Margot Café & Bar in East Nashville Closes After 25 Years

Written by Skylar Bush, Edible Nashville’s executive chef, who has worked at many of Nashville’s finest restaurants.

So long Chef, we always felt at home in your house. Here’s what made Margot Cafe the institution it was.

You can find countless articles parroting Margot McCormack’s résumé: inheriting a passion for cooking while in the kitchen with her mother, shipping off to school in Knoxville to obtain her degree in English, rekindling that love for cooking, attending the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York, and eventually returning to Nashville to rise to the top of the city’s foodscape.

This isn’t one of those pieces. This piece is personal.

Being a great chef and an impeccable human being don’t always overlap. Those at the top of their craft in this industry can get lost in the sauce and lose sight of what hospitality is at its core: practicing goodwill and genuine human connection. Margot transcends that notion completely.

While she rules her roost with a tight fist and an unwavering truth for her vision, she practices hospitality exactly how one should. You may be in her house, but she makes you feel at home. This is evident in the countless patrons who visit Margot Cafe religiously, sometimes three or four times a week, and have for decades. It is unmistakable in the tear-filled embraces from those I have witnessed as they come to say their goodbyes. It is clear from the people who have made their pilgrimages to her Mecca from far and wide.

But it’s easy to put on a face for a customer. The true measure is how you treat those who work with you day in and day out. As evidenced by the family of past and present employees she has accumulated the past 25 years, Margot is a mentor, a guiding light for those who have had the privilege to work beside her, and a motherly figure to those lost children that decide being a chef is for them. She works harder than anyone I know and will not take a shortcut, no matter the circumstances. Her guidance has spawned some of our city’s greatest chefs and restaurants, her reach has been endless in the culinary field, and her legacy is something that won’t burn out anytime soon.

Cheers to 25 years, Chef. I know it is going to be delightful to finally take a break. But, in the short time I have gotten to know you, something tells me this won’t be the end. Greatness does not fade away—it leaves indelible marks on every canvas it touches. You shaped my life as a cook and human and instilled in me a passion that I didn’t think I would ever get back. I am indebted to you, as many of us are. I will carry your torch alongside the rest of your devotees that have the honor to cool with you. And I’ll speak for the rest of us: We love you and will miss you and what you created. I will say goodbye in the most appropriate way I can think of: Au revoir, prends bien soin de toi.