Milk & Honey Gulch — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

I've worked upstairs of Milk and Honey for over a year now. Let me tell you why I avoid this place like the plague.

TL;DR - Milk and Honey is marred by inconsistent food quality, mistakes, and is only popular with tourists because of it's location. Total tourist trap. Go anywhere else if you care about the quality of your food. If you're already drunk, maybe the food will be passable.

Unfortunately, I had to order takeout online today from M&H because my other reliable options were closed by the snow. My order was ready on time, and payment through Toast was easy. The staff was friendly as always. However, I realized I had been given a turkey and brie sandwich when I got to my office, instead of the turkey avocado - my mistake for not checking, although "TURKEY AVO" was written on my takeout box, and was on the check and the bag. Fine. The staff was yet again kind and promptly went to fix my order, but when it came back out it looked like the sandwich had been half thrown together. My suspicion was confirmed back in my office as the sourdough was untoasted, the turkey was cold, and my to go box still had raspberry jam on the bottom. The home fries I'd ordered were even colder and soggier than when I got them the first time. It's clear to me the kitchen staff couldn't care less and threw away the wrong sandwich just to hastily make a cold, soggy, turkey avocado without paying any attention to the quality of the meal. This is my 5th or 6th takeout meal from M&H, and each time I've been underwhelmed with the quality of the food for the price.

Besides this take out experience being the breaking point, I've also sworn off ordering coffee from their to go cafe. There was a period of time where I'd order a cold brew dang near daily from M&H. It was never something exceptional, but it was usually drinkable. Usually. The only consistent thing about the cold brew was how inconsistently it was made. Some days it was so weak it tasted like tap water. Others, I watched staff pass off room temp drip coffee as cold brew. Even worse, I had multiple cold brews that were flat out undrinkable because they tasted absolutely foul. Multiple times I had the baristas remake my cold brews, sometimes successfully, others not so much because the concentrate was just rancid. The staff was always very friendly and understanding (especially after I asked them to taste so they knew what I meant). Quite a shame that quality isn't a priority for M&H.

Not once during any of these experiences was I offered a refund or any sort of compensation for my wasted time. The staff has always been friendly and always apologized, but there comes a point where a restaurant is just genuinely bad.

It makes a lot of sense that M&H is always busy - the location is stellar for tourism. But there may be a reason why I've never heard a Nashville local suggest going there... If you're planning to down mimosas, daydrink, and are ok with a 30+ minute wait, M&H is a fine option. But if you're someone who wants a good eating experience with quality food, exceptional service, and consistency, there are many other options along 12 South, downtown, Midtown, East Nash, or Wedgewood Houston that I'd...

I’m fairly sure, based on the menu, what we saw at other tables, and the general design and crowdedness of the place, that Milk & Honey Nashville is probably a great restaurant. Out experience wasn’t so great, but it was probably because of what we ordered…we think.

Milk & Honey is a large, crowded but comfortable restaurant which serves food comprised of ingredients sourced from local farmers. That’s cool. They have an extensive menu of items which are suitable for vegetarians and healthy-eaters, including toasts, porridge, oatmeal, sandwiches and other dishes, cold press juices, loose leaf teas etc.

My wife was initially disappointed that a tea she saw on the website menu wasn’t available in the restaurant. I had the Black China Tea which I thought was good and strong, served in a loose leaf pouch for steeping at the table.

I ordered the Apple Cinnamon Porridge which didn’t like at all. It had weird aftertaste and I had to ask for maple syrup to doctor it up and make it edible for my palette.

I also ordered a Super Famous Biscuit (though I declined to ask for its autograph) - This was definitely a legit southern biscuit. It was LARGE and served with butter, strawberry preserves and honey. It was larger than your average biscuit (thus the “super”…and I couldn’t finish it.

They had 1 gluten free baked good available.

Our waitress had to leave to ask about ingredients for a number of items to see if they were suitable for my wife’s gluten and dairy free preference. She seemed like she was in an awful hurry. We understand that it was super busy and it takes extra time to deal with us folks with crazy diets, but there’s no excuse for making customers feel like you’re inconveniencing them for asking questions about food.

The bread service we saw “walk by” looked amazing. (okay it was actually carried by a waiter and not walking under its own power.)

We sat at the silver bar (one of 2 first come first serve seating bars) to avoid the long wait and had a view of the super busy kitchen and baker working with lots of dough, which was cool.

As I said my experience wasn’t great, but the food part of it may have came down to my choices. I was feeling a little under the weather and wanted a healthier choice (thus the porridge) If I was feeling better, I would have had a biscuit sandwich or something else and probably would have loved it. That having been said we were only in Nashville for a few nights on vacation so this was our only opportunity...

SERVICE: My wife and I visited this restaurant while we were in town and ABSOLUTELY LOVED the service and the food. The wait would have been 45 min, so we decided to go to the bar to eat instead. There we were quickly greeted by T'Avis who was a great bartender, offered some great food selections, & kept us in good conversation. His co-bartender Shane was also awesome and they worked together like a flawless team taking our order and refilling our drinks, food running, and ensuring we had everything we desired. Then Boshi, the manager brought our main courses out and it was worth the wait! She was so sweet and made sure to offer her assistance if we needed anything special. I literally felt like a family member at this place, lol! FOOD: We started out w/Liquid Golden mimosa that my wife loved. It was infused with several unique fruits that touched her ❤️. I had a Nutella Latte that was tremendous and just what the doctor ordered to warm our FL blood in the crisp fall air. It was perfectly sweet with a bit of bitter cocoa powder sprinkled in to give a great contrast. We chose the almond croissant which is A MUST! It was huge first of all, plenty to share amongst 2-3 people. It was made fresh, perfectly flakey warm on the inside and had plenty of toasted slices of almonds for good texture differences. Inside the croissants was an unexpected river of a sweet, warm almond treasure inside that set this this pastry off! I had the Hot chix & waffles which were amazing. The chicken was very cayenne peppery with a nice flavor. If you're not used to hot this may burn your mouth up a bit. It was a nice mix with the maple syrup and crispy Waffle for a symphony of sweet & savory. Wifey had the Hot Mess with added Hot chix. This is one of the most popular dishes they had. Great choices. Both dishes were very filling and we didn't finish, do to the drinks and croissant at the start, so we grabbed a takeaway box. Our main dishes didn't get pics b/c we dug in immediately and forgot, lmbo! You must try a croissant, a latte, mimosa and be prepared to not have enough room to finish you delectable meal that you will be happy you saved so you can experience it again later. 😄 PRICE: We were surprised by the decent pricing which ended up being about $30/person which included a solid tip too. Very reasonably priced for the value and service so please pack this place out and go see our our guys T'Avis and Shane at the bar. Be sure to give Boshí kudos for her team's...