Pat Martin and Bill Darsinos
The Pat Martin restaurant empire continues to grow, following the footsteps of his very successful Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint and Hugh Baby’s ventures. For his third restaurant foray, Martin has teamed up with longtime friend and fellow restaurateur Bill Darsinos of Greko Greek Street Food to bring a new breakfast and lunch concept to Donelson with SweetMilk at 329 Donelson Pike, between Elm Hill Pike and Lebanon Road.
Inspired by the breakfasts of Martin’s youth when his grandma Nonie Sue would cover the table with various dishes, SweetMilk will be open seven days a week. The new spot will offer down-home country breakfast options all day, including biscuit sandwiches, Benedicts, buttermilk pancakes and lighter granola and oatmeal bowls. On the beverage side, SweetMilk will offer specialty coffee drinks, fresh-squeezed juices, natural wines, cocktails and mocktails to get the day started off right.
When the lunch hour begins at 11 a.m., the menu will expand to include salads and sandwiches, plus daily specials straight off of the meat-and-three board of classic dishes: turkey and dressing on Monday, country fried steak on Tuesday, chorizo mac on Wednesday, hamburger steak on Thursday and fried catfish on Fridays. The catfish at Martin’s has always been a sneaky great menu choice, and I always point diners in that direction if they’re looking for a change of pace from smoked meat.
Local management for SweetMilk will be led by a pair of industry veterans, Ilmad Mustafa and Gabe Gyorgy. Mustafa brings more than 35 years of experience working for companies like Bob Evans, O’Charley’s and Cracker Barrel, and Gyorgy is a fellow longtime Cracker Barrel manager.
Martin and Darsinos promise that the food at SweetMilk will be made from scratch, including a limited number of hand-cut biscuits cooked in cast iron. Like a proper barbecue restaurant, when SweetMilk runs out of biscuits, that’ll be it until the next day. Seasonality will also be important to the menu, with jams and jellies rotating through the season to showcase the sweetest, ripest fruits, and burger toppings varying throughout the growing seasons.
The name of the restaurant comes from Nonie Sue’s name for regular milk as opposed to buttermilk, both of which were staples in her kitchen. After a brief soft opening, SweetMilk will be open daily from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. and plans to add carryout, catering and delivery sometime later in the fall or in early winter once business ramps up.
Whaddya know? Donelson really is getting hip!
