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The Pharmacy Burger Parlor & Beer Garden

731 McFerrin Ave, Nashville, TN

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The Pharmacy Burger Parlor & Beer Garden opened in 2011 in East Nashville, founded by brothers Terrell and Trent Raley, who converted a former childcare building at the corner of McFerrin and Eastland into a burger-and-beer garden. The name itself came out of the buildout process — old pill bottles turned up in the property's pipes, leftover evidence of a pharmacy that had once occupied the site, and the Raleys leaned into that history rather than picking a generic name. The concept blends old-world beer garden charm with American diner nostalgia: craft beer, phosphate sodas, a genuinely family-friendly patio, and burgers built on fresh, locally sourced beef with buns made specifically for the restaurant by Frothy Monkey Bakery. The kitchen also makes its own bratwursts, enough of a focus that regulars have taken to calling it Nashville's "wurst-burger" joint — a burger spot that treats its sausage program as more than an afterthought. The Pharmacy has earned steady local recognition as one of the city's best burger destinations, and it's leaned into that reputation in a specific, community-minded way: in 2023 the restaurant launched a "Nashville Burger Time Machine" series, recreating the signature burgers of beloved Nashville restaurants that had closed, starting with Rotier's — the Elliston Place institution famous for its cheeseburger on French bread, which shut down in 2021 after its building was sold. That a competing burger restaurant chose to memorialize a fallen one, rather than just quietly outlasting it, says something about how The Pharmacy sees its own place in Nashville's burger lineage. Running a beer garden inside a building that used to look after other people's kids is the kind of origin story that could easily read as a gimmick, but the Raleys have kept the food serious enough — fresh, locally sourced beef, a real housemade bratwurst program, buns from one of the city's most respected bakeries — that the pharmacy backstory functions as flavor rather than substitute for a good burger. For a Nashville cheeseburger list, The Pharmacy is the essential "East Nashville beer garden done right" entry — a thick, gourmet cheeseburger built on Frothy Monkey buns, served in a patio setting that's become one of the neighborhood's most reliable hangouts since 2011.

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