The latest Margaritaville Cafe opens its doors in downtown Nashville this morning!

The $10 million restaurant, located at 322 Broadway, will open at 11 am for lunch after a 10 am ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring project principals and local community leaders.

Live music will be featured daily and the restaurant will be open from 11 am to 3 am seven days a week.

If you’re in Nashville today and stop by, let us know what you think!

Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Cafe opens in Nashville on Monday, and the Tennessean gives us a look inside:

The latest Margaritaville Cafe will open its door on Monday, November 22nd in downtown Nashville.

The $10 million restaurant, located at 322 Broadway, will open at 11 am for lunch after a 10 am ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring project principals and local community leaders.

“Buffett wants to make music a big part of the venue here, and the café is going to appeal to the young crowd, locals and visitors to our city,” said Mark Bloom, a principle in the project. “Besides the food and special drinks synonymous with Margaritaville, the music will be a special attraction.”

At street level there will be a restaurant, bar and three live-music stages. The second floor will house another bar, additional restaurant seating, and a “small concert hall with state-of-the-art lighting and sound system,” Bloom said.

Total seating capacity is 350, with about 200 in the concert hall upstairs.

Live music will be featured daily. The café will be open from 11 a.m.-3 a.m. seven days a week, Bloom said, and the entertainment will include “a nightly showcase of newcomers.”

Jimmy Buffett always plays a show at newly-opened Margaritavilles, but it can be as much as two months after it opens and is often times a surprise.

Margaritaville is coming to the Windy City. Jimmy Buffett will open a Margaritaville Cafe at the famed Navy Pier in downtown Chicago after beating out 10 other bidders:

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns and operates the pier, approved the lease Wednesday morning.

“So, we’ll have the Caribbean in February on Navy Pier,” said David Mosena, board chairman. The authority is hoping the restaurant and entertainment venue will serve as an attendance magnet year-round.

Buffett, in a prepared statement, expressed his excitement for the new venue, targeted to open next spring.

“From my earliest days in the city, playing the Quiet Knight on Belmont, to the pinnacle of live performances to me, singing in front of the ivy wall at Wrigley Field, I have had a long and wonderful history and affection for the people, the music, the art and the food of the Windy City. I have always thought of Chicago as a beach town, a pretty big one, but still a beach town.”

Terms of the deal were not immediately available.

Read more about Jimmy’s Margaritaville Cafe empire here.

Update – The restaurant is expected to open next Spring in the space currently occupied by Charlie’s Ale House.

The new Margaritaville Nashville is hosting a job fair today and tomorrow in downtown Nashville at the Holiday Inn Express:

The first Margaritaville Cafe opened 25 years ago in Key West, and to celebrate they are offering not-so-secret specials that aren’t on the menu.

The “Not Too Particular, Not Too Precise” cheeseburger, a “1985″ Margarita and 25% off the 25th Anniversary Tee are all available by request only at select locations. You won’t see these on the menu, so the only way to get these specials is to ask for them by name!

Not too Particular Not too Precise Cheeseburger
A special Cheeseburger in Paradise for sure. A handmade patty of 100% fresh ground chuck, cooked to order with Margaritaville Seasoning Salt topped with American cheese, red onion, lettuce and tomato (Heinz 57 available on the side) on a toasted bun. Served with French fried potatoes and big kosher pickle. A cold draft LandShark beer is optional, if you’re old enough!

1985 Margarita
A timeless classic! 12 oz. margarita made with Margaritaville Gold and Silver Tequila, Gran Gala, Cointreau, simple syrup, and fresh lime juice. Served with salted rim, and a lime.

You can also get a 25th anniversary t-shirt. Mention the 25th Anniversary Tee secret sale to get 25% off the 25th Anniversary Tee at participating venues. The black vintage concert tee features three Polaroid pictures of a concert crowd during “Fins” and has a list of Margaritaville restaurants with their corresponding opening year on back.

