Sampler
Hail and Farewell
to Brownie’ s and The Nashville House
The restaurant sampling game can be like reporting on the weather— looking at current conditions, perhaps an occasional guess at the future, and only very rarely casting its jaundiced eye back into the murky shadows of the past.
Regular readers of these columns understand that restaurants will come and go. It is in the nature of the business. They disappear for all kinds of reasons, not always related to the quality of their products, or the business skills of the owners.
The Sampler has had the uncomfortable experience of reviewing a restaurant one month, only to have it disappear the next. The fact is, there’ s a lot more to running a successful restaurant than just cooking and serving food. As with so many of life’ s ventures, there are a multitude of things that can go wrong.
The impetus of this soul scouring contemplation is the recent demise of two local restaurants of long standing; the last of the little mom-and-pop, everybodygoes-there-for-breakfast places in the county— Brownie’ s in Bean Blossom— and the venerable mothership of all local restaurants, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the county, the iconic Nashville House.
Brownie’ s had filled a niche previously abandoned by a whole host of local bistros, ranging from Muddy Boots on back to Mac’ s Kozy Kitchen— a place where the old men come in the morning to get biscuits and gravy.
There is an unwritten rule in the restaurant scouting trade that when you see a place where the parking lot is packed with locals, that is probably a good place to look for food.
Brownie’ s was that place— not just for breakfast which is a hallmark of the local feedery— but for lunch and dinner as well. They had daily specials on the white board. They had real food, deep fried like Americans like it( Friday night“ all you can eat catfish”). They had a large selection of beautiful pies just like mother used to make.
Ah, we will miss it.
Now, of course, there are places, there will be places. As long as there is a market for biscuits and gravy, biscuits and gravy will be found. How good they will be— well, stay tuned.
While a good local greasy spoon can be replaced, there is no taking the place of The Nashville House short of new owners simply reconstituting it as it always has been. Because it is an institution.
It was practically a work of art— the checkered tablecloths, the cherished paintings, the fried chicken and fried biscuits, the views out on to downtown Nashville. Somehow, I can’ t picture it any other way. But, people do get ideas. We had dinner at the Hobnob the other night. Thank goodness it was still the same; the dark wooden floors and high windows of the county’ s oldest existing commercial building, the Hohenberger photos lining the walls, the remains of the soda fountain and massive mirrored backbar still in place, now covered with an estimable selection of fine wines.
I notice they’ re back to serving breakfast. I’ m down for that.
On the evening, I had the soup of the day( beef barley) and the special( a meaty pot roast sandwich on thick French bread, smeared with some kind of mayo-horseradish concoction). Mrs. Sampler had her favorite, the“ Rube Martin.”
Everything was delectable, the service was great, and as I munched away contentedly, I saw Warren Cole slip out of the back and down behind the old bar to the checkout station at the front of the room.“ It’ s the owner!” I whispered to my wife. Mr. Cole told me once that he got into the restaurant business through a chance encounter with a Nashville restaurant from the past, the Rocking Horse, which was down on the Village Green.
If I recall correctly, while attending college over at IU, Cole got a job there as a waiter or bartender, and stayed a
48 Our Brown County • Jan./ Feb. 2019