The Instagram description for Bill’s Sandwich Palace reads: Sandwiches, Snacks, and Shenanigans. Truth. With 10 years as the sous chef at City House and a short stint with his own restaurant, chef Aaron Clemins is making sandwiches now and couldn’t be happier.
In 2018, Aaron and wife, Christen, were at a crossroads. They had opened the ambitious Kuchnia & Keller in Germantown in a 25,000-foot space. “I worked every day for 13 months and barely saw my wife. We were roommates and that was about it.” Time for a reset. The couple closed the restaurant and headed to San Diego for a 9-month sabbatical. They returned to Nashville in 2019 without a plan. Aaron reached out to friends and found himself at TKO with Ryan Bernhardt. After a year, he went to work at Rosie Food & Wine in Hendersonville, and just 3 weeks later found himself without a job like so many other chefs in town.
Back at TKO, Bernhardt had closed his doors but was busier than he had ever been. Aaron went back to TKO to help, and once April came and went, they decided they needed a longer-term plan. Ryan had a full kitchen and lots of unused space just sitting there. So, Aaron decided to do a sandwich shop on the weekends. It suited the set-up (a tiny little walk-in fridge) and his schedule—he would do sandwiches just on the weekends at lunch. And TKO doesn’t serve lunch. “Basically, Bill’s Sandwich Palace fits in the cracks.”
Why Sandwiches? Chefs love sandwiches. And fellow chefs Ryan and Aaron Distler (of Mr. Aarons Goods) are both from Evansville, Indiana, which has a strong sandwich culture (who knew). One of the most popular is Stromboli, not the Italian Stromboli, but like a “pizza on a sandwich. It consists of ground meat and cheese. It’s like if you took garlic bread, put some meat fillings in between, wrapped it in foil and baked it,” says Aaron. It’s huge in Evansville and the chefs found themselves talking about sandwiches all the time.