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It looks like the rumors are true: prolific Atlanta-based chef and restaurateur Ford Fry will be planting his flag in Nashville sometime in the not too distant future, as he plans to open three restaurants in a new riverfront development in Germantown.
The Nashville Business Journal reports that Fry’s concepts will be part of a new apartment development at 1400 Adams Street, the site of a former factory called the Hammer Mill. The restaurants are planned for a 20,000-square-foot existing building that will be renovated, but other than that, initial details were few.
But a spokeswoman for Fry passed along a few comments from the chef to Eater regarding the move and what he has in store.
On the “why,” Fry says that “Nashville is just a killer town[,]” with a “food scene [that] is real and truly inspired, just as the music scene is and both together is what always brings me to Nashville.”
As for what the concepts will be, Fry details that they “are still in the planning phases but what I know is that we are taking the entire ground level and some of the upper level. It will be three distinct spaces but will all work together with the majority being highly seafood-centric. I am always a fan of local music talent so I can also see a fun version of a "listening room/honky tonk.” But whatever it is, it needs to be true and unique to Nashville.”
Since opening his first restaurant, JCT. Kitchen & Bar, in Atlanta in 2007, the James Beard-nominated chef and his Rocket Farm Restaurants group have been busy, opening an additional ten restaurants in that time, five of which opened between late 2014 and earlier this year.
Since the development has not even broken ground yet, there is no stated opening time frame, but it would be safe to bet that doors will open sometime in 2018.
