News broke Friday afternoon that the iconic Nashville meat-and-three restaurant institution Arnold’s Country Kitchen is planning to close at the end of this week. Former Scene editor and current Nashville Banner editor Steve Cavendish shared the news of the impending closure via the Banner’s email newsletter and Twitter feed, and local television stations followed up with their rehashes of the same information plus a succinct statement issued by a spokesperson for the restaurant.
Frankly, I’m pleased that we here at the Scene had a couple of days before we published this news on Bites. Fans of Arnold’s brand of soulful Southern cooking have had the weekend to wail and gnash their collective teeth over the loss of such an important part of the local dining scene — and it didn’t take long before many people started in with the old “New Nashville is killing Old Nashville,” “greedy developers are tearing down all our institutions” and “this is why we can’t have nice things” tropes.
But in truth, this is not that kind of story. It’s not a narrative that can be explained in a tweet, a 30-second TV news segment, a newsletter or in the comments section of a Facebook post. The story of how and why the family has decided to step away from the restaurant that they've run for 40 years — employing three generations of Arnolds — is actually a tale of a family that made an extremely brave bet on themselves a decade ago and are collecting their winnings. Just like how they say professional sports coaches are hired to be fired, it’s rare in the restaurant industry that anyone gets to leave on their own terms. The Arnolds deserve the chance to tell their side of the story.
Kahlil and Rose Arnold
I’ve been working on this story for almost two months, sitting on one of the worst-kept secrets in town. Why would I skip a scoop, you might ask? For one, had I reported what I learned from sitting down with the owners — matriarch Rose Arnold and her son Kahlil Arnold — in early November, many of the facts would have changed by now as the family grappled with the details and timing of the closure and the announcement. Also, I promised that I would not share the information until the Arnolds had informed their entire staff and told them about the details of their severance packages. I knew keeping a lid on the news would be a long shot. The Arnolds wrestled with whether to stay open for a day, a week, a month or a year after the announcement, fearing that the inevitable crush of diners would be hard on their staff or make them want to quit immediately.
When a local reporter shared a concern earlier in the pandemic that Arnold’s might be going out of business, Rose learned a valuable lesson. “Stephanie Langston was trying to be helpful,” Rose recalls, “but we got absolutely crushed by the crowds coming in all at once for about a week. We weren’t staffed up for that, and after a while, business just went back to normal, which was slow. I was really worried about the crowds descending and overtaxing the staff.” Like any major real estate transaction, there were many hoops to jump through, so guessing a date was next to impossible.
Rose was considering several different constituencies as she tried to figure out how best to communicate her intention to close: her employees, her family and her beloved customers. But the news did come out, and it spread like wildfire before all of the staff had been informed.
So here’s the story of how this all came about, straight from the sources.
“I’m tired,” Rose shares. “My back hurts like hell! I want to retire, and I’ve got a lot of people to take care of, including my husband.” Jack Arnold, the restaurant founder, originally purchased the restaurant from his boss, Lynn Chandler, who was considered the father of the meat-and-three after opening the original Elliston Soda Shop. Jack Arnold has not been involved with day-to-day operations for more than a decade due to illness, and Rose and her son Kahlil have served as the faces of the institution.
“This was never my dream,” Rose explains. “I just got lucky.”
A decade ago, Rose and Kahlil were faced with the realization that Jack’s 30-year lease on the restaurant building was coming due. “We didn’t intend to buy it,” Rose recalls. “We just wanted to extend the lease or at least get the first option.” They were surprised to see the building listed for sale on a commercial real estate site and realized that they would have to act.
Kahlil shares: “It was just Rose and me. We didn’t go to Jack about it since he wasn’t really involved anymore. When I asked him about buying the building one time, he said that there was no way we could afford it with what the restaurant was bringing in, but when I looked at the numbers I thought, ‘Well, actually I think we can!’ Outside developers had big plans for the property, but nobody wanted to be the one to tell Rose that they had bought it out from under her.”
“I’d spent 30 years in the building, and I knew everything that was wrong with it," says Rose. "I knew I’d have to fix the infrastructure, and nobody else would have done it."
So Rose and Kahlil purchased the building and two adjacent lots for $750,000 in 2012. “We knew that a restaurant was the worst possible use for that property, and it took a year to find someone to lend us the money," Rose admits. "Then we ended up spending more than the purchase price on the remodel, but after we appeared on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, the money rained in. Guy Fieri set us off!”
