Monell’s in Nashville is the southern-style restaurant of our dreams

If you eat at one place on your trip to Nashville, make sure it’s Monell’s.

Being a bunch of Yankees, we always have ideas of what we’d like to see/eat/experience when we take trips down south. We want some honky tonkin’. We want some beautiful antebellum mansions. We want some whiskey or bourbon. And, of course, we want some delicious souther-style cooking. The problem is after eating at Monell’s in Nashville, we don’t know how any other southern restaurant could ever compare.

Monell’s is just the best.

It was a slightly foggy Sunday morning after a night on Broadway when we stumbled into Monell’s for the first time. The smell of bacon and fried chicken wafted out from the beautiful old house in Germantown, and we knew we’d found the right place for an epic Sunday breakfast.

After a short wait we were ushered into a room with a huge dining table and seated next to 2 or 3 other groups of total strangers, all united by the anticipation of the impending feast. We quickly made friends with the others around the table as the first round of breakfast foods hit the table.

Then more food came.

Then more food came.

Then fried chicken came.

And it all just kept coming.

Served family-style and served until you physically can’t lift your fork anymore, there’s no way to accurately describe the wonderfulness of a breakfast at Monell’s. You just have to experience it for yourself.

Their country breakfast may be pretty legendary, but their lunch and dinner menu is just as delicious. With a menu that changes each day, Monell’s serves the city’s best green beans, grits, biscuits and gravy, pot roast, and other southern favorites.

And, of course, their famous fried chicken is served with every single meal.

With a mantra of “You sit. You eat. You pay,” ordering at Monell’s is easy because, well, you don’t really need to order. You just sit with friends, family, and strangers-that-become friends and get to feasting.

Opened on Thanksgiving Day in 1995, Monell’s quickly became a Nashville institution and now boasts 3 locations: their original spot in Germantown, Monell’s at the Manor, and Cafe Monell’s for people craving good food, fast.

For more on their daily menu and locations, check out Monell’s on the web, and if you want to torture your stomach, follow them on Facebook.

All photos via Monell's