NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — As Acme Feed and Seed pays its $600,000 property tax, fellow business owners downtown are talking to FOX 17 News about the expenses they deal with, but they have hope in Music City.
FOX 17 News’ Dennis Ferrier made national headlines reporting on Acme’s $471,000 property tax increase.. You can read Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s full response to the situation here.
“We believe in Second [Avenue] or we wouldn’t be here, right,” Mel’s Drive-In owner Colton Weiss tells FOX 17 News’ Johnny Maffei.
Weiss opened up his Nashville location in September 2025 after his family built the Mel’s legacy in California for decades.
Weiss knows Dolly Parton’s hotel is opening soon and there’s condos selling nearby, too, so “there’s a lot of good things happening here on 2nd Street and I’m not the only one that’s believing in it obviously because there’s other people opening up shop here as well.”
Former downtown bar owner Michael Hanlin now runs Hoppers Bar Tours, LLC. He says the struggles for some started before big property tax increases.
“Depending on what kind of lease that you have, it could be really the nail in the coffin to a lot of places where just last year they were trying to figure out, well, how do I keep my doors open just trying to get my sales numbers up?” Hanlin questions. “Now you throw something like this in there and then it really becomes insurmountable in that there’s just not enough people out there to come in to get your sales high enough. To afford opening the doors. Forget about profit. I don’t think that’s what a lot of business owners are losing sleep over right now. It’s not how much money are we going to lose in profit this year. We can’t open our doors seven days a week because the cost of doing business is too expensive. And, you know, with, first off, they’re worried about some things last year, now it’s a higher property tax this year. Is that I mean the property tax isn’t going anywhere you know what can be done well are we gonna see flies start to drop.”
Hanlin says you need to be on your “a game” in a place like Nashville.
“If you’re an A plus operator, which I consider Colton and his family, A plus operators, you know, you guys, you know, the names that have been brought up…Tom Morales and what Tom’s done,” Hanlin adds. “I’ve known Tom over 20 years. He’s an A plus operator. A plus Operators usually figure it out.”
As for Acme, restaurant leadership took to social media saying they paid the property tax, but they’re waiting for a decision on their appeal , which won’t be until Sept. 1.
Acme wants the state to take action on property tax changes. There is a bill that would cap increases over a certain amount of time.
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Opponents say a property tax cap could cripple some municipalities.
