From NashvillePost:  One of the most ambitious restaurants to open downtown in quite a while, The Southern Steak & Oyster is gearing up to launch later this month in the base of The Pinnacle.  The Southern’s mastermind, restaurateur Tom Morales, sees it as the vanguard of a lively new era of dining in the area south of Broadway as the neighborhood is transformed by the upcoming Music City Center and the adjoining Omni hotel.

The decor will include a vast compass pointing due south to reinforce the restaurant’s inclination toward Southern food, though Morales said the cuisine is inspired by the many places around the word he and his team have traveled — hence the tagline, “south of somewhere.”  And Morales is positioning The Southern almost as a commissary for everybody who lives, works or parties downtown — the restaurant will serve breakfast, lunch, dinner and drinks.

In addition to the main dining room, there’s a quieter separate dining room that can be reserved for private parties and business gatherings (with audiovisual hookups). The Southern aims to be eco-friendly, with an emphasis on local ingredients whenever possible, but it makes one concession to Nashvillians’ addiction to their personal gas-combustion vehicles: Diners get two hours’ free parking in the garage, and if they want to stay longer downtown, it’s a flat $5 fee.   Read more… 

From NashvillePost – The Nashville office of Frost Brown Todd has signed a long-term lease for the 18th and 19th floors of The Pinnacle at Symphony Place.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Construction of Frost Brown Todd’s space begins this month, and the law firm plans to move to its new SoBro offices in May 2012. A permit recently was pulled for $1.5 million, with DWC Construction handling the work.

Frost Brown will move from the Fifth Third Center.

“Our growth is driving the move to The Pinnacle,” Mekesha Montgomery, member-in-charge of the Nashville office of Frost Brown Todd, said in a release. “We need to accommodate a staff twice the size of our current 15-attorney office in a space that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. This deal signals Frost Brown Todd’s optimism about Nashville, the continued growth of our firm, and our commitment to deliver exceptional services to our clients.”

Frost Brown will take about 29,800 square feet of space at The Pinnacle.

The 29-story office tower is now 70 percent leased, not quite two years after opening in February 2010, according to Warren Smith, CEO of Cushman Wakefield | Cornerstone, which oversees the building’s leasing and management.

Whit McCrary and Drew Robinson, commercial real estate brokers at Cassidy Turley, represented Frost Brown Todd. Dick Fleming, Buck Haltiwanger and Billy Lyell of Cornerstone Commercial Real Estate Services represented The Pinnacle at Symphony Place.

View the news release.

From The Tennessean. Last week, the second location of Carrie’s Coffee, etc. opened in The Pinnacle at Symphony Place for those who work in the downtown skyscraper. Carrie’s Coffee is on the seventh floor, with one wall completely covered with windows looking out to a rooftop courtyard [pictured at right].

Owner Carrie Sharbel sells various blends of the local favorite, Bongo Java coffee. There are lattes and cappuccinos, too, made fresh. Half of the place serves as a deli, and the other half is a convenience store. Star Bagels in Sylvan Park supplies all of the breads, cookies, muffins and bagels.

Sharbel and her staff of friendly college students assemble high-end sandwiches each morning and also make sandwiches and salads made-to-order. There’s soup made fresh each day, too. There are packs of saltines, chocolate bars, gum, chips, microwave popcorn, power bars, nail clippers, hair ties, Band-Aids, batteries.

“I feel that no one has really combined a typical snack store with a coffee shop and put it in an office building,” said Sharbel, who also has a shop in a high-rise office building on West End.  Carrie’s Coffee is considered an amenity of each building. “I have a built-in clientele. Each of these buildings is really a vertical neighborhood. Most of these people spend more time at the office than they do at home.”

Kim Cannon, director of human resources at Bass, Berry & Sims law firm, came to check out Carrie’s Coffee on its opening day. “Everybody is so excited,” Cannon said. Tammy Chapman, who works in treasury management operations at Pinnacle Financial, checked it out three times that day. She wanted to see what the atmosphere was like in the morning, lunchtime and afternoon.

Sharbel was quick to learn names and encouraged folks to offer their requests. “We’re really able to develop relationships with our customers,” she said.