Nashville's Gulch could be in for a serious carnivore upgrade, with Terra Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse filing plans to bring a full-blown churrascaria to the ground floor of the Modera McGavock tower at 1212 McGavock Street. The proposal outlines nearly 10,000 square feet of restaurant space and a tenant buildout pegged at about $2.5 million, a footprint that would rank among the largest new full-service dining rooms to set its sights on the Gulch in recent months.
According to documents reviewed by the Nashville Business Journal, the chain is pursuing that substantial ground-floor space at 1212 McGavock St., with filings in tenant and permit records tied to the Modera McGavock development. The roughly $2.5 million buildout signals an unusually ambitious move for a single downtown location.
Terra Gaucha, which launched in Jacksonville in 2015 and now lists six U.S. locations with a Phoenix restaurant marked "coming soon," pitches a traditional churrasco setup featuring tableside-carved cuts and a sizable hot-and-cold market table, per Terra Gaucha. The company has steadily expanded beyond its Florida base into markets in Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, Indiana and Connecticut.
What This Would Mean For The Gulch
At close to 10,000 square feet, the planned Terra Gaucha would be much larger than most new Nashville restaurant deals in recent years, a format that local coverage notes is becoming less common as construction and rent costs climb. As WhatNow reports, recent big-footprint projects like Philippe Chow and Ocean Prime are among the few concepts taking on this kind of scale.
What’s Next
A filed permit is only an early move and does not lock in an opening date. Permit review, tenant buildout work and finalizing a lease can stretch over several months before any ribbon-cutting, according to the Nashville Business Journal. The filings cited by the Business Journal do not include a public timeline from Terra Gaucha or the Modera leasing team.
The prospective restaurant would sit inside Modera McGavock at 1212 McGavock Street, a high-rise that promotes more than 12,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space in its marketing materials. The tower's leasing page lays out the address and available retail slots in the Gulch building.
If the deal advances, Terra Gaucha would join Nashville's existing churrascaria lineup, including a Fogo de Chão location at Nashville Yards, adding one more option to the city's roster of tableside-carved, market-style dining rooms. We will be watching permitting records and company announcements for confirmation of a signed lease, buildout schedule and eventual opening date.
