Easter in Nashville: Events, Brunch and Openings

Easter in Nashville brings family egg hunts and holiday meals, with Cheekwood’s Great Spring Art Hop and Nashville Zoo’s Eggstravaganzoo offering two different ways to spend time outdoors. Easter itself is a movable spring Sunday, but the outings around it have their own schedules. Choose the event that suits your children, then arrange your meal around it, rather than expecting one citywide celebration.

Garden activities, age-group hunts and a reserved brunch suit families who want a planned outing with room for breaks. Stompin’ Grounds at JW Marriott Nashville is one named example of an advertised Easter meal, while ordinary Sunday visits to the gardens or zoo can be part of a quieter holiday.

Easter dates and programmes

Easter Sunday

First Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March, the fixed ecclesiastical spring equinox

Possible months

March or April

Holiday length

One day, with separate local event schedules around it

Paid participation

Cheekwood event admission, zoo admission and a holiday meal

Advance planning

Secure your chosen family outing and meal before arranging the rest of the weekend

The Western Christian calendar rule sets the holiday, not every Nashville event date. Treat the Easter Sunday date and the organisers’ event days separately when deciding which nights to stay. Cheekwood sets its Art Hop dates, while the zoo’s hunt has a fixed relationship to the holiday.

Visit Music City gathers local listings on its Easter in Nashville page, with its Event Calendar offering further outings. These citywide listings help you choose between family celebrations and other ways to spend the holiday.

Egg hunts and the Easter programme

Event	When	Advertised window	Venue	Participation
Great Spring Art Hop	Two organiser-set days around Easter weekend	9am–5pm	Cheekwood	Paid event admission
Eggstravaganzoo	Saturday before Easter	9am–5pm	Nashville Zoo	Hunts included with zoo admission
Advertised Easter brunch	Easter Sunday offering	11am–2pm	Stompin’ Grounds	Paid meal, reservation required

Great Spring Art Hop combines egg hunts with activities across Cheekwood’s gardens. The annual event includes a scavenger hunt for oversized bunny murals, art activities, musical performances and local food trucks. This gives you things to do between hunts, rather than making collecting eggs the whole outing.

• Egg hunts for ages 3 and under.
• Egg hunts for ages 4–6.
• Egg hunts for ages 7–9.
• Egg hunts for ages 10 and up.

• Gardens Only: roughly $20–$25 per adult and $15–$20 for youth aged 3–17.
• Gardens + Mansion: roughly $25–$30 per adult and $15–$20 for youth, at the higher end of that range.
• Member Gardens Only admission: roughly $10–$15 for adults and youth.
• Member Gardens + Mansion admission: roughly $15–$20 for adults and $10–$15 for youth.
• Children aged 2 and under enter free.
• Allow for a $2 service fee on paid transactions and $5 parking for nonmembers.

Cheekwood publishes the Great Spring Art Hop programme on its event calendar page. Choose garden-only admission if the outdoor programme is your priority, or mansion access if you also want an indoor visit.

Eggstravaganzoo centres on Egg Hunt Field at Nashville Zoo, with prize-redemption tents beside it. The annual event offers hunts for children aged 12 and under, divided into ages 4 and under and ages 5–12. Younger children may join the older group, but older children cannot join the younger group.

Parents can accompany the youngest group onto the field. A parent-access vest is available for children over 4 who need assistance. Each child should join only one hunt, and a final hunt is open to all ages. Age-group hunts run at half-hour intervals from 9:30am.

Regular hunts need no separate reservation. The specialty Early Risers entry requires its own ticket for 7:30am–9am, so it is a different choice from ordinary event admission. Nashville Zoo publishes the Eggstravaganzoo programme in its Knowledge Base’s Events – General Information section.

Stompin’ Grounds offers an advertised Easter meal at JW Marriott Nashville. Choose it if you want to gather around a restaurant table rather than make a garden or zoo outing the centre of your holiday.

Easter brunch and reservations

Stompin’ Grounds’ advertised Easter buffet suits a family wanting the meal to be the main occasion. At JW Marriott Nashville, the offering brings together starters, a carving station, fresh seafood, spring vegetables and brunch classics. Pastries and house-made sweets round out the meal, with child-friendly favourites and an accompanying Easter egg hunt giving younger diners their own part of the celebration.

For this holiday offering, allow roughly $80–$90 per adult and $40–$45 for children aged 5–12, before additional charges. Children under 5 eat free. The advertised price carries a “++” qualifier, so budget beyond the headline meal price when deciding whether the buffet suits your party.

Reservations are required for the meal advertised on JW Marriott Nashville Dining’s Easter Brunch page. For parties of 9 or more, email jwnashexperiences@turnberry.com. Arrange the whole party’s meal together, especially if several families are joining you, rather than relying on separate reservations to seat everyone together.

If you are also choosing a family outing, keep its activity programme separate from your dining reservation. Leave room to finish the hunt, take a break and travel to the restaurant before sitting down. A buffet can be the centre of the holiday for one family, while another may prefer food during an outdoor event and an unhurried meal later.

Sunday openings and transport notices

An Easter Sunday visit to Cheekwood is not automatically an Art Hop visit. Cheekwood follows its ordinary Sunday opening hours on Easter Sunday. Choose the event days for the bunny-mural hunt and organised activities, or a regular visit for the gardens and art.

Nashville Zoo also opens on Easter Sunday under its daily opening rule. Its annual closures are Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. A Sunday visit therefore lets you see the zoo, but it is separate from Eggstravaganzoo’s organised hunts. Use each venue’s own arrangements to plan sightseeing, rather than treating the holiday as a citywide closure.

WeGo Public Transit publishes holiday service announcements under News/Press Releases. These notices cover changes affecting local journeys. Leave travel time outside the activities themselves, particularly when you have a restaurant reservation to reach.

Tickets and weekend planning

Choose one main family outing rather than fitting both Cheekwood and Nashville Zoo into a tightly timed day. Allow room for entry, finding the hunt area and a break before the children’s activity. At Cheekwood, the garden activities can occupy the gaps, while at the zoo you need to organise your visit around the appropriate age-group hunt.

Set the meal reservation around that choice, not immediately after a hunt you still need to leave. Keep travel and rest separate from time spent enjoying the venue. If the meal is your priority, build the day around sitting down together and make any sightseeing a lighter addition.

Sources & fact-checking

Checks against the sources below cover: fares and charges, services, and opening hours.

• JW Marriott Nashville — service
• JW Marriott Nashville — fares and charges
• Cheekwood Estate & Gardens — opening hours
• Cheekwood — service
• Cheekwood Estate & Gardens — fares and charges
• Nashville Zoo — opening hours
• U.S. Naval Observatory — opening hours
• Visit Music City — service
• WeGo Public Transit — service