Troubleshoot: Setting up rails project with nginx + passenger locally (on a mac)

I've installed nginx + passenger using brew, as instructed here: https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/install/nginx/install/oss/osx/

I edited the config file (under /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf) to the following:

http {
    passenger_root /usr/local/opt/passenger/libexec/lib/phusion_passenger/locations.ini;
    passenger_ruby /usr/bin/ruby;
    ...

    server {
        listen 3000;
        server_name localhost;
        rails_env development;
        root /absolute/path/to/rails/project/public
        passenger_enabled on;
    }

    location / {
        root html;
        index index.html index.htm;
    }

    ...
}

Then I start nginx by typing "nginx" in terminal

Now when I go to localhost:3000, all I get is the default "Welcome to nginx!" page. What I expect to see is my home root page.