Restaurants in Brentwood Estates

Looking back on a rough-and-tumble career, songwriter and artist Bobby Pinson laments the slow arrival of his success. But having written hit songs for acts including Toby Keith, Sugarland, and Rascal Flatts, it's hard to deny he's made a name for himself by feeding America's ears. Now he's striving to bring his same brand of warm honesty to stomachs.

With the help of his wife, Lucy, and recipes passed down over three generations, the self-proclaimed Panhandle Texan has opened Lucy’s Country Cafe, which liberates the aromas of homestyle cooking to drift across nearby Music Row. As Bobby twists the tuners on his guitar to bring the metallic twang into tune at live weekly performances, forks click a steady beat against plates laden with chicken and dumplings, tender pot roast, and warm sides of mashed potatoes or cornbread bought à la carte or from the all-you-can-eat buffet. Caterers race from the restaurant, bringing feasts for party hosts to pass off as home cooked when trying to prove their kitchen isn't just a mirage.

Inside a cheerful restaurant decorated with yellow walls and streamers, culinary wunderkinds dish up traditional Mexican–style enchiladas, burritos, and fajitas. Green sauce, sour cream, and salsa drizzles over three types of enchiladas, and eight different burritos encase protein-packed mouthfuls of chicken, grilled steak, pork tips, and beans. Traditional desserts such as churros and fried ice cream celebrate the marriage of crispiness and sweetness, much like a deep-fried love letter. Barkeeps also pour imported beers, blend monster margaritas, and expound on the virtues, vices, and variances of more than a dozen tequilas stashed in their well-equipped watering hole.

A big pink pig hovers above Fat Boys Bar-B-Q, intent on its job of catching the eyes of all who drive by on Murfreesboro. Beneath his porcine gaze, cooks brush racks of ribs with zesty sauce, pull pork and chicken for sandwiches and platters, and slow smoke beef brisket. Sides of house-made potato salad, corn bread, and fried okra accompany plates of catfish, sauce-covered rib tips, and brisket quesadillas. To ensure that no freezer ever goes hungry, Fat Boys Bar-B-Q makes its meats available by the pound.

John "Chappy" Chapman watched his mother cook for their family while growing up in Alabama and New Orleans. Her techniques inspired him to open Chappy's Seafood Restaurant in 1984 and serve family-style creole cuisine. When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, it destroyed his restaurant and his home. Chapman hauled the spirit of creole cuisine to Nashville, opening Chappy's on Church. At the new establishment, red beans and rice, jambalaya with andouille sausage, and crayfish étouffée sizzle with as much spice as ever.

"In New Orleans, we live to eat," says Chapman. Inside the restaurant, he's cultivated an Old World atmosphere ideal for dining slowly and relishing every bite. A refinished wooden bar brings its hand-carved reliefs all the way from Belgium, leaving a bar-shaped hole in Belgium's heart. Century-old stained-glass panels and matching lamps were salvaged from a cathedral in Indiana. Bright paintings adorn every wall but one, where Chapman has hung a photograph of the original Chappy's Seafood Restaurant, surrounded by oak trees in the sunlight.

Each day at Benton's Cafe, staffers unveil a different fresh deli wrap, as diners peruse the permanent menu of classic American sandwiches, salads, and breakfast dishes. The kitchen staff assembles tried-and-true deli cuisine with classic cold cuts, Waldorf chicken salad, and tuna salad. They adapt their sandwich-smithing finesse at breakfast as well, piling eggs, bacon, and sausage atop biscuits and english muffins. A line-up of elegant pastries inhabits a display case that glistens under dangling light fixtures, floor-to-ceiling windows, and the perma-white grin of unemployed game show hosts angling for a complimentary snack.