All too often, new restaurants don't give us anything ... well, new. It's a "twist" on an old concept, except the twist isn't so hot. Or it's a beautiful, gleaming space without the same attention to detail paid to the food.
With that in mind, here's how good Biscuit Love is: There's not a damn thing new about what Karl and Sarah Worley are doing, yet it still blew me away. The fact that they're doing old-school Southern breakfast food with no twists in the trendiest area in town (the Gulch), having graduated out of one of the biggest trends in the country (food trucks), makes their delicious fare even more impressive.
There are biscuits in almost everything, naturally. Biscuits and sausage gravy. Biscuit French toast. Biscuits and chicken. Biscuits and eggs. Biscuits and ham. Biscuits and peanut butter with chocolate gravy. Biscuit burgers. Biscuit sandwiches. The Worleys have taken the staple of the Southern table and simply applied it everywhere possible, to delicious effect. Considering that they will serve 700 to 800 biscuits on a busy weekend, they had to get it right.
Maybe the best example of the Worleys getting it right is the first item on the menu — a classic offering from their food truck days, the East Nasty. A biscuit is stuffed with a piece of fried chicken thigh and aged cheddar, and then sausage gravy is applied — gravy so good that it reminded me of sitting in my mom's kitchen as a kid, watching her make a roux out of rendered pork fat and flour and turning it into sausage-infused scrumptiousness.
The biscuits that the Worleys specialize in are fist-sized bits of goodness, soft enough to be delicate on their own but hearty enough to substitute for other types of bread. I was skeptical whether they could pull off a biscuit burger, but there I was, chomping through the Classic's Bear Creek Farms beef patty, cooked a perfect medium rare and slathered in a savory tomato jam. Even when the biscuit didn't hold up — as in the Princess, wrapped around a piece of hot chicken, and falling apart with each bite — the results were a savory mess that a fork helped finish off.
The secret is that they actually do two biscuits: a yeast-raised biscuit for the sandwiches, and a flaky biscuit anytime someone wants one on the side with eggs or just on its own. Each works well in the service of good biscuitry.
But frankly, Biscuit Love doesn't work if the kitchen isn't slinging out orders with remarkable speed. On a busy Saturday morning, we wound through the line for more than a half-hour before we could even order. But within minutes of being seated, our order began arriving. It helped that Sarah Worley's mom had been working the line, bringing expectant diners drinks from the bar — the bloody Mary (they just call it "The Bloody") was outstanding and peppery — but the fast-casual style of service is geared to make things move quickly as soon as the order is made.
That approach is something the Worleys resisted, right up until they were in Atlanta months ago, grabbing breakfast at a restaurant with their 4-year-old. After waiting 20 painful minutes for their check with a squirming child, they re-evaluated their insistence on table service. Their partners in the restaurant, Fresh Hospitality, are masters of the fast-casual experience and were able to put the systems in place to make the Biscuit Love concept work.
"If I would have gone into the Gulch as just a food truck operator, they would have laughed at me," Karl Worley says. But having the backing of the company behind Taziki's, Jim 'n Nick's and Martin's BBQ gave the couple not only the financial support to make the leap from the truck, but also offered advantages like having an in-house construction group. The result is that the Worleys are able to focus on the food and things like building a bigger portion of their menu around eggs than they did on the truck — something essential in a breakfast-dominated menu.
About those eggs. We got them three different times. Once over easy, as Steak and Eggs, paired with a shoulder cut called a teres major that was some of the tenderest beef we've ever had. Secondly with the Southern Benny, which is two eggs with biscuits, shaved ham and sausage gravy on top — it's the best value on the menu. And finally, we had them poached as part of the Egg Plate, with some supremely good cheese grits, a biscuit and jelly. If competent egg-cookery is the mark of a good kitchen, then Biscuit Love passed with flying colors.
Given the quality of the service as well as the line cooks, I asked Karl Worley how they were able to pull it off, given the city's documented problem with finding great help. His reply was interesting.
"I feel like most of the restaurants I've ever worked for, the front of the house and the back of the house are two separate teams," Karl says. "We took a little bit of a different stance and everybody's the same team with the way we tip-share. So all of the tips pool, and once a month we do 50-50 split between front and back of the house, based on the amount of hours they get. It's paid out as a bonus. So, in theory, it allows our cooks to be paid very well and a living wage. It makes it more lucrative and especially in Nashville right now, when everybody's spread so thin with who they're getting."
Add in the fact that Biscuit Love closes at 3 p.m. — meaning staff can generally be out the door to a later shift at another restaurant if they want to double up — and it has put the Worleys at a hiring advantage so far.
The Worleys have come a long way from slinging breakfast out of a food truck. Fortunately for us, just as the name on the door says, these are biscuits worthy of love.
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