Arnold’s Country Kitchen
Fried Grouper, Chicken n’ Dumplings, White Beans, Candied Yams, Mac n’ Cheese, Corn Muffin, Pancake, Banana Pudding, Chess Pie, Pecan Pie
Leaving a fair amount of breakfast from Pancake Pantry on the table before heading north to Gaylord Opryland Resort and Opry Mills mall it was after several hours of walking and shopping that we returned to downtown Nashville for a two-part lunch, the first stop seeing our trio just beat the crowd at Beard Award Winning Arnold’s, a landmark cafeteria-styled luncheonette fabled by locals and tourists alike.
Open in its current format for nearly as long as I’ve been alive and featuring Southern Classics in a setting where communal seating always at a premium, Arnold’s sits next to a rather sizable parking lot in a rapidly gentrifying area along 8th Ave and with rotating daily specials plus several standby signatures the only real question is how long a wait and what to order – our answers to this being no time at all, and two “Meat & 2s” plus bread and three plates of sweets in our case.
Not particularly renowned for their service, the staff left to navigate a rather narrow space behind steamer tables brimming with choices as line cooks worked feverishly at their backs, it is perhaps fortunate that many selections are of the ‘help yourself’ variety while mains and hot sides are scooped and slopped on plates to be stacked on trays, a bit of persistence needed in our case to get the chicken n’ dumplings that we’d ordered as the woman taking orders turned her attention elsewhere immediately after scooping up some candied yams and white beans.
Undoubtedly the most affordable meal of the trip, a whole lot of homestyle cuisine served up for just a shade over twenty bucks, it was immediately after sitting down that we tucked in and although both the pancake and cornbread were almost insufferably dry everything else on the plate was reference standard cafeteria grub – not the sort of ‘upscale American’ being peddled for top dollar elsewhere, just flaky fish beneath golden batter and rich stock with tender noodles and chicken plus the sort of sides you’d associate with holidays at Grandma’s house – the smoky beans particularly delicious, while the yams were sweet enough that they could have served as dessert themselves.
Moving onward to proper desserts, an older African American man circulating to refill beverages and clear trays in order to promptly seat new patrons, those fancying Southern staples would be well served to visit Arnold’s if only for some pudding and pie, the former a ‘Nilla wafer studded homemade iteration with stick-a-spoon-up-straight thickness and the later a tossup between Pecan and Chess as to which was better, the former almost purely nuts without much filler while the later was amongst the most creamy I’ve tasted despite a top that was cooked till cracking, an absolute steal at just $2.75.
http://www.arnoldscountrykitchen.com/
