What Happened to Arnold's Country Kitchen After Best Thing I Ever Ate?

Best Thing I Ever Ate, Season 9, Episode 14

In the episode 'The Closers' (S9E14), the series featured Arnold's Country Kitchen, a cafeteria-style meat-and-three restaurant on 8th Avenue South in Nashville, Tennessee, known for a rotating lineup of Southern entrees and sides served at lunch. According to arnoldscountrykitchen.com, checked 2026-09-08, the restaurant's own site listed Monday-Friday lunch hours of 10:30 a.m.-2:45 p.m. and a Saturday brunch from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., along with a plates-to-go option, delivery, catering, and an active online ordering widget.

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Season 9, Episode 13 Aired August 9, 2010

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives featured Arnold's Country Kitchen in the 2010-08-09 episode "Old Time Attitude" (S9E13), highlighting the restaurant's Southern meat-and-three cooking, including greens, cornbread, black-eyed peas, and chess pie. Arnold's Country Kitchen is a Southern restaurant at 605 8th Avenue South in Nashville, Tennessee's Gulch neighborhood, according to Wikipedia (revised 2026-07-11), which also notes the restaurant received a James Beard Foundation American Classics Award in 2009. The restaurant's own website, checked 2026-09-08, listed lunch hours of Monday through Friday 10:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. and Saturday brunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., along with an active online-ordering option for plates to go.

Man v. Food, Season 6, Episode 13 Aired February 5, 2018

In the same episode, Casey Webb visited Arnold's Country Kitchen, the Nashville meat-and-three where chef Kahlil Arnold ran the cafeteria-style line, according to the episode's cast listing. Arnold's had served Nashville from its 8th Avenue South location for roughly 40 years, per WSMV's coverage of the restaurant. WSMV reported that Arnold's served its final meat-and-three plates on Saturday, January 7, 2023, with the family citing rising downtown property taxes and a stalled real-estate sale. Nashville Post reported in 2024 that the Arnold family was eyeing a sister restaurant on the city's north side, and WKRN reported that the family has since brought the kitchen back for occasional pop-up service, including a Thanksgiving run and a "temporary" return to lunch service in January 2024.