On the last Friday of every month, downtown Mount Pleasant fills with a car show, a shop hop, and a hot dog stand that reportedly sold out its stock a full hour before the event's own end time last month. That's Final Friday, and anyone who's been a few times already knows to show up before six. What's changing is what happens on either side of those three hours. A second storefront from the same family that already runs the corner tea room is set to open a few doors down, and it turns a night that used to be one stop and a drive home into something people can actually walk from end to end.
What Final Friday Actually Looks Like
Final Friday is organized by Jerzee Dogs, the hot dog vendor whose stand has become the evening's fixed point. The event folds together three things under one name: the Shop Hop, where downtown storefronts stay open past their usual hours; a Car Show Cruise In that lines the block with parked cars; and Final Friday itself, running from 5 to 8 p.m. The next one lands August 28. Jerzee Dogs itself has said the previous month's crowd cleared out the stand a full hour before the event officially ended.
For a long time, that was the whole picture. You came for the cruise in, grabbed a hot dog, maybe popped into a shop that was normally closed by 5. Then you drove somewhere else for dinner, because there wasn't a second or third stop built into the block itself.
A Second Address for the Same Family
That's the part that's different now. At 111 North Main, Southern Baking Co. runs its downtown tea room, serving Southern Press Coffee alongside pastries and sandwiches, owned and operated by Rasheen and Erinn Hartwell. A few doors up at 106 North Main, Erinn Hartwell is opening a second business, Mount Pleasant Coffee Co., which she told a Nashville outlet in April she was targeting for a June debut. The two shops sit close enough that they read less like separate businesses and more like one family's footprint on that stretch of Main.
Hartwell described the coffee shop as built around slowing down rather than rushing through.
"We want the coffee shop to be an amazing place to gather and just have conversation."
That's a different job than the bakery next door is doing. Southern Baking Co.'s downtown location leans into its tea room identity, a slower afternoon built around pastries and conversation over table service. Mount Pleasant Coffee Co. is being positioned to also handle the grab-and-go crowd, the people who want a cup on their way somewhere else. Between the two, that block covers both moods without anyone needing to walk more than a few storefronts.
If the coffee shop opened on schedule, it means anyone doing the Final Friday walk this month has an actual reason to arrive before the hot dogs sell out, because there's now a coffee run built into the front end of the evening that didn't exist a year ago.
What an Evening on the Block Could Look Like
| Time | What's happening |
|---|---|
| 5:00 p.m. | Cruise-in cars start filling the block, Jerzee Dogs sets up |
| 5:15 p.m. | Coffee or bakery stop at the Southern Baking Co. and Mount Pleasant Coffee Co. corner |
| 6:00 p.m. | Shop Hop storefronts open late, most people walking the block by now |
| 6:30 p.m. | Dinner window at Mt. Pleasant Grille or a stop at Cocina Real Tennessee |
| 7:30 p.m. | Hot dog line, if it hasn't already sold out |
| 8:00 p.m. | Event wraps, cruise-in cars start pulling out |
None of that requires moving your car once you've found parking.
The Building That Was Already Doing Double Duty
A block down at 100 South Main, Mt. Pleasant Grille has been anchoring the square since 2008, but the building itself has been doing that job a lot longer. From 1911 to 1962, the same address housed a string of businesses, including Barnes Drugs, later Wright's Pharmacy, which ran a soda fountain that locals still bring up. Upstairs, local unions tied to the phosphate industry held their meetings, and the same room doubled as space for town meetings. The stage up there hosted acts booked through the Grand Ole Opry pipeline, some of whom went on to become well known country performers.
The Grille leans into that history rather than covering it up. Its downstairs event space is named the Phosphate City Room, a direct nod to the industry that once filled the building's upstairs meetings. The soda fountain tradition carries forward too, with house made ice cream sold under the name Main Street Creamery, alongside a menu built around Southern comfort food and a signature item locals know as the Fritter Burger. Live music runs most weekend nights, which means on a Final Friday, the Grille isn't competing with the street party outside. It's an extension of it.
That matters for the walk-the-block version of the evening, because it means the building with the longest continuous run of hosting people on the square is still doing exactly that, just with a soda fountain instead of a pharmacy counter and a burger instead of whatever Barnes Drugs served in 1920.
A Third Stop Without Getting Back in the Car
Further up North Main at 305, Cocina Real Tennessee gives the block a third option that doesn't require driving anywhere. Between the coffee and bakery pairing near the 100 block, the Grille's dinner and history at 100 South Main, and Cocina Real Tennessee further along North Main, the square now has enough spread out along a walkable stretch that a Final Friday evening can start with a drink, run through a shop hop, cover dinner, and end back at the hot dog stand, all without anyone needing to reposition a car.
That's the actual shift worth noticing. Final Friday itself hasn't changed much month to month. It's still Jerzee Dogs, still the cruise in, still the Shop Hop pulling people into storefronts that don't normally see foot traffic after 5. What's changed is the ground it sits on. Before this year, the walk between destinations was short on options. Now there's a coffee shop opening a few doors from an already-running bakery, a historic building doing exactly the job it's done in some form since 1911, and a third restaurant far enough down the block to give the whole evening a shape instead of a single stop.
For anyone who already lives here, that's the kind of change that shows up gradually and then all at once. You don't notice the block filling in until you realize you spent an entire Friday evening without needing your car keys.
If you're weighing a move within Mount Pleasant, or wondering what a specific stretch of town is actually like day to day, Heidi Osterheld has spent years working this market and the towns around it. Let's Connect.
