NASCAR Cafe shutters downtown location

[Tue 11:15 am Jan 2]-Elaborate facility at 305 Broadway appears to be victim of rise and fall of downtown tourism

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

01-02-2001 12:00 AM — Just three years after it opened amid great fanfare, downtown Nashville’s NASCAR Café has closed its doors for good. The stock-car-racing theme restaurant served its last meal New Year’s Eve.

The elaborate facility at 305 Broadway, featuring racing memorabilia and simulator rides, appears to be a victim of both the rise and fall of downtown tourism in recent years.

A press release from H & C Racing, Inc., parent company of the restaurant chain, cited high parking costs as a factor driving the decision. The successful development of downtown tourism and entertainment in the mid-1990s drove up the cost of parking.

But the company also cited “a decline in tourists coming downtown since 1998” as a reason for the closing. Businesses dependent on tourism have suffered ever since Gaylord Entertainment Corp. (GET) closed the Opryland theme park at the end of 1997.

“We’re still very bullish on Nashville,” said Ted Moats, a veteran Nashville restaurateur who joined H & C Racing as chief executive officer about a year ago. “Downtown is where we have a problem.”

Moats said that while the NASCAR Café concept is working well in other markets with heavy tourist traffic (such as Myrtle Beach, S.C. and Las Vegas), the company will now seek to attract a more local clientele in Nashville by opening a smaller unit somewhere in the suburbs.

The chain has commissioned Edwards & Hotchkiss, a Nashville architectural firm, to design what Moats calls “a smaller box” – a restaurant measuring 8,000 to 10,000 square feet instead of the 25,000 to 30,000 of its current units. The new units, the first of which is set to open in Greensboro, N.C. late this year, will still feature NASCAR memorabilia and videos. However, they will dispense with the arcades and simulator rides found at larger locations.

Moats said restaurant managers were informed of the decision this morning. He said the Lower Broad facility was already “down to a skeleton staff” because of both poor traffic and seasonal factors.

Moats would not comment on the terms of his company’s lease on the building at 305 Broadway, where the restaurant opened in November 1997. The building, a former Service Merchandise store, is owned by a family trust of former Service Merchandise CEO Raymond Zimmerman.