By Paul Erland

The village pub, in its ideal incarnation, is a place where people stamp themselves as uniquely human and irrevocably part of a community. One goes to the perfect pub not for anonymous mass celebration but to bask in the glow of quiet conversation and the ring of familiar faces—one goes to find one’s self.

"I’m from New England, where there are taverns and pubs that aren’t like bars," says Jamie Rubin, whose own establishment, The Family Wash, in East Nashville, is a faithful facsimile of that model. "People come to socialize, not to get hammered." Rubin and a partner opened The Family Wash seven years ago, and every year enough people came in to socialize—to eat and drink and listen to live music—to keep the owners’ heads above water. Through a series of crises and the typical ups and downs of a business, the Wash kept churning, so to speak, until about a year ago, when business fell off precipitously.

"It’s been a tough 12 months," says Rubin, who’s been the pub’s sole proprietor for two and a half years. A musician by trade, Rubin made music the driving force of the enterprise from the beginning. There’s a strong schedule of music every night at the Wash, and Rubin says that the magnitude and array of talent on regular display are simply unbelievable—and frequently unnoticed.

"We have national artists dropping by, to do a set or to sit in, or just to listen," he says. "We have performers who’ve worked with everyone from David Bowie to Norah Jones to Patty Griffin. I hear incredible stuff night after night—and a lot of it falls on deaf ears. And that’s fairly typical of what goes on in this city. People in Nashville don’t realize what they’ve got."

When Rubin "fell into" The Family Wash, he didn’t know exactly what he had, either, but once he got involved he saw that there was no place in town to go and hear original music every night. "Music was the catalyst for everything else," he says, "—the food and the wine and the beer. And the balance has to be just right." The food at the Wash is all made fresh daily, from house recipes developed over the years. There’s an eclectic menu of beers—hand-crafted domestics and little-known imports—offering "a taste of something else," as Rubin puts it. Tuesday is Pint and Pie Night, when patrons can enjoy a shepherd’s pie and a pint of beer for $10.

Tuesdays are also showcase nights, featuring short sets from various artists, including Rubin and his group, The Magnificent Others. All the members are working musicians (and therefore not always available), and all are Bostonians, including Rubin, who came to Nashville in 1997 in the hopes of getting a publishing deal.

"I hammered at it pretty hard," he says, "and I got disillusioned pretty fast. People walk around with blinders here. They’re not open to new talent. It’s too bad. The (music) industry could be a lot greater if people were open to the wealth of talent right under their noses. There’s gold in these hills, as they say.

"It would be great if people paid attention."

The Family Wash, too, has suffered from its own lack-of-attention pains, concurrent with the ailing economy, in part. After business began to drop off, a couple of stories ran in local publications, resulting in a "huge outpouring" of support, Rubin says.

"People were apologetic; they said if they’d have known they’d have been here." Old regulars came back, as well as quite a few new customers, and the mini-boom went on much longer than Rubin expected. Then, over the holidays, typically a busy stretch, there was another slowdown.

"One thing I’ve learned in this business is that you can’t anticipate what’s going to happen," Rubin says. Another thing he’s learned is to control what you can.

"Over the years I’ve had all kinds of people tell me what to do or what not to do. You try to accommodate them, but you can’t win. I used to change the menu three times a year, because people asked me to. Then they complained when it changed. So I’ve settled on one menu."

In its first several years the Wash had different kitchen managers, but now Rubin, who originally handled just the music, the beer and the wine, also oversees the food. "I’ve learned a lot about that," he says. "I think I’ve got pretty good control."

Still, there’s no controlling the fact that if people don’t come out, you can’t stop them. Like a washing machine, a business runs in cycles. People may be hunkering down these days, but eventually they’ll come looking for what they’ve been missing—the sense of community and shared interests and purpose.

"I think of this place as a restaurant and a music venue and a community center," says Rubin, who mans the bar four of the five nights the Wash is open. And then, like someone who’s been through—well, who’s been through the wash, and has come out smelling like a rose:

"People are still coming in," he says. "And I’m still here."