Hillsboro Village is a short two-block stretch of independent shops, cafes, and restaurants between Vanderbilt University and the Green Hills area — a slightly older-feeling, slightly less Instagram-driven retail strip than 12 South. The presence of the university gives it a steady undergraduate-and-faculty mix that the more polished districts don't quite have.
Pancake Pantry on the corner of 21st and Belcourt is the local breakfast institution, with regular morning queues out the door. Fido, the cafe across the street, has been a Nashville fixture since the 1990s — strong coffee, all-day kitchen, a lot of writers on laptops. The Belcourt Theatre, a 1925 cinema turned non-profit arthouse, programmes one of the best film schedules in the South.