The first time Anna Watson Carl went to France, she was a college student in a study-abroad program. Almost every day, she headed to a crêperie called Le Crépuscule in the Latin Quarter for lunch. She ordered the special: a savory galette, a salad, a dessert crepe and an espresso for 10 euros.
She got to know the owners, and as she was preparing to return to Nashville, she asked them to share their sweet crepe recipe so she could make the light pancake on her own at home.
“That’s when the first seed of the idea was born,” Carl says. “I had to bring something similar to Nashville.”
Carl was then 21 years old and had conversations with the owner of the now-shuttered Davis Cookware and Cutlery Shoppe in Hillsboro Village about opening a crepe window at their kitchen supply store.
“It was too soon, too early,” she says now, with hindsight. Life took Carl in other directions. After college, she worked in New York and Pittsburgh. She went to France, where she studied at culinary school and worked. She wrote a cookbook.
In January of this year, decades after those conversations with Ted Davis, Carl finally opened a crêperie in Nashville.
Anna Watson Carl
The Yellow Table Café & Crêperie is a significantly more substantial eatery than a window in Hillsboro Village would have been, but with just 12 seats inside and 12 outside (weather permitting), the Eastwood Village restaurant is a small, cozy space.
“I’ve always been a fan of small spaces, because I feel like that brings this degree of intimacy that you don’t feel in a big, sprawling restaurant,” Carl says.
Carl and her husband Brandon Carl moved back to Nashville in 2018 with a toddler and a new baby. Carl spent many months pushing a stroller through East Nashville, walking to the grocery store, looking for a space that would be right for her future restaurant. The dream went on pause, like many did during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, when things opened up and her kids were both in school, Carl decided it was time. She had seen an available space in Eastwood Village, home to Kinda Collected and the Switchyards coworking space. While there were a few other empty storefronts in Eastwood Village — a mixed-use development in a former chapel — Carl saw the potential for a buzzy neighborhood gathering place.
“It was walkable,” Carl says. “I loved it. It had that patio space. It just — it felt really right.”
But another restaurant claimed the spot. Then a few months later, that deal fell through, and the landlord came back to Carl to ask if she was still interested. Lease negotiations took six months, then architectural drawings and planning commenced. Carl worked from Switchyards and drew on her experience working in restaurants and as a private chef. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” she says. “It was a huge learning curve.”
The Carls opened the restaurant without the help of outside investors. Designers and contractors helped with the “Tetris game” of fitting everything into a less-than-800-square-foot space and building a kitchen from scratch. But when it came to decor, there was one element Carl had handled on her own, and it was non-negotiable — an eponymous yellow table.
Carl grew up eating around a yellow table. It was a cheery, welcoming element in her life — more than a piece of furniture, it was a feeling. She named her 2015 cookbook after it. So when the crêperie became a reality, Carl’s mom (who lives in Brentwood) helped find a table that would provide the same vibes for the restaurant. They drove to South Carolina, paid $200 for one they both loved, and brought it back to town to paint it yellow. (Mom colored-matched with the original.)
The Yellow Table serves breakfast and lunch five days a week, and is closed Sundays and Mondays. The menu includes sweet crepes with options such as salted caramel, jam or Nutella fillings, all topped with powdered sugar. These breakfast or dessert treats are likely what most people think of when they hear “crepes.” But Carl’s signature is the galette (“They’re truly my heart,” she says), which is a savory buckwheat crepe. The buckwheat makes them naturally gluten-free — the dessert crepes, made with a different batter, are not — and they’re folded into a square. They’re cooked a little crispier than the dessert crepe. Fillings are in the middle, surrounded by crispy edges, not rolled like a burrito. Options include goat cheese and leek, smoked salmon, ham and other specials, or build-your-own choices. All galettes are served with a salad with a Dijon vinaigrette, just like the ones Carl ate for lunch as a college student. The menu includes other baked goods, espresso, matcha, coffee, tea, soups in season, salads and bread from nearby Butterlamp Bread & Beverage.
For every new restaurant that opens after months of fanfare and anticipation and social media sneak peeks, there are many more that go for the soft-launch approach, flying under the radar, intending to troubleshoot before the crowds show up. That was Carl’s plan by opening in January, typically the slowest month in the restaurant industry.
“I wanted to open during a time where we could just do a soft opening, not do a lot of advertising, just open our doors and work out the kinks,” she says.
But it’s been busy since the get-go, particularly on Saturdays. Eastwood Village is booming, with other retailers including Desert + Vine Botanical Supply and Novelette Booksellers. Switchyards has a rule that you can’t eat at your coworking desk, so folks who toil there are looking for somewhere for a nearby coffee or lunch break.
Carl has hired an experienced staff, but the restaurant is also a family affair. On a busy Saturday, you may see her daughter clearing plates or her husband and brother washing dishes.
On nice days, the front patio has become that gathering space she imagined.
“It has been so fun on pretty days to see the patio just full and people bringing out their dogs and their babies … so many dogs and babies,” she says. Carl has noted the multigenerational appeal of the cafe, with customers including 6-day-old babies and their parents, senior citizens and everyone in between. Conversations among strangers start at the indoor communal table.
“Given this political climate right now, which can be so discouraging and hard, it has given me a lot of faith in humanity, just seeing the kindness of the people that are coming and just the connections being made,” she says. “It really feels like a sweet community has formed at the cafe.”
