Loveless Cafe

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The iconic Loveless Cafe sign
The iconic Loveless Cafe sign
An inside view of the cafe
An inside view of the cafe

The Loveless Cafe can be found just outside Nashville, Tennessee on Highway 100, at the northern end of the Natchez Trace Parkway. It is known for over 50 years of quality Southern cooking, especially for its biscuits, country ham, and red-eye gravy. The establishment has received acclaim from USA Today, Southern Living, Frommer's, and a number of other prominent national publications. [1] The walls of the cafe are lined with the endorsements and signed pictures of country stars, many of whom are associated with the Nashville music industry.

[edit] History

Lon and Anne Loveless began serving southern fare to travelers on Highway 100 right off their front porch in the early 1950s, and soon a small motel was added. In 1959, the Maynard family bought the cafe from the Loveless family, but they kept the traditions of southern cooking and fresh, made-from-scratch biscuits intact. The cafe again changed hands in the early 1970s, passing to the McCabe family, which began the cafe's first mail-order catalog. The catalog grew in popularity to the extent that it took over the motel, which was closed in 1985. Recent changes to the cafe have included a more accessible, larger parking lot, expanded seating, and the conversion of the former motel into retail stores based on the country market model of Cracker Barrel. No doubt these changes will increase profits at the cafe, but the faux rustic, tourist-attracting, overly neon-lit look of the new Loveless smacks of canned nostalgia for a bygone era. The Meat and three cuisine, and the biscuits, at least, do manage to preserve a taste of the south's former glories.

According to an article by Phil Robertson, "In early October 2006, the Loveless Cafe made Nashville's local news after a thwarted burglary - the thieves couldn't get the safe open, but they ransacked the office, doing some $1500 in damage." These burglars were caught on film, which was posted on WSMV Nashville Channel 4's website.

[edit] External links