Press
"Elliston Place Soda Shop: How its kept 83 years of tradition, love and pie alive" -Fox 17 Nashville
December 21, 2023
It is inevitable, every year a treasured Nashville restaurant seems to close.
It doesn't seem that long ago the Elliston Place Soda Shop was on the verge of becoming a bittersweet memory. That is not the case anymore, 83 years old and going strong.
It is a busy and festive lunch crowd at the Elliston Place Soda Shop. It is also a familiar crowd, familiar faces who know where to go for a special occasion.
"Okay, my baby, who do you have with you today? This is our special retirement party for Paula Craig, you are retiring?" said employee Linda Melton.
Ms. Linda has been here for 30 years. Her specialty is pie, in fact, she just baked the 12 pies of Christmas this year. A beautiful assortment of pie including her mile high meringue.
"These are all homemade, they are made from scratch, and just the warmth and that feeling when someone hands you that pie," said Melton.
The Elliston Place Soda Shop has been here for 83 years, barely. The soda shop was going to close when Nashville developer Tony Giarratana bought the restaurant and moved it down the street.
"We made it larger but we had to keep that same feel. So, in the design of it down to the silver on the tables has the exact same, you know, indentations or the way the counter seats look, they are exactly the same as over there," said General Manager Craig Clifft.
The signs from the original building, the booth, jukeboxes from the original building, and the old-time recipes. The hot fudge sundae is not a 2023 portion."
The milkshakes are done like they were 50 years ago. Three scoops of ice cream blended down for two to three minutes.
Some of these pie recipes are 100 years old, still handmade, homemade, with a mixer that is so special it has a name!
"I named my mixer. My mixer name is Betsy, okay, she's been with me 30 years, she's one thing I kept from the old place. She is going nowhere," said Melton.
And either is Ms. Linda, and either is the soda shop.
"You can go anywhere and eat at a chain restaurant. This is it's own place. It's not connected to anywhere else, there are not anymore, anywhere else, it has a special place in my heart and a lot of people's hearts," said Melton.
"I think that as Nashville changes, I think he's still got to keep a little bit of those, you know, those special places that people can go, that's my place, That's my special place," said Clifft.
The Elliston Place Soda Shop figured it out, keep what's absolutely best and do everything else a little better. They are now open for Sunday brunch beginning in 2024, just continuing to grow while keeping those 83 year old traditions alive!
"'Pie Lady' Ms. Linda reflects on 30 years of holiday memories at Elliston Place Soda Shop" -News Channel 5 Nashville
December 22, 2023
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The Elliston Place Soda Shop has been amid its 12 Pies of Christmas, offering a different variety each day. We catch up with the woman behind those legendary pies for reflections on 30 years of holiday memories.
When you're at the Elliston Place Soda Shop, you see a coconut pie without the meringue, you know it's not finished. It's certainly not finished when Linda Melton's around to give it that crowning glory.
"People walk through that door, and the first thing they see is that pie case and they go, 'look at the meringue!" she laughed.
"This place is well-known for [the pies]," chimed in a customer. "Make them give you a piece of it before you go!"
"That is super high," said another, staring at the meringue in the case.
Anyone seen meringue this high before?
"Never! No," said a mother visiting with her two sons. "We've been around the world! Never."
"I am the Pie Lady," Linda said.
"What do you make of that title?" I asked her.
"I don't know! Sometimes I wonder about it. I think it's funny, actually."
The story behind the towering meringue goes back to Linda's childhood.
"Oh, honey. We were from way back in the country. Decaturville, Tennessee, actually," Linda began. "[My grandmother] had 10 kids and kept all the grandkids. So, she cooked. As you got older, you had to learn to help her with the food. I took a liking to the pies."
Linda became the general manager of the Po' Folks chain of restaurants. When the chain closed came a new opportunity.
Thirty years ago, Linda first walked through the doors of the shop and began working. Of course, this was a very different neighborhood then.
"Course, there was the EXIT/IN," Linda remembered. "Then you had the Gold Rush. That was pretty much it. 30 years later, here I still am!"
Thirty years brought great memories. In 1994, Linda appeared in a photoshoot at the shop with Marty Stuart.
"You see all that hair, honey?" she laughed, looking back at the picture. "I got tired of messing with it!"
Thirty years have brought many changes, including the shop moving into a new building next door to the original. What has not changed over 30 years is the lessons and measurement systems taught to Ms. Linda by her grandmother.
"My granny taught me with a coffee cup and a regular ole teaspoon, and I still use a coffee cup and a regular ole teaspoon," she smiled. "I think she'd be proud of me altogether for continuing to do this."
