Major Nashville Restaurant Group Drops Two Popular Weekend Haunts

A prolific Nashville restaurant group closed two of its popular weekend dining and drinking destinations this week: Tavern, Midtown’s mainstay for weekend brunch and bachelorette parties, and Whiskey Kitchen, a restaurant in the Gulch known for its 100+ whiskey selection and off-menu spirit offerings.

Both have been around for a while by current standards — M Street Entertainment Group opened Tavern 15 years ago, and opened Whiskey Kitchen 13 years ago. The closures seem to be paving the way for new businesses for the restaurant group, which has also opened Kayne Prime, Moto, Saint Anejo, and Virago. In an Instagram post announcing the closures this week, the group said that it will likely open a new restaurant in the place of Whiskey Kitchen when a hotel slated for the property is completed, expected in 2024. The group closed Tavern, it said, due to required facility upgrades, but said it will reevaluate the future of that space for a potential new project when said upgrades are complete.

In the post and subsequent press release, M Street says employees of Tavern and Whiskey Kitchen were offered opportunities at other restaurants in the group, that all Tavern employees have accepted work at Saint Anejo, and that “100 percent” of former employees are being relocated. It’s a note likely intended to get ahead of questions about how the staff was treated regarding the closures, a topic spurred by the controversial closure of Maneet Chauhan’s Chaatable last month. Interestingly, the post announcing the closures notes that the “additions to the restaurants’ staff will allow them to operate at full hours,” for the first time since returning from pandemic restrictions.