Taste Winner Hobnob Corner
The Hobnob Corner Restaurant was the 2014 winner of the Taste of Brown County event held in Nashville this past May. The prize is a feature article in the fall issue from Our Brown County’ s Sampler.
Brown County restaurants come and go. That is the nature of the business.
They open, and they close, sometimes sooner than expected.
Restaurants disappear because they don’ t get enough customers to make the economics work, and often this relates to where exactly the restaurant is— location, location, location.
Very occasionally, a Brown County restaurant gets everything right— the elements align, the space, the customers, the staff, the ideas, the food, everything coalesces into a restaurant that becomes a community institution.
Such is the case with Hobnob Corner, the restaurant on the corner of Main and Van Buren streets in downtown Nashville, located in the oldest commercial structure in Brown County.
For 35 years, the Hobnob has provided first rate food, a convivial atmosphere, and top-notch customer service to locals and visitors alike, establishing its iconic reputation.
At the Hobnob, it is not unusual to be visited at your table by owner Warren Cole, who seems to have mastered the secrets of restaurant success.
“ Oh, the location is the prime thing,” he said recently.“ And, I’ ve had good people working for me who have bought into the notion that you have to take care of the customer, that customer service is probably the most important thing you can do.”
“ The food, of course is important, but I think the big thing is just to keep the people who come in here pleased and happy. If you do that, you can make it, I think.”
Cole took over a fledgling Hobnob in 1979, and three weeks later changed everything but the name, with immediate positive results.
“ We shut it down, stripped it out, and moved the kitchen equipment all to the back of the building and converted the entire front to seating,” he recalled.“ We repainted and things like that, altered the menu some, reopened, and immediately we had the best day we’ d had so far.”
The Hobnob continued to do well, and in 1982 the kitchen was expanded and the back dining area was converted to seating. A
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40 Our Brown County • Sept./ Oct. 2014