Community Information
With an eclectic blend of shops, businesses and restaurants, downtown Murfreesboro is bustling by day and into the night.
Restaurateurs Mike and Debbie Zelenak carefully chose the location of their new restaurant in 2006. They say downtown Murfreesboro - a vibrant, revitalized place - seemed the obvious choice.
“It’s a beautiful downtown, and we fell in love the uniqueness and the historic look,” Mike Zelenak says. “With the courthouse and offices, you have a captive audience. People need to have lunch and dinner somewhere, and they shouldn’t have to leave the downtown area.”
A year later, the Zelenak family’s Maple Street Grill - an elegant, upscale-but-casual restaurant with affordable prices - is a hit. Known for its authentic Cuban sandwiches, bacon-wrapped shrimp, fresh pasta dishes, tender steaks and fried Hershey bars, the restaurant recently started a full-service catering business to meet demand from its guests.
Zelenak says there’s a sense of pride among downtown business owners, who stick together to promote the vitality of the entire downtown area and that local businesses offer a personal touch that can’t be beat.
“There’s a real sense of camaraderie down on the square,” he says. “I feel more at home here in two years than I did in 23 years in Tampa, Florida.”
The number of people coming to the blend of shops, businesses, and restaurants downtown is increasing all the time, says Libby Green, interim executive director of Main Street: Murfreesboro-Rutherford County Inc. “One thing we’re noticing is that with more restaurants, it’s beginning to be as busy in the nighttime as it is in the daytime. That’s a very positive thing,” she says. “There are a lot of specialty places you’re not going to find elsewhere. Our downtown stores are serving a real need in the community. It’s where it all started, and it’s going to serve an important role looking toward the future too.”
Story by Nancy Humphrey
Office, Retail, Medical Projects Make Downtown Murfreesboro a Hotspot
Published Mar 28, 2006
