To dine with a family is to get to know it — to pull up a chair, pass a plate and talk.
We've seen the spectrum of dynamics at home, reflected in movies from Kevin Spacey throwing a plate of asparagus in American Beauty to a sweet moment of shared eggs among brothers at the end of Big Night.
And families who run restaurants together invite us even a step closer. Their kinship informs every facet of their businesses, whether they're cleaning awnings, sweeping driveways, changing light bulbs — or bringing dinner to our table.
Even as it grows and changes, Nashville's restaurant scene has emerged from the strong roots of family trees. These pages offer a small sampling of those who have served the city, from venerable establishments to relative newcomers. The mom-and-pops who've made a mark here spanning decades and cultures could fill books, among them the Myint family (International Market, PM, Blvd, Suzy Wong's, Smiling Elephant), the Yepez family (La Hacienda), the Sayasacks (King Market, Thai Esane) and the Princes (Prince's Hot Chicken Shack), not to mention the Savarinos and the Varallos — the latter still running the downtown chili parlor acknowledged as the state's oldest restaurant, established in 1907.
Carey Bringle of Peg Leg Porker has eaten at the picnic tables of many passed-down barbecue joints, and he recognizes — especially now with his own place — that it isn't easy to hand down a family business successfully. In most cases, though, the next generation has at least witnessed the hard work firsthand. They know not to take it for granted.
But more than just passing down a technique or a recipe, family restaurants pass on a way to fold staff into their extended embrace — and with them their customers. After all, these restaurants end up becoming nontraditional family to many of the people they serve. Time and again, they open their doors and welcome us back home.
These are some of the family-run establishments that have saved Nashville a seat at their tables.
Swett's Restaurant
2725 Clifton Ave., 615-329-4418
At age 6, David Swett learned to count change at the family concession stand at Hadley Park. At 13, he took a job at the family grocery cutting meat. In high school, he washed stockpots in the kitchen.
But it wasn't until age 23 that he made his way to Swett's Restaurant for good.
"My parents wanted to go with their church to Jerusalem," he recalls. "They had worked all their life."
The family and its 10 children held a meeting. David, who had been working at a glass company, stepped in for what he thought would be a temporary stint. At age 70, he's still at it.
"I had a lot of jobs," he remembers. "This was like the 1960s. It was rough on jobs being a young black man. The bosses would tell different stories that wouldn't happen to be the truth. To come here and have the opportunity to manage myself, be my own boss and my own man ... you couldn't give me another job. I could make it. I've learned how to get it."
The mural on the wall of the restaurant's dining room tells part of the story. It shows Swett in diapers with his siblings, painted from photographs taken in the 1940s for an article on African-American families working in the South.
Swett's in its current form has morphed from a 1950s tavern called Joyland on 11th Avenue off Charlotte. After a move to its current home at Clifton Avenue and 28th in North Nashville, the establishment began to serve sandwiches and fried chicken until beer fell off the menu completely.
Swett's son, also named David, worked at the restaurant for a time, as did other family members such as his brother. But the senior Swett has been the man to hold down the family fort.
"It means a lot to me," he says. "There's a lot of years that went in here." And he shows no signs of stopping.
"My retirement day is eulogy day. I mean, why quit?" he says. "I enjoy meeting people. I don't like the Days of Our Lives. I like the days of my life at Swett's."
Elliston Place Soda Shop
2111 Elliston Place, 615-327-1090
When Jamie Claud delivers milkshakes to the tables at Elliston Place Soda Shop, the oldest one-location restaurant in Nashville, he likes to tell them he's not even technically employed. He works construction during the week and just comes in on Saturdays to be with his wife Misty.
Misty's mother, Linda Melton, has worked at the restaurant for 21 years. She arrives at 5:15 every morning to make the pies, banana pudding, grits and gravy. On Saturdays you can find the whole family there — sometimes including Misty and Jamie's kids, who have worked or otherwise hung out since they could barely see over the counter.
Neither Melton nor the Clauds own the restaurant, but they've been around long enough to see it change hands and nearly close. In 2011, Jamie recalls serving a milkshake to a Vanderbilt alum who had heard the diner might close. He flew in from Texas for one last shake. Then he flew home.
