Jody Faison is a name familiar to most native and long time Nashvillians.
Many a favorite watering hole and dining establishment belonged to him at a time when there weren’t that many places to choose from in our burgeoning town.
His reign spanned the 90s as King Faison, feeding, watering or employing nearly everybody in the Nashville during the decades that followed his graduation from Vanderbilt University, prior to retiring from the restaurant business to practice law.
Faison’s, Café 123, the Pub of Love, Iguana, Jody’s Bar Car and 12th and Porter were all his creations.
Jody took a few minutes away from his legal practice to reminisce with us about his former restaurateur days.
7695: What was the first restaurant you started in Nashville?
Jody: I opened Faison’s my first restaurant in 1981. We hit the gap between the fern bar restaurants and the 4 stars at the time. It was up-scale trendy cuisine for the baby boomers.
Probably the most popular dish there was the Broken Hearted Fettuccini. We served a ton of that.
Had a lot of writers from Music Row coming in for our songwriters’ lunch. Guys and gals would come in there with Harlan Howard during the day.
And in the evening in the Hot Chicken Club we had quite the music business clientele in there.
We served a hot chicken, but our hot chicken was roasted – different from what Nashville is now famous for… But ours was called Joe D.’s Hot Chicken at the time.
Read more interview highlights with Jody in the blog series about his iconic eateries:
Looking for something fun to do in Nashville on Valentine's Day?
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