Bookstores Are Making a Comeback in Nashville — and the Numbers Prove It

Parnassus Books is expanding. Two new independents have signed leases. After a decade of obituaries for the form, Nashville's booksellers say the tide has turned — and they have the foot traffic to prove it.

By Margaret Holloway·Nashville, TN — September 19, 2026

Independent bookstore interior shelves customers browsing neighborhood community

Parnassus Books opened a second location this spring. Two more independents have signed leases on the west side. After a decade of obituaries, Nashville's booksellers say the tide has turned — and they have the foot traffic to prove it.

When Ann Patchett and Karen Hayes opened Parnassus Books in Green Hills in 2011, the conventional wisdom said they were crazy. Amazon had just launched the Kindle. Borders was closing. The independent bookstore, critics said, was a sentimental relic. Fifteen years later, Parnassus is opening its second location — and it is not alone.

This year, two new independent bookstores have signed leases in Nashville: a general-interest shop in the Nations neighborhood and a used and rare books dealer on Nolensville Pike. A third, a children's bookstore in East Nashville, is expected to open before the holidays. The city's bookselling community, long accustomed to eulogies, is cautiously using a different word: momentum.

'People kept telling us the model was dead,' said Hayes, who manages day-to-day operations at Parnassus. 'We kept saying: the model isn't dead, the bad version of the model is dead. The version where you're just a warehouse for books — that's dead. The version where you're a place, a community, a reason to leave your house — that's very much alive.'

The data bears her out. The American Booksellers Association reported a 35 percent increase in independent bookstore openings nationally between 2020 and 2025, a counterintuitive surge that accelerated during and after the pandemic. Nashville's numbers track the national trend. Parnassus's foot traffic is up 22 percent year over year. Their events calendar — author readings, book clubs, children's story hours — is booked through March.

The owners of the new Nations shop, a couple who asked not to be named before their opening, say they chose the neighborhood deliberately. 'The Nations has a hardware store, a butcher, a coffee shop, a bar,' one of them said. 'It's a neighborhood that still has a main street. We want to be part of that. We want to be the place where people come to find out what to read next and end up staying for an hour.'

Not everyone is optimistic. The used and rare dealer on Nolensville Pike, who has been in the business for twenty years and asked to be identified only as Gerald, is more measured. 'The new stores are opening in neighborhoods that can support them,' he said. 'My neighborhood is different. My customers are different. I'm not riding a wave. I'm just trying to stay open.' He has been trying to stay open, successfully, since 2006.

What the new stores share — and what Parnassus pioneered in Nashville — is a refusal to compete with Amazon on Amazon's terms. None of them are trying to have every book. All of them are trying to have the right books, curated by people who have read them, sold by staff who can tell you why. 'You can't out-Amazon Amazon,' Hayes said. 'But Amazon can't out-Parnassus Parnassus. That's the whole game.'

The second Parnassus location will be smaller than the Green Hills flagship — about 2,800 square feet, focused on fiction, local authors, and a robust events program. It will not have a café. 'We're a bookstore,' Hayes said. 'We sell books. That's the thing we're good at. We're going to keep being good at it.'

Filed under:bookstoresindependent retail12 SouthParnassus Bookssmall business

Hillsboro Hardware Has Been Here Since 1911. It Plans to Stay.

Brothers Daniel and Tim McGrady grew up down the road from the store they now own. They bought it in 2013 to bring back the "Shop Here First" hardware store of their childhood — and they have.

By Margaret Holloway·Nashville, TN — September 26, 2026

Hillsboro Hardware storefront Hillsboro Village Nashville red awning lamp repair sign

Hillsboro Hardware opened in 1911. It has changed hands a few times since then, but it has never left the neighborhood, never stopped knowing its customers, and never once asked you to ring up your own order. In 2013, brothers Daniel and Tim McGrady — who grew up just down the road — bought the store with a specific mission: restore it to the "Shop Here First" hardware store they remembered from childhood. Walk in today and you will see that they have.

The McGrady brothers did not buy Hillsboro Hardware as an investment. They bought it as a restoration project — not of the building, but of a relationship. The store they remembered growing up was the kind of place where the staff solved your problem before you finished describing it, where the inventory made sense because it was organized by people who actually used the merchandise, and where the transaction ended at the register. Nobody was building a profile on you. Nobody was selling your purchase history to a mortgage algorithm.

That store had drifted from its roots by the time Daniel and Tim took over. They spent the years since 2013 pulling it back — deepening the inventory, training staff to know the product, and recommitting to what they describe as personalized service and attention to detail. The phrase sounds like marketing copy until you walk in and experience what they mean by it.

Hillsboro Hardware interior circa 1911 — the year the store opened, glass display cases and densely stocked shelves — Hillsboro Hardware, circa 1911 — the year the store opened its doors to the neighborhood

Consider Jason. On a recent Saturday morning, a customer came in with a string trimmer and a spool of line he couldn't figure out how to load. At a chain hardware store, that question ends at the service desk — if you can find the service desk. At Hillsboro Hardware, Jason took the trimmer, spooled the line, handed it back, and sent the customer on his way. No charge. No wait. No suggestion that the customer consult the manufacturer's website. Just a person who knew how to do the thing, doing the thing.

That is not a small story. It is the whole story. The difference between a neighborhood hardware store and a big-box retailer is not inventory depth or price per unit. It is whether there is a Jason — someone who has been around long enough to know the merchandise, cares enough to help, and works in a place that values that kind of knowledge rather than replacing it with a self-checkout kiosk.

The contrast with the big-box alternative is not subtle. Home Depot's model depends, in part, on customers not knowing what they need — on the anxious walk through 120,000 square feet of inventory, the impulse purchase, the return trip for the part that was missing from the first purchase. Hillsboro Hardware's model depends on the opposite: get you the right thing the first time so you come back because you trust them, not because you forgot something.

The data question is not incidental. Home Depot collects purchase history, tracks loyalty card usage, and has faced scrutiny for sharing customer data with third-party advertisers. When you buy a deadbolt at Home Depot, that transaction enters a database. When you buy a deadbolt at Hillsboro Hardware, the transaction ends at the register. Nobody is building a profile. Nobody is selling your renovation history to anyone.

The store openly welcomes suggestions from customers — a policy that sounds simple and is actually a philosophy. It means the McGradys are still listening to the neighborhood the way a neighborhood store should. It means the inventory reflects what people in Hillsboro Village actually need, not what a regional buyer in Atlanta decided to stock. It means the store is still, after 115 years, a conversation between the business and the community it serves.

Hillsboro Village is the kind of neighborhood that rewards that kind of commitment. It has a coffee shop, a diner, a used bookstore, a movie theater that has been showing films since 1938. It is a neighborhood that has held its character through decades of development pressure, in part because the businesses in it have held theirs. Hillsboro Hardware — opened in 1911, restored in 2013, still here in 2026 — is part of that story.

The next time your faucet drips or your door won't latch or you need a specific screw that no big-box store seems to stock in the right size, you have a choice. You can drive to the orange warehouse, scan your loyalty card, navigate the app, and hope the algorithm figures out what you need. Or you can go to Hillsboro Hardware and talk to a person. The person will know. They have been knowing since 1911.

Filed under:hardwareHillsboro Villageindependent retailsmall businessNashvillecommunityfamily-owned

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