From my Food Biz column in this week's print edition of The City Paper and online at the Nashville Post:
The people at Puckett’s always seem to have something new going on. Earlier this year it was the Puckett’s Trolley, a complete mobile-kitchen extension of the two Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant locations, one in Franklin and one in downtown Nashville. Both restaurants are popular spots serving up Southern food, barbecue and live music.
Just a couple of months ago, Puckett’s owner Andy Marshall told me he was working on opening a Puckett’s in Columbia, as well as a new concept, Gray’s on Main, to fill the old Gray’s Drugstore building in downtown Franklin.
Those two projects are still in the works, but in the interim Marshall has opened yet another restaurant, Puckett’s Boat House, on Main Street at the edge of downtown Franklin. It takes over the space held by Route 31 Cafe and Marcia’s Patisserie.
“This was a really quick turnaround,” Marshall said of the new place, “because the site was a currently operating restaurant.”
The owners of Route 31 and the bakery, Jay and Marcia Franks, approached Marshall about reworking the business Puckett’s-style.
Marshall said he and the team didn’t want to simply replicate Puckett’s. “We decided to think about other kinds of comfort food,” he said. What they hit upon was seafood, especially apt since the restaurant site is near the Harpeth River and used to be known as the Boat Locker.
Gulf seafood, Mississippi catfish, fresh shrimp and oysters — “it just seemed like a perfect match with this location,” Marshall said.
