A new sign went up at Brentwood Place this month. Big Bad Breakfast now has its name on the building at 330 Franklin Road, in the space Ludlow & Prime used to occupy. Williamson Source reported on October 13 that the restaurant hadn't announced an opening date. It's one of three food and drink changes inside the same shopping center this year. Taken together, they point the same way. The empty restaurant spaces at Brentwood Place are going to operators built around a sit-down meal or an evening on the calendar.
That matters on a stretch of Franklin Road that most of Brentwood uses for errands. The center's anchors are still the stores people drive in for: Nordstrom Rack, Total Wine, TJ Maxx/HomeGoods and Golf Galaxy. What's changing is everything between those big boxes.
A New Owner Said It Would Remerchandise
Regency Centers, a national owner and developer of open-air shopping centers, announced it had bought Brentwood Place in March 2025. The release described a center of about 320,000 square feet, including more than 100,000 square feet of shops, that was 95% leased at the time. It named "lease-up and remerchandising strategies" as the opportunity. The release didn't spell out a redevelopment plan. It did say the owner meant to change the tenant mix, and the turnover since then shows what that has looked like.
Some of the change has been departures. Williamson Source reported that Columbia Sportswear set January 11, 2026, as its last day at Brentwood Place. In April, McAlister's Deli closed at 330 Franklin Road after 20 years, according to Williamson Source. The more telling detail is which kinds of businesses are taking the vacant spaces.
Four Storefronts, Four Different Stages
| Space | Previously | Next | Where it stands in late October |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brentwood Place, Suite 226-B | Ludlow & Prime | Big Bad Breakfast | Sign up, no opening date announced |
| Brentwood Place, former McAlister's | McAlister's Deli, closed April 2026 | Edley's Bar-B-Que | Expected by end of 2026 |
| Brentwood Place, Suite 250B | Not reported | The Raven Book Lounge | Open since April 18 |
| Hill Center, 213 Franklin Road, Suite 120 | Not reported | SusieCakes | Listed as "Coming Soon" and hiring |
Big Bad Breakfast's own location page lists the Brentwood restaurant at Suite 226-B, labels it "Coming Soon!" and links to a "Join Our Team" page. Williamson County's new business license roundup, published October 5, lists it as a Brentwood full-service restaurant with a license entry dated September 30, 2026.
The Biscuit Is Moving to the Other Side of Franklin Road
Brentwood lost a breakfast spot this summer. Maple Street Biscuit Company permanently closed its restaurant at Hill Center on Franklin Road after Cracker Barrel sold most of the brand to Biscuit Belly, LLC, FranklinIs reported on July 29. According to that report, Biscuit Belly plans to convert some Maple Street locations to its own name over the next 18 to 24 months, but it doesn't expect to convert the closed Brentwood and Nashville stores.
So the next biscuit on this stretch of road will come from Brentwood Place. Williamson Source described Big Bad Breakfast's menu as bacon cured in house, skillet meals and biscuits made fresh daily. The bar list includes a Bloody Mary, a mimosa and the Breakfast Dude, which is cold brew, cream, vodka, Kahlua and vanilla. The chain started in Oxford, Mississippi, under James Beard Award-winning chef John Currence. Brentwood will be its fifth Middle Tennessee location, after Franklin, Spring Hill, Nashville and Murfreesboro.
Neighbors who already drive to the Franklin location will find nothing new on the menu. For them, the change is the drive. A breakfast-to-lunch restaurant with a cocktail list is moving into a shopping center whose last occupant in that space was Ludlow & Prime. Williamson Source reported in January 2025 that Ludlow & Prime closed when its owner moved operations to Berry Farms.
A Smoker Porch Has to Go Through the Planning Commission
The former McAlister's space is getting an even bigger change. Edley's Bar-B-Que, which Will Newman founded in Nashville in 2011 and named after his grandfather, is moving into the 3,800-square-foot space. Williamson Source reported in May that it will be the brand's 12th location, will add about 50 jobs and is expected to open by the end of the year. Brentwood will be Edley's third Williamson County location, after Berry Farms, which opened in 2023, and The Factory at Franklin, which opened in 2024.
The exterior plan shows that this is a renovation, not a sign swap. Williamson Source's July update said the plans were on the July 6, 2026, Planning Commission agenda. The proposed work included new paint, cladding, awnings and a covered smoker porch at the rear. Signage needed its own city review. A covered smoker porch is a permanent addition to a building that held a deli for two decades.
The year-end timing is still a projection. The latest progress reported publicly came with the July plans, and Edley's homepage doesn't yet list a Brentwood store. If the schedule holds, Brentwood Place will add two full-service restaurants within a few months of each other: one built around breakfast, the other around a smoker.
The Raven Already Keeps Evening Hours
The third change is already open. The Raven Book Lounge, at 330 Franklin Road, Suite 250B, held its grand opening on Saturday, April 18. The Williamson Herald reported that the day drew hundreds of visitors, with lines out the front door, six local author signings and vendor pop-ups. Owner Danniele Reeves, a 16-year Williamson County resident, built the lounge around shelves of fiction and nonfiction, a bar with small bites, antique typewriters and vintage decor. She told the Herald she wanted "a place where you can kind of be comfortable by yourself, you could come on a date, you could come with your group."
Six months later, The Raven's calendar is the busiest evening schedule in the center. For National Book Month, it's running a bingo game all October, with one stamp per day and a grand prize for blacking out the card. Here's what's left on the October calendar:
- Thursday, October 22, 7 to 9 p.m.: Skip the Small Talk
- Friday, October 23, 7 to 9 p.m.: Magical Potions Night
- Saturday, October 24, 7 to 8 p.m.: Blueprint Ensemble
- Sunday, October 25, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Afternoon Tea
- Tuesday, October 27, 2 to 9 p.m.: ACOTAR Release
- Saturday, October 31, 2 to 11 p.m.: A Gothic Gathering
Earlier in the month, the same calendar carried a Wednesday open mic for poetry, Wednesday general knowledge trivia, a writers workshop and author events, including Roger Thompson's book launch on October 15 and Holly Butler on October 18. In the shopping center it shares with Nordstrom Rack and Total Wine, The Raven was the first new tenant this year whose busiest hours come after dinner. The breakfast and barbecue restaurants on the way will fill in the morning and midday.
Hill Center Is Getting a Bakery
Across Franklin Road, Hill Center, whose addresses run along 201 to 289 Franklin Road and 5005 to 5007 Maryland Way, has quieter news. SusieCakes lists a Brentwood bakery at 213 Franklin Road, Suite 120, marked "Coming Soon," and says it's hiring. Hill Center's dining directory shows the same "Coming Soon" label, with no date. Neither listing says whether the bakery is taking over Maple Street's former space, and no replacement has been named for that storefront.
That leaves the two centers on different schedules. Hill Center lost its breakfast spot in July and has a bakery on the way. Brentwood Place has one full-service restaurant waiting on an opening date, another working toward year-end and a book lounge that already fills its evenings. The new owner set out to remerchandise Brentwood Place. For the people who shop there every week, that has meant more reasons to sit down and stay.
The storefronts along Franklin Road are part of how we talk with clients about the blocks nearby. If you'd like a quieter conversation about what this corridor's turnover means for a particular street or property, Heather Hamel would be glad to help. Begin a private consultation.
