Review
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Monell's has been doing family-style Southern food in Germantown since 1995 and it has become, over time, precisely the kind of place that locals stopped going to because tourists found it. The skillet fried chicken is fine. The biscuits and gravy are fine. The cheese grits are fine. None of it is the reason the tables are full — the reason the tables are full is that every Nashville visitor guide lists it as a must-do.
Sitting elbow-to-elbow with strangers passing bowls around a communal table is an experience. Whether it's a good experience depends entirely on who the strangers are. On most nights, they are not from here.
Sitting elbow-to-elbow with strangers passing bowls around a communal table is an experience. Whether it's a good experience depends entirely on who the strangers are. On most nights, they are not from here.
Family-style Southern food in a Victorian mansion, passed around communal tables. The format is the draw. The crowd is not locals.
Monell's has been doing family-style Southern food in Germantown since 1995. The skillet fried chicken is fine, the biscuits and gravy are fine, the cheese grits are fine. The crowd is overwhelmingly people who found it on a Nashville travel list. Communal tables, passing bowls, strangers.
