The Loveless Cafe | Nashville Traveler

A converted 1950s motel court at the foot of the Natchez Trace, still making Lon and Annie Loveless's original biscuits, country ham, and red-eye gravy. Come hungry and expect a wait — this is one of the most-visited restaurants in Tennessee for good reason.

In 1951, Lon and Annie Loveless started selling fried chicken and biscuits out of their home along what's now Highway 100, at the western edge of the city where the Natchez Trace Parkway begins. What began as a roadside motel restaurant catering to travelers has grown into a Nashville institution that now serves over half a million guests a year, and remarkably, it's still working from the Lovelesses' unaltered recipes rather than a modernized version of them.

The biscuits are the reason for the pilgrimage — split, buttered, and served alongside house-made blackberry and peach preserves that arrive at the table before you've even ordered. Country ham and red-eye gravy, fried chicken, and hash brown casserole round out a menu that reads like a greatest-hits of Southern breakfast rather than an interpretation of one. The dining rooms sprawl through the old motel building and outbuildings, with exposed wood beams and a screened porch that give it a genuine roadhouse feel rather than a manufactured one.

Loveless serves all day, but brunch is when it's busiest and best — get there when doors open to avoid the wait that regularly stretches 30 minutes or more, especially on weekends. It's a destination in its own right, worth the 20-minute drive from downtown, and pairs naturally with a stop at the Loveless Barn or a drive out onto the Natchez Trace afterward.