Chef Andy Little
After Smokin’ Thighs owner Matthew Carney died after being struck by a car in 2024, his widow ran the business for a few more months before closing it in October of that year. Since then, the building at 611 Wedgewood Ave. has drawn a lot of interest — especially since Strategic Hospitality announced it would be opening its 12th hospitality concept at that site.
Sally’s Stay Awhile will be Max and Benjamin Goldberg’s second venture (after Bastion) in the burgeoning Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood, and the duo's partner/chef Josh Habiger will be involved in menu development and seasonal updates to the food and drink offerings at Sally’s.
Leading the day-to-day operations in the new restaurant will be another fantastic chef whom the Goldbergs have been able to pull from their very deep bench of talent. Andy Little joined Strategic Hospitality in 2024 after the unfortunate shuttering of his beloved 12South restaurant Josephine. He has been, and will continue to be, Strategic Hospitality’s director of culinary operations as he takes the helm at Sally’s when the restaurant opens sometime in (hopefully) late spring this year.
I sat down with Chef Little and Benjamin Goldberg to discuss the project, starting with where the name came from. It turns out there’s some history behind it.
“We always try to identify the project first and then start looking at the history behind it,” Goldberg tells me. Like The Patterson House — which is named after the Tennessee governor who vetoed statewide Prohibition in 1909 — Sally's is named after a real person, not just the girl to fear “when the wine runs out.”
According to the official announcement of the latest news: “The restaurant’s name draws from local history, honoring Sally Rains Merritt, the daughter of Captain John Rains, who settled the original 640 acres of land in 1779. After his passing, Sally built the famous Merritt Mansion just down the street.”
Rains Avenue runs into Geodis Park’s entrance, so I expect a lot of Nashville SC fans to hop back and forth between Sally’s restaurant and her dad’s street on match days.
Also historical is the horse logo that will be emblematic of the restaurant. It is meant to represent Wedgewood, one of the most famous racing trotting horses of the 19th century, who gave his name to both the street and the neighborhood.
Tax records put the date of the small building’s construction at 1935, and it has a personal connection for Goldberg.
“When we were first working on Bastion,” he recalls, “I lived in Wedgewood-Houston, so I used to hang out for beers and wings at Smokin’ Thighs. I felt the legacy and purpose of the building, and it’s a meaningful space for the neighborhood.”
The footprint of the new building will be largely unchanged. The team will maintain the same 30-space parking lot, a real commodity in that neighborhood, and they have enclosed a former outdoor patio to add more seating. It will still be a fairly small restaurant, seating about 60 to 65 people.
Above all, Goldberg and Little want the space to feel like home.
“We just want people to have one less step in their lives," explains Goldberg. "Just park and eat. We want to be the easy option and the comfortable space. It’s going to be a casual, come-as-you-are restaurant, and we decided to use the cinderblocks to our advantage to give that vibe.”
During the remodel, the interior has pretty much been stripped back to those cinderblock walls. Little had very specific requests, which were largely granted. Even so, the process felt different this time.
“It’s daunting to start with a rectangle box,” says Goldberg, “but we gave Andy what he wanted — including a window from the kitchen to the dining room, a double-sided hood and the biggest walk-in ever!”
Little knew taking on the challenge of cooking three-and-a-half meals — breakfast, lunch, dinner and weekend brunch — would take a lot of planning. Gracefully transitioning between menus during the course of the day takes finesse, and Goldberg admitted they had learned lessons from the multipage clipboard of a menu that Pinewood Social opened with.
While there will be defined menus that change throughout the day, if a patron comes in five minutes after breakfast ostensibly ends, and there are still a few pastries or breakfast sandwiches in the retail case, Little’s default attitude is always to say yes and find a way to make it happen.
Early morning will feature traditional breakfast dishes, but don’t think Sally’s is going to be a diner.
“Our menu will be nothing but fastballs,” shares Little, a big baseball fan. “But they’ll be prepared with care and attention to detail.” Expect house-made pastries, fresh fruit, yogurt bowls, egg dishes, pancakes and more.
Lunch will revolve around salads, sandwiches and soups, while dinner will have larger-format dishes like prime rib and pasta, all accompanied by seasonal vegetables and other traditional side dishes, including rotating nightly specials.
Little also plans to offer take-home meals so customers can stop in for a while on the way home from work and pick up a meal for the family that is ready to heat and eat. The chef promises he has got his rotisserie chicken on lockdown, and I imagine that will be a very popular item.
There will also be a full bar with cocktails, beer and wine plus an open-to-close coffee program from Strategic’s longtime friends at Crema Coffee Roasters. Above all, Little wants to emphasize the “Stay Awhile” part of Sally’s name.
“The menu at Sally’s will reflect the comfortable, neighborhood spirit of Wedgewood-Houston,” Little says in the announcement. “We want it to be the kind of place where you can stop in for breakfast on your way to work, meet a colleague for lunch, and then return later with your family for a relaxed dinner, all at affordable prices.”
Additional updates, including opening date and hours of operation, will be announced soon. Follow along for updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and menu previews at @sallys_stay_awhile on Instagram and TikTok.
