Last week, I had Zach Lyons of Football & Other F Words and Broadway Sports on the SoBros Power Hour to talk MCU, SummerSlam, Guy Fieri, some Tennessee Titans football, and more. Like I ask every guest on the show, I asked Zach for his Nashville restaurant Mount Rushmore. He mentioned several places we haven’t discussed on this website or podcast before, so I thought I’d transcribe that part of the show, and get some sort of mention of these spots on the website. You know…it probably helps that we have a little more variety than just bar food, food trucks, and hot chicken every now and then. -Stoney
Zach Lyons’ Nashville Restaurant Mount Rushmore
The Optimist
SK: “Since we’re talkin’ Nashville restaurants, hit me with your Mount Rushmore of Nashville spots.”
ZL: “Okay, so…I kinda split this up into four different things, and it was really hard to narrow it down how I wanted to do it, so I’m going seafood, going steak, I’m going BBQ, and I’m going hot chicken. There is a side…like if there was a Mount Rushmore President that had another head on the back of his, I do have one for cocktail lounge.
SK: “Oh, well I want to hear that, too. I do want to add that.”
ZL: “So, I’m going with seafood first. First and foremost, if you’re a seafood person, and you love cocktails, you have to go to this restaurant. It’s easily the best seafood restaurant, and I’ve been to many, many seafood restaurants in Florida, in Seattle, California…I’ve been to a lot of places with a lot of seafood restaurants. Essentially, I choose vacation destinations that are known for seafood. I’m a serious seafood guy. The Optimist in Nashville, in Germantown, is easily the best seafood restaurant I have ever been to, and that I have ever had. They have great cocktails. We know one of the bartenders there personally. She’s great – her name’s Ellen. So, definitely try to sit at the bar and ask for her. If you want to sit at the bar, you have to get there at 5PM when they open, because this is how packed this place is. You gotta get there right when they open.”
SK: “I can’t talk my fiancé into eating seafood around here. She’s kind of a snob about it.”
ZL: “They do have steak.”
SK: “Well, maybe that’s my in..”
ZL: “Where’s she from?”
SK: “She’s from Monmouth County, New Jersey. So, she grew up like 10 minutes from the Jersey Shore. She says you don’t get real seafood when you’re 10 hours inland in Nashville.”
ZL: “You do at The Optimist. Listen – there’s a lot of oyster places in the area, you know there’s Henrietta Red, there’s The Southern Steak & Oyster, and those places are fine. This place has, I think, two non-seafood items on their menu. They have amazing bread with butter and sea salt sprinkled on top. It’s great. Their desserts are good. It’s not only the best seafood restaurant, it is probably the best restaurant in Nashville.
For more on The Optimist, check out their website here.
Oak Steakhouse
ZL: “Oak Steakhouse…we went when it opened up…the best service, the best steak, and the best french fries in Nashville right now.
SK: “Man, you’re two for two on restaurants that we haven’t really talked about a lot on this show.
ZL: “They’re a little pricy, but they’re worth it. If people come into town and say, “hey – I want one nice night in town, or one nice dinner, what would you recommend?” I used to only recommend Oak. Now, I recommend Oak or The Optimist.
For more on Oak Steakhouse, check out their website here.
Central BBQ
ZL: “A lot of people are Edley’s people, but I’ll tell ya, I’m a Central BBQ guy. I went to college in Memphis, and I lived there for about five years. Central BBQ here is just like Central BBQ there, so it’s a little taste of my better years. They have a fried bologna sandwich, which is great and thick. They have great sauces and everything, and look – I love Edley’s. Edley’s has one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had. They don’t do it very often, but it’s a smoked pastrami sandwich. They had it on a random Tuesday at their 12 South location. And, their hot pork sandwich is really good that they have on Fridays. But, if I’m gettin’ BBQ, I’m gettin’ Central BBQ, in and out, and I’m good to go.”
For more on Central BBQ, check out their Facebook page.
