sylvan Park–adjacent conversation worth having. Reach out when you are ready to talk about the corner you actually live on.
