Click Here for the Gatti's talking slideshow, guided by this small infant.
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Before we begin, I should note that I had originally intended to do only 3 Nashville monuments. Nothing, I had thought, could compare to the wonder and beauty of Lion's Head, the majestic scope of Opryland, or the unbearably bright light that eminated from Fountain Square. But one night, out of nowhere, I was hit by a bolt of lightning. I realized that I was still lacking several other Nashville monuments. The first and most important of these monuments is clearly Gatti's.

It was pointed out to me by Keith Lowen, friend and WOB contributor (see "dear sam: keith and i think these pictures of you look gay" after you've finished here.), that Gatti's (unlike Opryland, the LH or fountain of goodness,) is still functioning today. He suggested that this may disqualify it from being memorialzed. I couldn't disagree more... I feel that this establishment is well qualified for memorialization. While the restaurant hasn't literally closed, it is certainly only a shadow of it's previous self. Allow me to explain.

Let's set the scene. Nashville, TN. West End Ave. 1992. A beautiful, sunny day. You and several friends procure several dollars from your respective parents, and agree upon a meeting point for the day: Gatti's. Around 1 PM, bicycles start pouring into the parking lot. Bo Grimes arrives on his Schwinn. Smith arrives on his fathers 10-speed with the curved handlebars. Maurer arrives on his Huffy Sonic Six. And, lo and behold, Charles Richardson arrives on a hoverboard. How does he do it? We will never know. Nathan Terry and Tyler Cameron were both invited, but decided on meeting up at Nathan's house and riding to the green hills mall instead. And yes, who else do we see on the horizon but James Manning - a rouge Manning appearance. The stage is now set.

Upon arrivaly, you are immediately hit by a bank of 16 coin-operated machines that dispense prizes of all natures. Pick your pleasure - will you go for the Runts? Or would you rather take your chance with a random surprise machine. Or, perhaps my personal favorite, would you rather spend your hard earned allowance money on an elastic sticky hand capable of robbing almost anything from an adjacent table. After your purchase, you'll look up and see a menu, described by Sam Smith as "over 85 feet in width, eminating an aura of tranquility." What shall you order? What sort of pizza's should be consumed? Here inlays the problem - Smith is a cheese fan, Pablo has been known to consume a fine pepperoni and musroom combination pizza, Richardson will consume almost anything, including many women. And of course Manning insists on the rouge pineapple and ham combination, in keeping with his rouge personality. But, my friends, never fear. Gatti's solved this problem with their finest contribution to this horrible world - THE BUFFET.

That's right. Pay $5, (now more like $7) and simply wander down a row of hot, steaming, perfectly crafted Italian delectables. Of course it is only natural to completely bypass the salad/pasta area. But please, do us all a favor and don't forget it completely - the pasta salad at Gattis was one of the finer things in that establishment, along with the spaghetti and meat sauce, described by Smith as "The strands of god himself, bathed in a red sauce comparable only to the trans-substantiated red wine of the last supper." The first pizza that you will encounter on your stroll down the line will be cheese. And the cheese will be freshly made, with ocassional bubbles of browness, steaming hot. Next you'll encounter pepperoni, sausage, a perfectly crafted combination pizza, and at the end a pie of either the hamburger or ham variety. And lastly, of course, the apple and chocolate pizzas.



Of course there would be many trips to the buffet in one visit, sometimes upwards of 20. By the end of this feast, your total mass would've incresed by many pounds. Smith was often known to increase exponentially - he would often leave the establishment wearing nothing but a torn and tattered hypercolor t-shirt, as his clothes were no match for the expansion of his flesh. Most customers would finish off with the apple or chocolate variety. Sam and I would always end with apple. After consumption, one would move on to the other power areas of Gattis - either the big screen tv, or the much-fabled video game area. I would immediately sprint either for the 4-player Simpsons game, or the 4-player X-Men. In earlier days, I had spent many quarters on the "crane that you try and grab a prize with but it never works" machine. I learned my lesson one day in 1990, however, when I lost $32 in quarters at that machine. Never again would I return to it.  Foosball was always an option, but when you compared it to the other machines, including the street fighter machine (the sound of "ryuuuuuken" will forever be engrained in my mind,) it paled in comparison. The bigscreen tv, at the time, was perhaps the pinnacle of human technological achievement. It rose 18 feet, well beyond the ceiling, or so it seemed at least. There was always something entertaining to watch on it, whether it be inspector gadget, football, or perhaps 3-2-1 contact.

Lastly, I'll talk of the party room. Actually I won't. I think the infant in the guided tour describes it fairly well. But of course now I will talk of the decline of Gatti's. I think the change started in 1997. On a visit to Gatti's, I noticed that Sam had actually started out with the apple pizza, instead of his traditional cheese. I asked him why - he looked at me to answer, but he couldn't. His vision was blinded by the tears coming down his face, and voice stifled by the pain and hurt he felt deep down inside. He didn't know why he had - and it was only 2 years later that we realized why. The quality of the cheese was declining - the pies, due to suffering attendance, would often times sit there for several hours, hardening to disgust. Subconsciously, Smith began eating the apple first, as he would often times have to wait hours for a new batch of cheese to come out. Eventually, even the apple was never freshly made. Smith would sit at a table for days, weeping, until a fresh pizza was delivered.

The Simpsons machine went next. The party room would often sit abandoned for days. Many of the employees who had previously been assigned to make pies were fired and/or quit/commited suicide. The kids just stopped coming. Sam and I are still hanging on. What you'll see in the guided tour is a documentation of a recent visit to gattis by Sam, Steven Davis and I. What we found was disheartening to the max. A sparse crowd, as always, and miserable looking at that. Cold pizza. Sam and I tried to play the X-Men machine, but one of the joysticks was broken. So was my soul. Steven got shirtless again out of grief. The mexican man with the ponytail who runs the place looked lost and confused.



Daniel Maurer, my brother, pictured above. He shares with us an interesting recollection of his most recent Gattis visit:

"Pabs and I once went to Gattis while I was visiting Nashville-- at the time I had no qualms about breaking my sushi diet for the pizza buffet, as nary a thing exists in New York, and the trademark apple crumb pizza was a staple of my youth. I had always been a fan of Gattis, my one caveat being that there is often a prohibitive build-up of pizza grease on the video game controllers. This visit, however, proved horrific-- there was some accursed kids show on the big screen (possibly Teletubbies), we were surrounded by obese cows, and every time I took a hopeful bite of pizza, my taste buds just sat there fanning their balls. As we ate to the point of nausea, desperate to turn an irreversible tide of tastelessness, it occurred to us that the man behind the counter was not so much a cashier as a lifeguard at a pizza cesspool, and later Pabs and I set down words to this effect in an impassioned letter to the manager full of memorable metaphors, all of which I've forgotten. It is remarkable that even as I write this, and recall the rage (and diarrhea) we felt, I want nothing more than to return to the one who did me so wrong-- Mr. Gatti."

I won't even bring up the rouge Green Hills Gatti's. I don't even know if it really existed, or if it was a figment of my imagination. Nor will I mention Gattiland in the Harding Mall.