Prince’s and/or Bolton’s
ZL: “So, hot chicken…I’m going to kind of cheat on this because there’s hot fish and there’s hot chicken. If I’m going hot fish, I’m going Bolton’s. If I go hot chicken, I’m going Prince’s. I’ll UberEats Hattie B’s if I need something quick, but I’m not going to stand in line for Hattie B’s. I think that’s ridiculous that people do that.
SK: “Man, I’m with you on that, and that’s something that we’ve talked about a lot on this show, too. People don’t seem to want to hear it. I had a buddy that came to town for a bachelor party and he was like, “we gotta try Hattie B’s, we gotta try Hattie B’s.” I asked, “how about we go somewhere the locals know and that the locals rate pretty highly?” I don’t want to call it a tourist trap, because I’m with you, I’ll eat it, but it’s not my first choice. These guys just said, “no – we heard Hattie B’s, so we’re going to Hattie B’s.”
ZL: “What’s funny to me is that 5th and Broadway downtown is a really, really cool experience. It’s the only place I’ll ever go downtown now. It’s untouched from all the stuff that’s going on down Lower Broadway. The Hattie B’s line goes all the way down around the corner to the African-American Music Museum. It’s wild, and I’m thinking, “do these people not know you could just UberEats?” You can stand in line, but you could just get UberEats and they could probably walk it to you. I just don’t get it.
SK: “Maybe that’s the attraction. People are like, “we gotta stand in fucking line at Hattie B’s or else we’re not getting the full Nashville experience.
ZL: “If I have to stand in line for your restaurant, granted it’s probably good, but the Hattie B’s experience…I don’t think it’s worth standing in any line for a restaurant. Austin, Texas has that Franklin BBQ place and people stand in line at five in the morning, and I’m like, “no…no! just cook your own food or something!” It’s just not worth it.”
Check out Prince’s Hot Chicken here, and Bolton’s here.
The Fable Lounge
ZL: “Great, great cocktails, and they have plenty of seating. Typically, you can probably just walk in and grab a seat at their top bar or the bottom bar. They have piano bars on Friday and Saturday nights, and they have really good food. They change up their menu seasonally. The two guys that opened it – we met when I used to live downtown. They were bartenders at Morton’s. So, for a Friday or Saturday night, we’d walk from my place to Morton’s…my now-wife and I. And, we got to know these guys really well and they opened up this bar and it’s been great. We had our wedding rehearsal dinner there. It was awesome. Super inexpensive, too – thank God for that – I don’t know if they were cutting us some slack or what, but it’s one of the best spots. They’re the nicest guys, Ben and John, and it’s a really great, hidden little area to go get kinda/super sloshed, but feel fancy doing it.”
Check out The Fable Lounge here.
Zach followed up with me about the show, saying “crap – I could’ve given everyone a food hack for The Southern.” I told him I was thinking about transcribing this portion of our conversation, since he passed along some new spots we haven’t talked or written about on SoBros Network, so it wasn’t too late to share that food hack with the world after all.
Food Hack by Zach: The Southern Steak & Oyster – Now, this food hack is only useful if you know what you’re looking for when it comes to marbling on a steak. Like ole Tommy Callahan Sr would say: “Of course, I can get a hell of a good look at a T-Bone steak by sticking my head up a bull’s ass, but I’d rather take the butcher’s word for it.” So take my word for it, you’re doing steak all wrong when you go to the Southern. First off, you need to always be asking what is the cut of the night for the “Nudie Suit”. This is a menu item where you get to go up to the open kitchen area, and pick your own steak, and they weigh it and price it on the spot. Here’s the hack: They present you with a cutting board filled with about 6 steaks. Look at the steaks, and say “I am not quite sure about the marbling on these.” From there, the chef SHOULD offer up a secret second platter of even better steaks.
That’s right – the initial set of steaks you’re picking from, while delicious, aren’t the best cuts they butchered for the evening service. You get the second set of steaks and they are all beautifully marbled and as such you’re getting better steaks for the same price as the lesser 1st platter of steaks. Thank me later. Also, order the Zydeco cocktail.
You can LISTEN to this full episode of the SoBros Power Hour here:
Listen to “Ep. 51: More MCU Talk with Titans Podcasters” on Spreaker.Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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