The restaurant stayed open after all, partly because of lines that curled out the door and down the Rock Block. It's a family table away from home for many hospital workers, students and longtime regulars who crave home-cooked meat-and-three meals.
Even before Elliston Place, Melton worked as manager at Po' Folks before it closed down, with Misty as hostess and Jamie as busboy when they were just 15.
"We step in and help each other," Melton says. "We pretty much know what the other one needs."
Indeed, as Jamie talks to guests about the many videos and album covers shot at the restaurant, he mentions one featuring Misty and himself as extras.
"It hit No. 1 on the video charts," he says, then hollers to Misty: "For how long, baby?" Scarcely before he's finished the question, she sails past with one hand holding a basket of fries, the other pointing up to the ceiling: "One day!"
TomKats Hospitality Group
Lauren Morales started her career in the hospitality business as a kindergartner. When her father Tom Morales led the catering crew on the Chicago set of A League of Their Own, she helped by handing out teas and lemonade to crew. One day a yellowjacket looking for sugar got hold of her hand instead. She lit up Wrigley Field with a screech, only to have two folks nearby rush to her aid: Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna.
"I've been training for my job since I was 5," she says.
Even as COO of TomKats — the company her father started with backstage catering, and which now numbers The Southern Steak & Oyster, Acme Feed & Seed and Saffire among its ventures — she didn't always think she would go into the family business. Neither did her sister Kendall, the events manager for TomKats. Lauren studied to be a doctor. Kendall went to film school in New York City.
But the family business eventually called them home. The Morales family says hospitality was bred in their DNA.
"We always cooked for a lot of people," recalls Tom, who grew up with nine siblings. "No matter where you threw the party, you ended up in the kitchen. We always said my mother is a short-order cook."
The Morales matriarch, who will be 90 at Christmas, prepared food in large stockpots in the home and stretched hamburger meat with oatmeal.
"I was 14 before I knew chicken neck wasn't a delicacy," Tom says. "We learned to cook at an early age. There was no formal training. It was all through osmosis."
Kendall says the family strives to make their restaurants as comfortable as a kitchen at home and a place you'd want to hang out.
"Food and dining is a family experience in itself," Lauren adds.
And while his daughters didn't know their path would lead them back to the family business, Tom says he always hoped it would.
"The man can take it so far, but he needs good women," he says. That doesn't mean his twin sons, age 14, won't find their way to TomKats too, when the time comes.
"I'm ready to put them to work," Lauren says.
House of Kabob
216 Thompson Lane, 615-333-3711
"Somehow, everyone here is connected," says Zirevan Suleyman, sitting at a table in the back room at House of Kabob off Thompson Lane.
Though he's referring to his family of employees, a peaceful and perfect world would have the clientele connected too — their booths and tables filled with a diverse collection of colors in white, black and brown, their plates heaped with specialties such as kibbeh, dolmeh and ghaymeh stew.
As front-of-the-house manager, Suleyman, 31, is a cousin to owner Hamid Hasan — who is himself brother to chef Akram Hasan and another cook, Tarik Hasan. Sarbest Darweesh, another manager, is a brother-in-law.
"I love it," he says. "We joke and have serious conversations and give each other advice."
Suleyman, an Iraqi Kurd, came to the United States with his family at age 7 from a refugee camp in Turkey.
"Why would I work for someone else when I can work with my cousins?" he says. "I help them out and help them succeed because they're helping me succeed too."
House of Kabob has been a fixture in the community since Hikmat Gazi opened it in 2000. Gazi sold the restaurant to his cousin Hamid in 2005 and returned to his native Iraq to screen locals applying for jobs as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense. Gazi later returned and opened Shish Kabob on Nolensville Road, which he also has sold.
Some of the recipes have been passed down from family, allowing choices of either Kurdish or Persian cuisine. Through the restaurant, Suleyman says, his family can help share who they are and their backgrounds.
"The food we serve," he says, "describes the culture we're from."
Peg Leg Porker
903 Gleaves St., 615-829-6023
Earlier this year, Carey Bringle of Peg Leg Porker figured the time had come for sons Carey, 18, and Connely, 17.
