Red Light Special
When you walk up Buchanan Street toward Slim & Husky’s, the first thing you notice most likely is the line. Now, a line’s not unusual, but it’s 10:15 on a Friday morning, and people are waiting for pizza.
That is no small accomplishment.
From left: E.J. Reed, Clinton Gray and Derrick Moore
When Clinton Gray, E.J. Reed and Derrick Moore opened the pizzeria earlier this year, the trio knew they could be successful because of the need in the neighborhood. Gray calls it a “food desert,” and he’s not wrong — walking distance either way down Buchanan won’t get you very much. But lines like this are more than evidence of being in the right place at the right time — the lines are a sign that these guys have built something interesting, something that is attracting crowds from well beyond North Nashville.
“We wanted to be on the forefront of creating a new vibe in a familiar area,” says Reed. “That’s a lot of the motivation behind this one opening over here. These people over here don’t really have anything quality to eat. It’s all fast food, simple food, things you might expect. We wanted to just put something different. Make it good, just make it nice and artistic and just a good vibe, community values.”
Reed and Moore were elementary-school friends who met Gray in high school. After graduation in 2003, all three went to TSU, graduating in 2007. They knew the neighborhood well and understood its needs, so when the group sold its moving company after five years, their SOON Hospitality company — “something out of nothing” — started Slim & Husky’s on “$3,000 and a work ethic.”
“There were a lot of good pizza spots here,” Gray says, “but we felt like there might be a need for more, and what better way to bring people together than figure out how to make some pizza?”
The shop is filled with the work of local designers: The sturdy communal tables, windows and chandeliers were all made by Kidd Epps Art Shop across the street. Nashville artist Xavier Payne painted the artwork in the bathrooms. The logo, the outside mural and indoor homage to Arrested Development’s 1992 hit “Tennessee” were created by Doughjoe from Norf Studios. This isn’t a cookie-cutter kind of place.
Music also plays a very large role at Slim & Husky’s. If you’re gonna run a business with a line out the door most of the time, you need to keep patrons happy and moving during what can sometimes be a half-hour wait. On separate trips for pizza, I heard cuts I would never find on most other restaurants’ playlists: Doug E. Fresh’s “The Show,” De La Soul’s “Me, Myself and I” and Digable Planets’ “Rebirth of Slick.” I’ve even heard DJ Kool’s old-school, bring-the-house-down anthem “Let Me Clear My Throat,” although Moore swears he’s heard it at Two Ten Jack before — “They got a good playlist,” he says.
“We’re really big on highlighting black culture,” Gray says. “We feel like we could do it in a way that everybody could learn something new, or just respect our nostalgia, things that they liked from the past. That’s why we play sitcoms from the ’90s, movies from the ’90s, music from the ’90s. They just pay homage to our culture and how we grew up.”
That’s why they’re so serious about the music. While you won’t hear them blast any music with profanity during lunch hour, the house rules posted on the door carry an explicit warning — after 6:30 p.m., you might hear some lyrics that could make your mom blush.
“It’s a few things,” Moore says of the music choices. “Time is one. Different times of the day, the crowd. Really, to be honest, what we’re feeling, how we’re feeling. Clint might come in and he might be ready to turn on some Pac, you know what I mean? I come in, I’m ready to turn on some Badu. E.J. might be ready to turn on some UGK or something from the South, you know what I mean?”
“In the evening when we’re ready to turn it up a little bit,” Gray adds, “we’ll play Southern ’90s hip-hop. Growing up here, we didn’t really grow up as much on East Coast/West Coast. We love it, but the culture here was Master P, Three 6 Mafia, OutKast.”
“Juvenile for sure,” adds Moore.
It works. There’s a subtle bounce to the line when a familiar song comes on, and various patrons sit at the tables mouthing the lyrics and bobbing their heads.
Optional drizzles for topping the pizzas
Of course it wouldn’t matter how good the atmosphere was if the pizza weren’t good. The menu on the wall gives you two directions in the form of lyrics from, appropriately enough, Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours” — “You can get with this” for signature pizzas, or “You can get with that” for custom orders. After a line of pizza makers assembles your pie, it’s placed on a conveyor-belt oven and cooks in just a few minutes. The result is excellent: thin-crust pizza with fresh ingredients, which holds up very well even to go (that’s not always a given with thin-crust pies). The trio credits their chef, Jason Williams, for getting the dough and ingredients right, and also for the custom drizzles for topping the pizzas.
It’s hard to go wrong, but if you’re not going your own way, The Red Light Special lives up to its billing as a margherita-style pizza with light red sauce, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. My personal favorite has consistently been the Rony, Roni, Rone! (see what they did there?), a red-sauce pie with three kinds of pepperoni, which can get a little crispy in the oven.
Slim & Husky’s small bar also features a pretty enviable beer list culled from 14 different local craft brewers. There are adult slushies too, available either as a margarita or whatever the seasonal special happens to be.
It’s fun to see this place become a hit, and not just because Gray, Reed and Moore are likable guys who are willing to hustle to make something happen. They seem to get that it’s important to create a quality restaurant someplace other than Germantown, Midtown or East Nashville.
“We’ve been riding up and down these streets since we were kids,” Gray says. “We have family from this area. We went to school in this area. For us, Buchanan went from being an area where you could get something good to eat to just being a shortcut to just getting to the other side. You know? We talked about it. We were like, ‘Most restaurants are going in popular areas.’ We travel and we see how areas that need resources can flourish by concepts coming in and helping change the neighborhood. That’s what helped us want to take a risk in the neighborhood and say, ‘Let’s bet on Buchanan Street.’ ”
That’s what Nashville’s dining scene needs more than another damn steakhouse or chain concept in a high-rise. The city could use 20 more groups like this trio opening places in underserved neighborhoods — there’s a long list of them — and creating a good experience for diners. I’d just ask them to remember that the soundtrack is sometimes as important as the food.
