The Loveless Cafe — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

TL;dr - Not well seasoned, sloppy commercially produced tasting sides and biscuits, raw chicken. Not worth the drive.

I had some time after a business trip in Nashville and searched for a "signature" restaurant to visit in my remaining hours and The Loveless Cafe was on several lists - especially mentioning amazing biscuits!

The facility is a converted 1950's era motel spread across several buildings. The main house serves as the restaurant, the motel wings serve as gift stores, offices and their mail order operations. Next to the restaurant is their smokehouse which made the entire parking lot smell lovely! There is also a large barn out back that serves as a rental catering hall. I had time to view all of them during my thirty minute wait for a table.

I wanted to try a few things and ordered the sample platter with country ham, meatloaf, and fried chicken. I chose marinated cucumber and onion salad and hashbrown casserole. I'm a sucker for both fried green tomatoes and pimento cheese and they offered a fried green tomato pimento cheese biscuit slider.

Immediately after being seated I was served three of the signature biscuits, butter and two cups of preserves, strawberry and peach. The famous biscuits were a disappointment. They were not at all flaky but tasted more like quick bread that had been over kneaded and became chewy. They were closer to a Pillsbury refrigerator biscuit than a homemade biscuit. They were on the small side, probably 2 inches (5cm) in diameter. The preserves were both good, nice chunks of fruit and flavor.

I tried the biscuit slider first. The biscuit was the same biscuit I was served earlier, with generous lashings of pimento cheese and a fried green tomato. The tomato had no flavor at all, a touch of salt would have helped. The pimento cheese was a huge disappointment, it was closer to cheese whiz with pimentos added. Just a salty slimy mess.

The cucumber salad was typical for the south, cider vinegar, sweet white onions and cucumbers. It was fresh and had been marinated long enough to get the flavor in the cucumbers but not long enough to turn them in to pickles.

Now comes the hashbrown casserole. The salty, slimy cheese whiz, without the pimentos this time, seems to be the base. It used dehydrated potatoes as many places do. It wasn't great and wasn't worth finishing.

The country ham was very good, salty and a decent portion for a sampler plate. It was served with a small bowl of red-eye gravy which added quite a bit of flavor and cut the saltiness of the ham nicely.

The meatloaf tasted like depression meatloaf, mostly filler and very little meat. It nearly fell apart getting it on the fork and tasted more of soggy bread and barbeque sauce than meat.

Lastly, the fried chicken. The piece served to me had obviously touched either another piece or the bottom of the basket as the breading was missing from the top. I took a bite from the point end and it was good, but needed a bit more seasoning. Using a bit of their own branded hot sauce gave it the boost in flavor it needed. It was good but nothing to drive miles for. When I cut in to it for a second bite the interior was completely pink, and only warm to the touch. I brought this to my server's attention and in a few minutes a manager brought me a second piece and asked me to cut in to it while they were there. Again, pink with streaks of red. The manager walked away and my server came back a minute later and offered me a free dessert. I politely declined as I do not eat desserts, as a rule.

I was not compensated for the chicken, and paid my meal in full of $36.04. My server was good and I of course tipped them appropriately for their service.

I wouldn't go out of my way nor recommend anyone make the journey here. And if you do - skip the...

What a confusing experience. Unfortunately pretty disappointing. My mother visited in 2012 and had a lovely time with her friends. With this in mind, she made a reservation for us to have a nice Southern breakfast experience.

Right off the bat, the atmosphere inside the restaurant was off putting. Both ladies working at the front were scowling and complaining as we came in, and when we checked in for our reservation we were told the tables were being cleaned. That’s fine, makes sense, we don’t mind waiting for a bit. But we did make a reservation, and it was a little frustrating to see other people arrive w/o a reservation and get immediately seated.

After waiting about 10 minutes, we were told by the young hostess “You guys follow me.” No “thanks for waiting, please follow me” or any basic niceties, just a frown and that phrase. Not a great start.

Even after being seated, it took a long time for our waitress to come to the table. We ordered drinks (coffee, tea, and water for the table). At the other tables, the waitstaff was chatting and joking with the customers, but when our waitress came over she seemed tense and uncomfortable. It made us feel awkward, as if we had done something wrong. Overall we felt very unwelcome.

The food was nice, the standouts for me were the biscuits and jam, and the grits with cheese. Typical southern breakfast food that’s heavy and flavorful, but nothing outstanding.

The real unfortunate part beyond the service was finding a stuck piece of paper on the bottom of the inside of my tea cup. I drank the whole cup before noticing it at the bottom. I understand that these things happen (the paper probably got stuck in the dishwasher), but it was pretty gross to discover.

After bringing this to the attention of the waitress, a manger came over to apologies. He also gestured to the whole table and said that he’d comp our breakfast. I was surprised by the generosity and response to the unfortunate dirty tea cup. I thanked him and he left.

As we were preparing to leave, we left a cash tip on the table for the waitress. However, we ‘d almost left the restaurant when my husband noticed a check had been brought to the table. We were mortified to realize we’d almost left without paying! The manger hadn’t made it clear that he’d only comped my meal, and not everyone’s, so ofc we still owed money for the other two meals. We were happy to pay, but because the manger had gestured to the whole table when saying he “comped our breakfast” we got confused. It was honestly very confusing and uncomfortable, and overshadowed any enjoyment of the biscuits.

TLDR We felt very unwelcome and disappointed, and like it was not worth coming out of our way to visit. I appreciate the mangers response to an unfortunate dirty cup, but the other service left a lot...

We made a special three hour trip to try this place since we heard that they had, "the best biscuits in the country." Reservations were easy to get, and I would recommend them, as there were parties waiting to be seated when we arrived. The history of the place is interesting and we liked that it's located in the original family home. We visited the apparel shop and the Hams and Jams shop and enjoyed the selection of items they have available. We were seated quickly, but did have to wait around 10 minutes for a member of the wait staff to come to our table, but the rest of the time after that, the service was good. They brought a plate of the famous biscuits to our table, along with their made-in-house strawberry and peach jams. The jams were delicious, with the strawberry being ranked as the tastiest thing we had in the meal. The biscuits divided opinion. We agreed that they were quite good, but didn't know if they quite achieved the "best biscuits" award for us. They are light and small enough to eat more than one, which we did. They are not a greasy biscuit, but the butter was evident in a good proportion. We decided to divide and conquer for the meal, each choosing their most recommended items so we could share and taste more, so we got the fried chicken (half chicken) with Nashville hot option, the country fried steak with gravy, hashbrown casserole, creamed corn, fried okra, and mac and cheese. Here's our take - the food is just fine, especially if you aren't familiar with typical southern cuisine. There was nothing that was extraordinary or out-of-the-way special in our opinion, because we grew up with this type of home cooked southern food. Some of this feeling might be because our food, although served to us lightning quick, was mostly cold, and that can affect flavor and texture, too, especially with the hashbrown casserole and mac and cheese. Our favorite side dish was either the fried okra or the creamed corn. We preferred the country fried steak more than the fried chicken, but that's because we didn't get the heat of Nashville hot. It was flavorful, but not spicy, for our tastes. For dessert, we tried the banana pudding and the peach cobbler. We were once again conflicted in our review. They were ok, but nothing to write home about. The in-house Nilla wafers in the banana pudding were good. The ice cream on the cobber was tasty. Our bottom line is that we're glad we tried it, but we wouldn't make a special trip to go back. This was probably incredible back in the day when people made that highway road trip, but we're not sure it translates in modern times of mass production. We DO however recommend taking a bag of biscuit mix home with you (or have...