"I've ordered a hog," he told them, "and you boys are cooking it."
His sons have been around barbecue their whole lives. They've been with their dad on the competition circuit. They've helped with large catering jobs and watched the planning and construction of the Peg Leg Porker restaurant in the Gulch. And now, on weekends, they work the line.
But cooking a whole hog would be a rite of passage. Carey, who helped put Nashville on the national barbecue map, learned the pitmaster art from his Uncle Bruce — who learned from his father, who learned from his father. Two-and-a-half years ago, after time on the competition circuit and building his Peg Leg brand through sauces and rubs, Bringle opened his restaurant.
"It was kind of all hands on deck," he says of his family. The photos at Peg Leg Porker trace their lineage all the way back to his wife Delaniah's great-great-great grandfather.
"It's our journey to opening up. It's our story of this is how we got here," he says. "We want our friends to feel like they're coming to an extension of our home."
The prized picture hanging above the bus tubs shows Carey's grandfather cooking hogs on the island of Luan on the Pacific front during World War II.
"Knowing that now, three generations later, your boys are learning how to do that, carrying that on, is very much a source of pride," he says. "Whether they stay here as a living or not, they're going to be able to pass it on to their children."
During the boys' hog cooking, which happened overnight, Carey stuck around — mostly to keep them out of the bar, he says. But it was probably harder still to keep from intervening as they fed the fire and tended the coals to keep the temperature right. It's a process that involves money, a lot of wood, and a lot of time. So did Papa have to step in?
Not a chance.
"They did it on their own," Bringle says, with a multi-generation pitmaster's pride. "They nailed it."
Rotier's Restaurant
2413 Elliston Place, 615-327-9892
The late Evelyn and John Rotier opened Rotier's Restaurant in a stone cottage off West End in 1945, back when a burger cost just 25 cents. But their daughter Margaret, who runs the place now, didn't come on board until 1972. She was in her early 20s, and her father figured she would be too shy for the restaurant business. When a staffing issue had him in a pinch, though, Margaret surprised him when she said she would give it a try.
"I've been here ever since," she says.
At one time, Margaret worked with her parents, her two brothers and their wives. These days, she works with her brother Charles and his daughter Charley. But the restaurant has always stayed in the family.
Back when Margaret's mother Evelyn ran the cash register on the bar, she kept broke college students in burgers and meat-and-three meals. "There were probably only 10 restaurants in this area, and now there's hundreds of them," Margaret remembers. "She knew everybody." They would set up charge accounts and pay her when they could.
"She sort of adopted customers," Margaret says. Up until Evelyn Rotier's death last year, customers still sent her Christmas cards.
Much like the menu and decor, the burger at Rotier's is no-frills and traditional — mustard, pickle, tomato and lettuce. What sets the Rotier's burger apart, longtime Nashvillians know, are the bun options. The most famous choice is the French roll burger, which draws blue-haired grannies and students as well as celebrities like Jimmy Fallon and Kim Cattrall.
Margaret says the French-bread bun stems from the days when they also served the bread with spaghetti. The reason for trying it with the burger is just as simple.
"My father," she says, "just thought it would be good."
McCabe Pub
4410 Murphy Road, 615-269-9406
On a shelf across from their father's favorite stool, you can find a framed photo of Stefanie Dean Brown and Katie Dean, the women who run McCabe Pub.
Snapped back in 1987, it shows the sisters dwarfed in adult-sized aprons that skim their high-top Reeboks. They're smiling, with plates in hand.
"We were probably down a dishwasher that day," Katie says.
"We were raised here," Stefanie adds. "It was our second home growing up." Their parents opened Sylvan Park's McCabe Pub in 1982, when the girls were just babies.
"We used to sleep in these booths," Stefanie says. "We also used to think it was fun to play cash register in the office and act like we were ringing people up."
At their father John's urging, they went off to college. Both ended up with MBAs, which they brought back to the family business where regulars come for meatloaf, squash casserole, burgers and wedges of coconut cake.
"It would break our hearts to see the pub leave the family," Stefanie says.