Like any construction project, the refurb took longer than expected, and costs climbed through the roof. At the end of the ordeal, Arnold’s had doubled the size of its dining room and added a new cooking line, restrooms, a bar and a patio. Rose wasn’t comfortable with doubling the volume expectations for the kitchen and serving staff, so she waited months to add extra seats, even after the building was completed. Ever creatures of habit, fans of the restaurant refused to spread out into the added space and continued to huddle together elbow to elbow while half the square footage remained unoccupied.
Eventually, Rose and Kahlil were confident that they had the systems in place to handle the increase in volume and added more seating and an evening service branded as Arnold’s After Dark. But in the immortal words of Biggie, mo’ money, mo’ problems — not to mention the onset of a pandemic.
“We had just spent five years putting the place together when COVID hit," Rose recalls with a sigh. "We had planned a big new grand opening right before we got shut down. Since we reopened, it’s just been one thing after another: supply chain, food costs, utilities. I thought everything was going to double.”
“Double, my ass!” Kahlil butts in. “When we bought the building in 2012, our property tax was $11,000. Then it went to $44,000, and now it’s $78,000 with another reassessment coming up in 2024.” While the value of the property used to be compared to other single-story industrial buildings in the neighborhood, the growth of the Gulch has demonstrated the value of the air rights above the ground floor — something a small restaurant can’t really take advantage of, unlike a hotel or mixed-use housing/retail complex.
“If we could charge $40 to $50 per plate, we’d be good,” says Rose.
Arnold's Steak Dinner
“Restaurants operate on very small margins, and the cost of everything is going up!" Kahlil adds. "As a restaurant, we make money off of other people’s money, and we refuse to cut corners. One thing my dad always said was, ‘Son, you can have a restaurant with great service, but they don’t come back for the service. The kitchen runs the restaurant!’ We make great Southern food without shortcuts, and we genuinely care if you enjoyed yourself. It’s always been a balancing act between good food, great service and keeping your people happy.”
Rose admits the crux of the problem: “The thing that kept pushing me was knowing the property tax increases were coming. That’s the straw that broke my back. We couldn’t afford to close when we remodeled, because we needed the money to keep coming in since we didn’t borrow against the equity. The 2024 reassessment will just be unaffordable for us, and I wanted the chance for us to exit on our terms.”
She also wants to be clear that the choice to sell the building and close the restaurant is a family decision. “I don’t want the developer to be crucified!”
“It’s not like they came to us,” Kahlil adds.
With many low-margin businesses, much of the wealth of a company is tied up in property and inventory, but cash-flow demands are high, leaving owners in a precarious situation. Rose could have retired and let her family or someone else operate the business, but then she would never see the benefit of her family’s brave and prescient gamble a decade ago. While the Arnolds have not disclosed the terms of the sale, given the wild increase in property value in the area, it’s a safe bet that they should recoup what they paid many times over.
While the move was difficult, and Rose went back and forth on the details several times during the past months, she is at peace with her decision, if not the timing of the revelation of the closing. “We’ve been the luckiest people on earth. I feel like I have angels that look over us. It’s been an amazing ride — just wonderful.
“It’s never been easy, working from 6 in the morning until the last person left, but people appreciate it," she continues. "I hear it every day. We have met some of the most amazing, genuinely kind people through this business, from suppliers to country music stars to politicians, really all of our customers. It gives you a sense that humanity is good. People have been so good to us through the years, but I’m ready to retire. It’s been 40 years.”
Kahlil Arnold
“It’s been my whole life,” Kahlil adds.
Kahlil Arnold’s life as a chef/restaurateur is far from over, though, and he already has several potential projects under consideration. “Kahlil’s always had great ideas,” Rose says proudly. “He’s a great commodity!” It shouldn’t be too long before he pops up in a kitchen again, be it another version of Arnold’s or something different.
Until then, this is your last week to slide your red tray down that legendary steam table, although Rose reserves the right to extend or contract the schedule as she sees fit based on the sanity of her staff and her family.
Arnold’s is closed this Monday, taking a break from the busy holidays and steeling themselves for the inevitable onslaught of hugs and tearful “last suppers” that will doubtlessly fill the rest of the week. If you do drop by for one last slice of roast beef carved by a family member, or to tell them what they have meant to the community, remember it’s OK to be sad. But there's no need to be mad.
