Tom Morales Sells Gulch Seafood Spot and Historic Downtown Restaurant

Tom Morales of TomKats Hospitality has sold two of his restaurants, according to multiple sources and reports by the Nashville Business Journal.

Taking the helm at Fin & Pearl are an investment group including Michael Bodnar, Howard Greenstone, and Ken Levitan, who plan to loop in 404 Kitchen’s chef Matt Bolus to overhaul the menu. Fin & Pearl opened in late 2016, a self-proclaimed ‘sea-to-fork’ restaurant focusing on sourcing and sustainability, things Morales told the NBJ the city “might not have been ready for yet.”

The other changing of hands involves the historic restaurant and live music venue Woolworth on 5th, which NBJ reports is “left in the hands of some of the restaurant’s original investors.” Woolworth on 5th — the most historically significant restaurant in the city of Nashville — just opened in February of 2018 in the former F. W. Woolworth department store at 221 5th Ave. N. The five-and-dime was the site of some of the seminal lunch counter sit-ins during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Nashville, led by civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis. Morales and his partners embarked on the project with the goal of honoring the history of the space, while also giving it a new story as a welcome table for all. Morales told NBJ that they had succeeded in saving the building and preserving the history, but that it was time to pass the torch.

• Woolworth on 5th Is the Most Historically Important Restaurant in Nashville [ENASH]
• Have a Look Around Ocean-Themed Fin & Pearl [ENASH]
• Tom Morales’ Gulch, downtown restaurants change hands [NBJ]