"I've been told it's OKto get a banana split for breakfast here?" a customer said.
"I think the menu actually says that," laughed Ms. Linda.
Christmas is Ms. Linda's busiest time of the year. She loves hearing what these pies mean to others.
"They just remind me of my mom," a customer said. "She was a great pie maker, and she's gone. These just bring back such fond memories. Nostalgia."
"That's a lot of pie, baby," Ms. Linda said, holding up a coconut pie topped with tall meringue. "That's what I love doin!"
Merry Christmas, Ms. Linda.
Ms. Linda also asked that we mention Elliston Place Soda Shop has just brought back their Sunday brunch.
"Seven Southern Old-Fashioned Soda Fountains" -Garden& Gun
August 16, 2023
Elliston Place Soda Shop
Since 1939, Elliston Place Soda Shop has marched to the beat of its own drum in Music City. It made a name for itself not only as a soda shop but as one of the original purveyors of the "meat-and-three" platter. Vintage enthusiasts can ogle a classic Bastian-Blessing soda fountain behind the counter while sipping a "Zinger," an old-school phosphate soda. Hand-spun milkshakes made with local ice cream come in a mind-boggling range of flavors, including hot fudge butterscotch, peanut butter caramel, and pineapple. If you really want to double down on nostalgia, make it a malted shake for 99 cents more.
"9 Premium Places to Grab Ice Cream in Nashville" - Eater Nashville
May 11, 2023
Elliston Place Soda Shop
Holding it down in Midtown for more than 80 years, this sweet shop and diner is perhaps best known for its old-school treatment of shakes, malts, floats, and flavored sodas, but you can also get great sundaes, banana splits, and simple ice cream scoops in classic flavors of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, plus toppings. And thanks to a recent move next door and a major facelift, Elliston Place Soda Shop now has a full bar.
"Kid-Friendly Restaurants in Nashville" -Nashville Guru
September 8, 2023
Elliston Place Soda Shop
Elliston Place Soda Shop knows how to soothe a sweet tooth with options like ice cream floats, sundaes, and classic ice cream. But before the kids get hopped up on sugar, be sure to enjoy their all-day breakfast menu or one of their tasty options from the lunch/dinner menu. You can't go wrong with a grilled cheese sandwich or the Signature Soda Shop Burger.
"Elliston Place Soda Shop Is Set to Bring Folks Back to the Rock Block" -Nashville Scene
May 6, 2021
For nearly three decades, Miss Linda — full name Linda Melton — baked pies and seated people in booths at the Elliston Place Soda Shop. Using her grandmother's recipes, she's been the face behind the chess pies, meringue pies (the taller the better) and banana pudding that have satisfied locals' sugar cravings for decades.
In late 2019, then-owner Skip Bibb announced he was going to close the classic spot, which had fed folks on what's now known as the Rock Block since 1939. Rents were rising, the restaurant needed renovations and repairs, and an expansion to a location in Cool Springs had failed, staying open less than two years. Bibb bought the restaurant from the previous owners in 2013 — another point when it had been at risk of being shuttered. There had also been a 2009 effort to expand in Green Hills.
Longtime customer and prolific real estate developer Tony Giarratana wanted to save the place. When he moved to Nashville in 1984, he didn't know a soul, he says, and the Elliston Place Soda Shop was somewhere he felt comfortable — a Cheers, everybody-knows-your-name kind of place. (Giarratana says he's a strawberry-milkshake, burger-and-fries guy.) Over the years he helped find employees somewhere to park — he used to own Premier Parking — and convinced Melton to make breakfast available before regular opening hours for the construction workers across the street working early hours to accommodate scheduling requests from the nearby hospital. So Giarratana decided to buy the place, uncertain of where it might go or without any restaurant industry experience. "My wife [Lisa] was furious," he says. "I have never seen her so angry. She said, 'You know how to do skyscrapers. You don't know anything about restaurants.'"
"I'll hire people who do," Giarratana says he promised her. Giarratana, who has worked on countless developments around town — including the 505 Nashville building on Church Street, apartments on Elliston Place and the Belle Meade Theatre building on Harding Pike — bought the Elliston Place Soda Shop and trademark. His first order of business was to offer spots on the payroll to Melton and dishwasher Leonard Jones, who has worked for the soda shop for 26 years.
