It is starting to sound like “second verse, same as the first.” John Stephenson, owner of the highly regarded Hathorne, announced today that his West Side casual fine dining spot will permanently close at the end of the week.
Hathorne is the latest independent restaurant in Nashville to announce plans to close its doors. Stephenson cited many of the same reasons that Mailea Weger cited last week when she announced she is closing Lou Nashville: declining sales and increased food costs. Difficulties in staffing and a few other outside factors also contributed to the end of the run for the six-year-old restaurant.Â
The first half of 2023 was good for the restaurant, Stephenson says, up about 30 percent over 2022. But the second half of the year slowed dramatically. Fall and pre-holiday winter are typically good months for restaurants, so that did not bode well. Early 2024 continued a decline, and this summer, he says, “has been brutal.” Year-to-date sales are down about 30 percent. That number would be hard for any small business to swallow, but particularly hard for restaurants, which have small margins.Â
Last week, the restaurant had to close for a few nights because several members of the kitchen staff contracted COVID-19. While that might not seem significant, being closed even one Saturday night was tough on the bottom line. (They experienced the same kind of hit in January when the ice storm temporarily closed many businesses.)
“We put so much love and work into this, I did not want to sully that by limping by at the end,” Stephenson says of the decision to close now. He didn’t want quality and service to decline over the course of a slow closure. He also wanted to be able to pay staff and the local farmers who supply the kitchen. Hathorne had been a local favorite, earning kudos in Best of Nashville and praise from reviewers nationwide.
Stephenson and his investors own the building on Charlotte Avenue that houses Hathorne. It’s a repurposed church fellowship hall and part of the vibe he tried to create there is one of community. Because he was his own landlord, he tried adjusting the rent (and also forgoing his own salary for a few months) to turn things around. He’d be open to renting the space to another restaurant that might be able to make a go of it, although he suspects selling the building is more likely.
“This weekend is one last chance to say goodbye with a smile in our hearts,” Stephenson says. In the hours since Stephenson posted about the closure on social media, folks have been calling and booking tables online for one last chance to eat the seasonal American menu. “We're going to have the busiest weekend we’ve had all year,” he says.
If it is too late for you to grab a table, Stephenson has an idea. No, make that a request. “Go to one of the neighborhood gems you like but haven’t been to in a while. Put them in your regular rotation.”
Earlier this year, the Scene ran an article on locally owned restaurants that are often overlooked. Three of them have closed, but there are plenty of others on that list and elsewhere in town that could use your dining dollars.