At ages 34 and 37 (Stefanie is the elder), they've seen a lot of changes already. Regulars in the music business retired and lost expense accounts as that industry changed. Their father passed away and mother Josephine stepped away from the day-to-day business, though she's still involved behind the scenes.
Still, a strong contingent of regulars remains, and they try to weather criticism with grace. The decor, wood walls and personal memorabilia haven't changed — by design.
"Each thing in here means something to us," Katie says.
The women say they strive to maintain what their parents created while updating in ways that make sense to the restaurant, such as adding fresh trout or black-bean quinoa burgers to the menu.
"We will remain true to what the pub is, because we're proud of it," Katie says. "When Nashville decides they don't like our concept, then that will be the day that the pub goes away. Until then, our customers' experience means a lot to us, and we want them to love it as much as we do."
Arnold's Country Kitchen
605 Eighth Ave. S., 615-256-4455
"They're not gonna let you down"
Since 1982, Arnold's Country Kitchen has been one of Nashville's favorite dining rooms for feeling at home. It draws a collection of folks from varied walks of life who file in together at the steam-table line, which often stretches out the door.
But the experience starts and ends with family. Toward the front of the line, Kahlil Arnold often chats with guests while scooping up turnip greens and mashed potatoes, while his brother Franz slices the roast beef. At the end of the line, matriarch Rose Arnold heads up the cash register, where she'll also hand you a sweet tea.
Another brother, Manuelito (known as Mon), could also be found at the Eighth Avenue restaurant until recently, when he left the flagship to lead the opening of the meat-and-three's new Green Hills location. Rose has been helping out there as well, while Kahlil's sister, also named Rose, steps into the downtown spot along with cousin Angela Hubbard.
"It's a family affair," Kahlil says.
When Kahlil describes his early memories at the restaurant, he recalls a general feeling of happiness from family and guests. But he also remembers washing pots for his father Jack, who started his career washing dishes too. Kahlil would sneak out the back door to call his girlfriend from the pay phone out front.
Kahlil worked in kitchens on and off since his teen years, and by his late 20s he was set to be a manager at The Loveless Cafe, back when Tom Morales of TomKats (see p. 14) helmed its 21st century revival. He got the call, though, that his father's business needed him, and he had to break the news to Morales. But he was talking to someone who knew all about the bonds that hold family enterprises together. Morales not only didn't throw a fit, he offered help from his Loveless staff.
Kahlil learned to cook from his dad and older brother Mon as well as Will Bordon, a former cook who more than 10 years later still works in the restaurant's front-of-the-house. Kahlil says employees like Will, as well as Deborah Fuller, who oversees the pies at the front of the line, have become family too.
"You can always depend on family," he said. "They're not gonna let you down."
Las Maracas
2704 Gallatin Pike, 615-227-8000
On a Sunday night at Las Maracas on Gallatin Road, the definition of family gets looser with each new goblet of margaritas. A group of 20-somethings might talk about life and smoke cigarettes on the patio while a toddler inside crawls after a fallen tortilla chip. Yet another table, coming in after church, might spawn a restaurant-wide serenade of “Happy Birthday” to a beaming 7-year-old.
At its price point and cuisine type, Las Maracas serves all types of East Nashvillians. But for the mostly Mexican staff, family surrounds them in the truest sense of the word.
Antonio Castro has been working at Las Maracas for six years. He came to the United States from Mexico City in 2001. His father works as a prep cook, his brother is a server; his cousin is a busboy. His other cousin Jose Luis is a server too. “We help each other,” he says. “Sometimes we eat together.”
On days off they go to movies together or the gym — though not as much now, as the restaurant is keeping them busy.
Castro isn’t related to Las Maracas’ owner, who opened the first location in Madison. And even though it isn’t much like the food he had in Mexico City, he recommends the quesadilla for the most authentically Mexican home-cooked experience.
Castro has worked in restaurants in Nashville since he arrived in town, moving from Cici’s Pizza to Shoney’s, where he met the general manager at his current job. Unlike some of his colleagues, he’s apt to sit and talk for a spell.
“Sometimes the other guys don’t like to talk to the customers or they’re afraid,” he says. “I’m trying to learn something every day.”
