From Catholic school to hardware store to grocery, these historic spaces-turned-cafés are worth the trips
In a survey about what folks care about most in a restaurant, ambiance and service rank high. And sitting at a Formica table on creaky wood floors, with homemade layer-cake stands in sight and a server that call you “honey,” is ambiance that is hard to beat. Here are three such places worthy of a weekend road trip.
By Carrington Fox
It’s hard to describe the delightful haphazard-but-utilitarian aesthetic of Joelton Hardware, Feed & Farmacy, where fiddles hang among wheel drive belts for lawn mowers, a drum kit balances on a shelf above bolt cutters and a stuffed coyote guards the cartons of PVC pipe and painter’s tape. But one thing’s for sure: It’s authentic. There’s been a hardware store along the retail strip on Clarksville Pike since 1964. In 2016, Kris and Eliot Houser, who live a couple minutes away, bought the place, and in 2021, they scooted the shelves over to shoehorn in kitchen and dining areas. Then they made room for a Middle Grounds Coffee bar in the corner.
Kris, who previously worked with the Tennessee Local Food Summit and “Barefoot Farmer” Jeff Poppen, wanted the restaurant to adhere to the organization’s principles, so Joelton Hardware serves local chicken and beef from ZK Ranches in Springfield and stocks locally grown produce in season. Some weekends, there’s a farmers market in the parking lot.
The hardware store is open daily, and the kitchen is open every day except Monday, serving some combination of brunch, lunch and dinner. At any given moment, there is live music—not just on regularly scheduled Bluegrass Tuesdays, Open Jam Saturdays and Jazz Tuesday and Thursdays, or when Grammy winners Marla Cannon-Goodman and Brice Long might be on stage, but whenever Gene Dunlap is hanging around. A former pianist and band leader for Loretta Lynn, Gene plays Joelton Hardware with Jonell Mosser on Wednesday nights, but at a recent lunchtime, he was taking requests and delivering a live soundtrack of “Moon River” while the kitchen churned out salads, wings, burgers, cheesesteaks and some hand-cut tallow fries that really got our attention.
While the music plays and you wait for your order, grab a beer and roam the aisles to do your chores. There’s plenty of stuff you might need to fix a broken thing, whether electricity or plumbing. There’s non-GMO layer mash and pellets for chickens and an organic grain mix, which—any henkeeper knows—can be hard to come by in the city. There are local artisan woodcrafts and High Garden teas. Out back, among bales of alfalfa, there’s a firepit waiting for al fresco musical moments in summer.
With so many tools, including a cast of talented neighbors, Joelton Hardware and the Housers have built a comfortable landmark to share live music, local food and continuous community.
joeltonhardware.com 5538 Clarksville Pike, Joelton @joeltonhardware
Gabriel Camp, owner of Screen Door Kitchen with wife, Eva, is trying to resurrect the food traditions of Dayton, Tenn. But it’s not easy. “To find a recipe from 100 years ago is nearly impossible. But we’re working on it,” Gabriel says. “I have a whole shelf of what we call ‘church cookbooks.’ Ladies’ auxiliary fundraiser cookbooks. You can almost always find at least one thing you’ve never seen.”
The Charleston, S.C.–born chefs opened Screen Door Kitchen in 2017 as an American bistro with Southern flair. It’s located in a three-story house on a beautiful, rural road. The building was a private home for over a century; to this day, former residents stop by for a plate of meatloaf and seasonal vegetables. Before that, in 1891, the building was St. Genevieve’s Academy Catholic school, serving the many Catholic workers who relocated for jobs at the Dayton Coal and Iron Company.
Even though the school closed just five years later, its echoes are everywhere. In one of the dining areas, you can see a section of the chalkboard where nuns used to write. On the opposite wall, there’s a black-and-white photograph of long-ago students gathered in front of the house. Dayton may be best known for hosting the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, which litigated the teaching of evolution in public schools. This year marks the centennial of that landmark case, so it’s a good time to visit the courthouse where it took place. A meal at Screen Door Kitchen will enhance the hands-on engagement with the faith that shaped the town.
The restaurant’s menu, however, isn’t nearly as beholden to the past. Since coming to Dayton, the Camps have learned to adapt their adventurous impulses for a town of fewer than 10,000 people. “It’s been an education for us, learning how far we can push the envelope,” Eva says. “There are certain things we can’t take off the menu—fried catfish, shrimp and grits—but even then, we always want to do it in a way that’s a little surprising.”The buffalo chicken sandwich, for instance, comes with a slaw of celery, radish and blue cheese. Fried catfish is served with a kicky tartar sauce that includes Cajun spices and anchovies. Collard greens are especially tender and flavorful, because they’re simmered for at least three hours with bacon, brown sugar and vinegar.
“We cook this way because we want people to trust us and know that we care about the food that they care about,” says Gabriel. Laughing, he adds, “And then we can get them to try the weird things.”
screendoorkitchen.com, 449 Delaware Ave., Dayton @screendoordayton
By Jill Melton
“You’ve never been to Miller’s Grocery?” Edible copy editor Dillon Dodson asked incredulously. Growing up in Bell Buckle and attending The Webb School, he knew it well, so Dillon steered us to the unassuming grocery-café in a notch in the road in nearby Christiana. Miller’s Grocery operated continuously for more than 75 years in the once-bustling whistle-stop community of Christiana, where a three-story hotel, bank and telephone office functioned among some 15 other businesses. In 1995, the building was restored and the grocery store gave way to A Country Cafe, featuring Southern cooking, from-scratch desserts and live music, under the venerable name honoring the memory of longtime proprietor Stanley Miller.
While you can’t check off your grocery list these days, you can work your way through lunch and dinner menus, as well as a Sunday buffet from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., in a dining room with charmingly uneven hardwood floors, mismatched tables and chairs and a multigenerational serving team with warm, country manners. From a menu of pork chops, greens, beef tips in gravy and country-fried steak, we reeled in fried catfish and meatloaf served with corn nuggets in a bready dough. The highlight was homemade Banana Hummingbird Cake, a classic Southern, cinnamon-pineapple infused dish with bananas and lathered with cream cheese frosting. Seldom seen on menus, theirs was legit and ample.
millersgrocerytn.com, 7011 Main St., Christiana @millersgrocery