25th Anniversary specials are valid at these locations:

• Key West, FL
• New Orleans, LA
• Orlando, FL
• Las Vegas, NV
• Myrtle Beach, SC
• Glendale, AZ
• Panama City Beach, FL
• Mohegan Sun, CT
• Waikiki Beach, HI

The Margaritaville Cafe currently under construction in Nashville is looking for parrothead license plates to use as decorations.

Have an old Parrothead license plate laying around that would look great as a decoration in the new Margaritaville opening later this year in Nashville? Send it to us and be a part of Music City’s Margaritaville decór! License plates only please. Any plates mailed in become the property of Margaritaville and will not be returned.

Mail your parrothead license plates to:

Margaritaville
7272 Kingspointe Pkwy
Suite 650
Orlando, FL 32819

The Nashville Margaritaville is on pace to open before Christmas. Visit the official site at www.margaritavillenashville.com.

Jimmy Buffett’s latest Margaritaville Cafe is on schedule to open before Christmas:

A $10 million remodeling project on Lower Broadway to house Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Cafe continues on schedule so the beach-themed restaurant and live-music venue can open by Christmas, the building’s owners say.

Both floors of the century-old building at 322 Broadway are being prepared for a variety of bars, dining areas and performance stages. Interior framing was under way as the owners toured the site with the architects and general contractor late last week.

“A lot of people are excited this building is coming to life again,” said Mark Bloom, a principal in the Corner Partnership, which owns the building and is paying for the renovations.

Once a Planet Hollywood restaurant and bar, the Broadway location most recently housed the Global Cafe — an Internet cafe — but has been vacant for more than a year now.

The biggest challenge in completing the Buffett project is working inside a historic building, where crews have found surprises behind walls, under the floors and in the ceilings, said project architect Sara Atherton.

“Opening the walls, we’ve found all kinds of structural changes that have been made over the years,” she said.

That includes steel reinforcements for the original plaster walls, as well as ornate windows facing Broadway on the second floor that had been covered from the inside for years.

The two rows of windows have now been uncovered, and that allow lots of light into a room that had been “dark and dank” before, Atherton said.

At street level, there will be a restaurant, three bars and two areas for live music, including a small stage in the back. On the second floor will be two more bars, additional restaurant space, a small concert hall with seating for about 200, and a separate party room, Bloom said.

Visit the official site for the new location at http://www.margaritavillenashville.com.

Jimmy Buffett is playing a surprise show at the newly-opened Margaritaville Cafe in Niagara Falls, Ontario according to Radio Margaritaville.

The location, the first Margaritaville in Canada, opened on June 18th. Jimmy always stops by after a Margaritaville Cafe opens and visits with the employees and plays a few songs.

We’ll post more info as we get it.

Read more about the Niagara Falls location here and be sure to visit the official site.

Update – Mike in the comments says that it appears Jimmy started playing around 5 pm ET.

Jimmy Buffett’s latest Margaritaville Cafe, located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, opens its doors today at 11:00 am!

The Fallsview Boulevard location features a full stage, and Leanne Leach, sales and marketing manager for the restaurant, said there will be bands playing every night during the summer. In addition to the live entertainment, there will be stilt walkers making their way through the restaurant to help create a fun island-escapist atmosphere.

Leach said there’s one special guest who is known to pop into the restaurant franchise locations at will.

“With Margaritaville, you never know when Jimmy’s going to stop by,” she said, speaking of the music-man himself. “He’s been known to just pop into the restaurants if he’s in the area and there’s never a lot of notice. Sometimes, he’ll play intimate shows, other times he just stops by to say hi.”

Leach said if the restaurants know in advance that Buffett is coming, they try to sneak the information out to the public, but most of the time he just shows up on a whim.

“It’s a real treat for the locals though,” she said with a laugh.

The family-friendly restaurant is situated right on the corner of Fallsview Boulevard and Murray Street, just steps away from the falls. Margaritaville is 14,000 square feet in size with two indoor levels and four outdoor patios.

Visit the official site here. If you stop in, drop a comment and let us know what you think of the place.