Cool Springs Restaurants Are Betting on Dinner Now

"Due to increased rent, other raised costs, and a decrease in volume that hasn't leveled out since 2020, it was time to close our Cool Springs location." That's how Ground Restaurant explained leaving 330 Mayfield Drive in March, as reported by Williamson Source. Ground opened there in September 2015. It was meant to be a fast, high-quality lunch spot that could feed a group from the nearby office buildings.

Seven months later, Cool Springs has three new restaurants. Each has a menu built for sitting down and a location that was already a restaurant or was built to hold one. The restaurants opening in Cool Springs this year are counting on the dinner crowd. Ground's statement put the lunch crowd's decline in plain terms.

The office lunch spot that closed

Ground's story stands out because the owner said why. The restaurant was designed for a weekday crowd. You could customize the menu and get a group of coworkers fed and back to their desks. It lasted more than ten years, and the owner's statement points to lower traffic and higher costs, not a lack of loyal customers.

Two other Cool Springs closures followed in 2026:

• Twin Peaks at 1634 Galleria Boulevard closed. Williamson Source reported it in June, and the last day of service wasn't clear.
• MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes at 1560 W. McEwen Drive closed. The notice was reported in August with no exact date.

Twin Peaks was a sit-down restaurant, so the closures don't follow one formula. Two of the three, though, were burger counters on streets lined with offices. What opened afterward looks very different.

Roots Prime moved into a former pizza chain space

Roots Prime Italian Chophouse opened in September at 440 Cool Springs Boulevard, where Old Chicago Pizza used to be. It's the second restaurant from Chef Jose Serrato and Elizabeth Serrato, who also run Serrato's Steakhouse. The menu mixes an American chophouse with traditional Italian food, centered on steaks, seafood and pasta.

The dishes Williamson Source highlighted show what kind of meal this is:

• Filet Mignon Duo: two 4.5-ounce filets with jumbo scallops, crab-stuffed shrimp and lobster sauce
• Bourbon Glazed Pork Chop: a 16-ounce French-cut chop with candied bacon, cinnamon and apple chutney
• Surf and turf: a 6-ounce filet with a 6-ounce Maine lobster tail
• USDA Prime New York Strip: 16 ounces, with scallop and shrimp, topped with Cajun lobster sauce

A space that used to serve chain pizza now serves lobster tails and Prime strips. The Serratos are one of two restaurant groups this fall to take an empty Cool Springs dining room and fill it with a longer, pricier meal.

Bravado filled a space that sat empty for more than a year

The other group, opening about a week later, is Pop Hospitality Group, the team behind Nash House, The Row Kitchen & Pub and The Treehouse Nashville. Its new restaurant, Bravado Small Plates & Pizza Bar, opened Wednesday, September 23, at 1770 Galleria Boulevard.

The same group used to run The Honeysuckle in that space. The Honeysuckle closed in May 2025, and the team said then that a new concept was coming. They announced the name Bravado this past May, and the doors opened about 16 months after The Honeysuckle closed. One full-service restaurant replaced another in the same room.

Bravado's website calls it a place "where good for you ingredients meet great flavor," with small plates and pizza. Before opening, the restaurant was posting cocktails on social media, including one called No Limits made with mint and citrus. Williamson Source reported that earlier this year Bravado got a beer permit from the Franklin Beer Board, pending its certificate of occupancy. Small plates and cocktails are made for lingering, and that's what Bravado is selling.

1770 Galleria Boulevard is also the address of the Cool Springs Crossing center. Bob's Discount Furniture opened there Friday, September 4, less than three weeks before Bravado. They're two separate businesses in the same shopping center. Anyone using a GPS should look for the restaurant sign, not just the street number.

Hawkers keeps its kitchen open until midnight on weekends

The clearest sign of the dinner-and-late-night bet is at McEwen Northside. Hawkers Asian Street Food opened in early October at 4020 Aspen Grove Drive, on the ground floor of the district's newest building. Williamson Scene photographed the restaurant on October 2, and Williamson Source reported a Monday, October 5 opening.

Hawkers' posted hours for Franklin:

• Sunday: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Monday through Thursday: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Friday and Saturday: 11 a.m. to midnight

It serves lunch, but the hours run long past any office crowd. Most nights the kitchen stays open until 11 p.m. Ground was built around lunch. Hawkers is set up for a full day and a long evening. The menu is shareable plates inspired by open-air markets in Asia, such as Korean twice-fried wings, five-spice green beans, and roti canai with curry dipping sauce, plus craft cocktails and sake. The Florida-based company started in 2011, and Franklin is its second Tennessee restaurant. The first opened in East Nashville at 626 Main Street in 2020.

Block E set up a dinner district with offices upstairs

Hawkers' building is McEwen Northside's Block E, a $125 million, 300,000-square-foot building that celebrated its completion in fall 2025. Office tenants on the upper floors include TMPartners and Designed Conveyor Systems. The ground-floor restaurant and retail lineup includes Culinary Dropout, Hawkers and Oak Hall. Culinary Dropout opened first, in September 2025, at 4020 Aspen Grove Drive.

Block E stacks offices above a ground floor of cocktail-and-dinner restaurants. Mark Traylor described the district's goals in a statement quoted by Williamson Source: "further establishing McEwen Northside as a place where memories are made, especially over a great meal."

An October 2025 report put Hawkers' opening in early 2026. It actually opened in October 2026, so it took about three quarters of a year longer than expected. That delay is worth remembering when you look at the businesses still on the way.

What's still pending around Cool Springs

Two more names have been attached to Cool Springs spaces. Neither has an opening date yet.

Paris Baguette was announced for Block E in October 2025. No opening date came with the announcement. A December 2025 roundup from Franklin Is listed it as expected in 2026, and that window is now down to about ten weeks. A bakery-cafe would be the most morning-focused tenant on the block.

Home Sense showed up on the property map for the former Joann space at Cool Springs Market. As of Williamson Source's August 12 report, the retailer hadn't announced an opening and no building permit had been filed. For now it's just a name on a map.

On the retail side, L.L.Bean opened its first Tennessee store July 17 at CoolSprings Galleria, 1800 Galleria Boulevard, Suite 2520. Between L.L.Bean, Bob's and Bravado, the stretch of Galleria Boulevard between the mall and Cool Springs Crossing gained three new businesses this summer and fall.

Here's where the 2026 changes stand as of mid-October:

Of the dining changes on that list, two of the three closures were quick-service burger counters, and all three openings are full-service restaurants. Two of the three openings took over spaces that were already restaurants.

If the changes in Cool Springs have you wondering what they mean for your home's value or your next move in Franklin, Shawn Wright at CENTURY 21 Wright Realty tracks how changes like these play out in Williamson County. He's happy to talk through what's opening, what's closing and what it means for your street. Let's Connect.