Heaping helpings

Visit Monell's for Southern food and a bargain too.

You've got to love a waitress who passes a basketful of chicken with the warning, "Be careful, hon; it's just come out of the grease."

This cholesterol-be-damned cooking has made Monell's Dining & Catering a Nashville institution. But wait a minute. The man behind the whole concept hails all the way from Massachusetts.

"Yeah, I'm a Yankee who came and stayed," acknowledges Michael John King. But let's not hold that against him. This transplant serves belt-busting, family style meals to at least 2,000 people every week.

And oh, what a spread. On a recent day tables for 12 groaned under the weight of four cold salads, greens, biscuits with peach preserves, fried chicken and catfish, spinach lasagna, mashed potatoes, corn pudding, and banana pudding. Elastic waistbands were made for meals like this.

The meats change daily according to a schedule, but the staff won't know what vegetables they'll serve till they see what's fresh at the farmers market two streets away.

Monell's is a place where you can sit down with strangers and get up feeling like kin. Maybe it's the pleasant surroundings in the late 1880s house or the heaping bowls of food that keep coming. Credit Michael for creating the comfortable ambience and y'all-come-back cuisine.

"I really wasn't looking; this place found me," says Michael. He had been driving down Sixth Avenue in Germantown and saw the for sale sign-posted only an hour before.

That was seven years ago. Since then he's opened a second location on Church Street, plus two others for take-out orders only. "I have plans to open more, but I don't know when. All I know is God will provide."

Monell's Dining & Catering: 1235 Sixth Avenue North, (615) 248-4747. 530 Church Street, (615) 248-4744 or www.monellsdining.com. Prices: $9 lunch, $10-$12 dinner Monday-- Saturday; $9 Saturday breakfast; $14 Sunday lunch. Half price ages 4-8, free ages 3 and under.

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation May 2002
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