Cafe Coco sat on the high of an incline off Elliston Place, rising from the strip often called the Rock Block, its iconic red-and-yellow signal typically illuminated towards the night time sky. And when every part was nonetheless because it was meant to be, earlier than Exit/In needed to battle for its life and beloved bar the Gold Rush shuttered after 45 years, Cafe Coco — Nashville’s former 24-hour cafe and citadel — was nonetheless up and working, filling the rooms of 210 Louise Ave. with its magic.
Many Nashville residents who have been round through the fabled cafe’s heyday typically use the phrase “magic” as a descriptor. After I speak to my fellow longtime Nashvillians about it, their hearts open and so they inform me how a lot Cafe Coco means to them. Once they describe their experiences there, they typically use candid and introspective phrases — phrases like, “Cafe Coco made us really feel like Nashville was town that we lived in, not town that everybody got here right here for.”
The constructing itself, a two-story home in Midtown, was in-built 1920. Chuck Cinelli, the founder and first proprietor of Cafe Coco for almost all of its 28-year run (he nonetheless owns Coco’s Italian Market in West Nashville), is aware of this as a result of strangers would typically inform him of the constructing’s historical past. At one level, it was a boarding home, and a person who as soon as rented an upstairs bed room advised him how he and the opposite tenants would hang around on the roof. The constructing’s in depth lore predates Cafe Coco’s 1995 opening by 75 years.
“After I received it, somebody used it for storage for a body store, which I believe was throughout the road,” Cinelli tells the Scene.
Cinelli is heat and welcoming, and plenty of of his recollections of working Cafe Coco are extremely vivid. The cafe was open 24 hours — an more and more uncommon follow. Even East Aspect spot The Cobra closes down at 3 a.m. each night time.
Talking to Cinelli, I can’t assist however gush about how a lot love my buddies and I’ve for Coco. I inform him about my first expertise there, how after shifting to Nashville as a youngster, I wound up making buddies with a handful of rebellious prep-school lesbians who took me to Cafe Coco one night time. We smoked cigarettes within the again room with an aged drag queen and two gutter punks with crusty, towering mohawks held along with Elmer’s Glue.
Cinelli, a household man from the Northeast, lights up once I inform him these tales. “I knew it was magical,” he says. “I knew it was essential. However on the identical time, it was simply nothing however onerous work.”
Cafe Coco
Cinelli moved to Nashville in his 20s with nothing to lose — Nashville was the midpoint between his hometown of Schenectady, N.Y., and Florida, the place his dad and mom had just lately retired to. He comes from an extended line of hardworking restaurateurs, so opening a spot of his personal appeared inevitable. He initially opened the cafe below the title Cafe Elliston, however he shortly modified that to Coco (for his grandmother, whose maiden title was Di Cocco) when individuals confused it with Elliston Place Soda Store, one other Rock Block staple. Chuck initially slept within the basement and rented out his home in East Nashville to make ends meet, however thanks partially to his household historical past and love for genuine Italian espresso, the cafe was quickly a success, transitioning from late-night hours to 24 hours in lower than a yr.
It’s onerous to pinpoint precisely when Cafe Coco began to get a bit of bizarre — the kind of old-school-Nashville bizarre that the cafe finally epitomized. Possibly it was when eccentric individuals started exhibiting up on the patio with snakes wrapped round their palms and squirrels of their pockets. Or maybe it was when patrons truly began sleeping there. (I remind Cinelli of this, how he used to let unhoused youth basically stay at his cafe. He smiles and humbly tells me that generally these children, now adults who discovered their method, strategy him in Kroger and thank him with tears of their eyes.) Or possibly it was the legendary open-mic nights within the again room, the hip-hop reveals and poetry slams, or simply the way in which Cafe Coco took on a lifetime of its personal. The meals was additionally unbelievable. (“No person might make that turkey Rockefeller at residence,” says Cinelli.) Nothing about it felt inauthentic; there have been no chrome components. The lights have been by no means off — the cafe typically remained open even on Christmas — and the music by no means stopped.
I don’t suppose it ever occurred to us that Cafe Coco would sooner or later flip off its lights for good.
Cinelli finally offered the cafe in 2020, and subsequent house owners tried to maintain it alive. However maybe as a consequence of menu modifications and fluctuating hours, it by no means actually recovered. In November 2023, Cafe Coco was completely closed. The constructing is now set to deal with a mixture all-day cafe and cocktail bar (Verna) and neighborhood bar (Connie’s Upscale Dive), owned and operated by established food-and-beverage professional Beau Gaultier. Gaultier hopes to open early this summer season.
Cinelli attributes the dying of Cafe Coco to the web. He jogs my memory of how loud it was — like a “faculty cafeteria” — describing how patrons would sit for hours and “geek out on espresso,” not realizing they weren’t alleged to have 4 pictures of espresso without delay. It makes me recall how the vitality of the cafe was so vibrant that it virtually roared.
“After which the web confirmed up, and it received quiet.”
A pal as soon as described to Cinelli how Cafe Coco functioned because the web earlier than there was such a factor. “She stated, ‘Chuck, [Cafe Coco] was the web. That was a server, [because] that’s the place individuals related.’ It was such a wonderful connotation.”
It’s a lovely connotation as a result of it was by these connections that we discovered to be ourselves. “It was for everyone,” Cinelli says. The magic of Cafe Coco was easy: It made Nashville really feel like residence.
