Courtesy of Beatrice Robbins

Students and families in Nashville, Tennessee rely on the Belle Meade Starbucks Coffee for everything from studying to socialization, but the newly-passed multi-million dollar purchase of the strip where it is located may threaten these traditions and impact the patterns of local teen connectivity. 

Located near a busy intersection, the Belle Meade Plaza consists of retail and restaurants including the Starbucks. The development has been undergoing the process of rezoning since an initial filing in 2022, a process that has involved many negotiations with both local government and Nashville residents. The plan was considered and eventually approved by the Metropolitan Council, and the land was sold in July 2023 to Adventurous Journeys Capital Partners (AJ), a real estate investment firm. Residential buildings, along with hotel and retail space, are slated to replace the current 10-acre stretch.

Absent from the conversation, however, has been the impact that losing the coffee shop will have on teenagers in the surrounding area, which includes more than five schools in a six-mile radius. It remains unclear how the affected youth – both individually and collectively – will create new social norms, expand on existing practices or simply accept the consequences. 

“People from other schools, you see photos of them on Instagram and such, but then you go to Starbucks and you see all these people, and it’s just a way to all come together in this conjoined space, even if you just smile and nod,” said The Harpeth Hall School student Larkin Wilson ’26. “There’s a lot of people that are our age in Nashville, and I feel like it just makes this big world of people feel smaller.” 

Last December, like many Decembers before it, had been a month laden with exams for middle and high schoolers alike at nearby independent schools such as Harpeth Hall. To many students, this meant it was time to hunker down with lattes and math equations at the Belle Meade Starbucks, a hand-painted mural and hanging lights in the background. As the days of this opportunity are now numbered, many students said they are unsure of where to turn next, but still others told the News they have found sustainable alternatives.

Wilson recalled spending hours with her friends in the franchise during the school year,

but she frequently makes quick visits in the morning and after school as well. She noted that she most often sees students from her own school where she is a rising sophomore in addition to people who attend Ensworth, an independent K-12 school, and St. Cecilia Academy, an all-girls Catholic school serving seventh through 12th grade students.  

“One time… there was another group of girls from our grade there, and so I went over and sat with them,” Wilson said. “I just got a lot closer with them and we ended up going to lunch for our break. I talk to them at school now, and I wouldn’t have ever connected with them if it weren’t for the circumstances that I was sitting with them at Starbucks.” 

Social interaction can be an important part of exploring identity, according to Harpeth Hall Director of Counseling Fran Maddox, who is licensed both as a professional counselor and mental health service provider. Having previously worked in private practice with both adolescents and adults, Maddox explained how teens take in data from around them as they see other people to determine where they want to fit in. 

“[In] any space where adolescents congregate, presumably there must be an element to it so they’re able to feel authentic,” she notes.

According to one 2020 report published in the National Library of Medicine, adolescents especially are highly receptive to how they are viewed and affirmed by those around them of the same age.

“This reorientation towards peers facilitates young people’s development into independent adults, enabling them to foster a more complete sense of social self-identity, at the same time as building stronger affiliations with their peer group,” the report’s authors concluded.

Even though the Belle Meade Starbucks might be the venue of this process for some, there are still many teens who have few ties to the Starbucks location. Along with her three teenage children, local Sarah Beth Downey said she maintains a distance from the Starbucks Coffee. Having lived over 20 years in Nashville, she prefers coffee shops that are locally-owned. Her 14-year-old daughter, who attends Harpeth Hall and her son, who attends Montgomery Bell Academy, tend to visit the mall.

“I definitely think teenagers need places to go where they can be on their own, make their own plans, and meet up, and there aren’t that many spots for [them] anymore,” Downey said. 

The cafe’s centrality to schools seems to afford it the factor of convenience, but when speculating about the future, students like Beatrice Robbins ‘26 said they are likely to find substitutes closer to where they live. Wilson agreed, pointing out that while another existing Starbucks in the Belle Meade-adjacent neighborhood Green Hills could attract some students, it would not be able to compare in popularity. 

On this process of moving on, Maddox reiterated that it is important for people who value such a place to ask themselves,  “‘What was special about that place… How can we translate that to somewhere else?’”

Those questions might be answered by each student differently, but many students shared a common theme of nostalgia. For Wilson, it was the chance encounters of meeting celebrities such as singer Keith Urban at her “second home.” For Robbins, it was an impromptu photo shoot involving her friend and a cake pop during a week of spring exams.

“It is really motivating to see all the other people from my school popping in and grabbing drinks and studying for a little bit,” Robbins recalled. “It feels like a sense of community, knowing that we’re all working together toward the same goal and we’re all in the same place.” 

Even teens no longer in the physical community still remember their time at the Starbucks. Opal Ivester, who was 10 years old when they moved from Nashville to Denmark, still appreciates the time they had spent with their family at the location; they had often stopped in for a drink or to sit by the window. 

Eventually, it will be time for the rest of the student community to say goodbye as well. 

The Belle Meade Plaza first opened in 1961.