While Melton concedes she cried the last day at the old location, she was happy about accepting Giarratana's offer. Having waited on him for decades, she was confident he could make the soda shop a modern restaurant while respecting its nearly 82-year history. Giarratana brought in veteran restaurateurs Randy Rayburn and Bob Bedell, who now own Music City Hospitality Consulting, for their analysis. "You're never going to make money on this, but we get why you want to do it," Giarratana says they told him.
Of course, with the pandemic, there were delays. But finally, the Elliston Place Soda Shop is set to reopen May 11 at 2105 Elliston Place, just steps east of the original location. Giarratana rented the 1907 Cumberland Telephone Exchange building and set about replicating the original aesthetic. The team researched the restaurant's past, not just in Bibb's era but back when Lynn Chandler bought the soda fountain from the old Elliston Pharmacy. There are tile floors with a mosaic ice cream sundae. There's the 1947 soda fountain that was completely restored by a company in Chicago for $25,000. (Giarratana bought it before he even had a location lined up.) There are the red booths that Melton says look just like they used to — except now they have plenty of legroom, electric outlets and USB ports. Chairs and tables no longer wobble. "You won't end up with a milkshake in your lap," Giarratana says. Shakes are served in the classic fluted glasses. There are the original, restored red stools at the soda fountain and a free jukebox, plus a case at the entrance for the pies. Outside, a replica of the iconic neon sign hangs above the entrance.
There are updates too. "You can't just re-create old," Giarratana says. The new location is two-and-a-half times bigger than the old one (168 seats including some outdoor seating). There are automated dishwashers, a takeout window so you can grab a milkshake on the go and a small stage for singer-songwriter events. Live music will take place the last hour of the evening and during Sunday brunch. Behind the stage is an oversized replica of a painting by John Baeder of the original storefront. There are even a few parking spots, and alcohol on the menu.
After the past year — and particularly on the Rock Block, down the street from Exit/In and the recently shuttered Rotier's — Giarratana and his team think something that is "not new" sounds pretty good. As there's so much concern about Nashville losing its soul, the team thinks a reasonably priced milkshake and meat-and-three plate may help. They are walking a line of not wanting to be a Disneyfied parody of a soda fountain counter and wanting to honor what came before.
Melton's pies will be a constant. Of course, she'll have some seasonal fruit varieties, but the idea is that you know there will always be chess pie, pecan pie and lemon and chocolate meringue in the case — so if you want to buy a pie for a birthday party, you can swing by and get one.
The restaurant will be open breakfast through dinner Monday through Saturday. It will close at 3 p.m. on Sunday and may be available for private events in the evening that one day a week. They have already been inundated with requests for weddings and bat mitzvahs, for photo shoots and music videos. Singer Kathy Mattea recently posed for an interview shoot on site. But the soda shop wants to focus on the everyday customers — older Nashvillians who remember the original spot, students, nurses and doctors, parents and kids coming by after school, and tourists — rather than special events.
Rayburn and Bedell introduced Giarratana to Craig Clifft, formerly of Cabana, who came on as general manager, and to Jim Myers, who calls himself the soda shop's Minister of Culture. "I'm here to capture and tell the stories of the history and to hold us accountable to that history," he says. A former journalist at The Tennessean, Myers is aware of the risk of high expectations.
"As a former restaurant critic, in some ways this is my personal reputation. I'm the guy who called everyone out on everything. I only get one shot at this so I needed to know that it was going to be done right," Myers says.
That's why Myers went deep into the history, looking at old menus, making sure what was offered on the new menu was both something people like to eat today and something that would have made sense historically. The soda shop brought on some staff members who are Nashville natives and grew up eating at its counters, and staff has been having scratch-cooking competitions to make the best grilled cheese (Lisa Giarratana offered the winning techniques and tips), biscuits and meatloaf. They added gluten-free dishes and veggie burgers and took the Reuben sandwich off the menu — not that it didn't sell well before, but they felt it didn't fit with their desire to focus on the true roots of the joint: Southern plate lunch, meat-and-three, and a soda fountain.
Myers, who is a font of knowledge about all things Nashville — particularly its food history — can rattle off story after story about the soda shop. For instance, Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry, who grew up in a segregated Nashville in the 1960s, recounts how a waitress at the Elliston Place Soda Shop would bring him a chocolate ice cream cone outside, as he was not allowed to come inside and be served. George Jones featured the soda shop on an album cover.
Because of the investment and the increased food costs, Giarratana's not certain the restaurant will be profitable in the short term, in part because they are committed to keeping prices affordable. (The meat-and-three will be $9.99, for example.) He says the project is about saving it for the city. Myers says the team has their eye on the bottom line as well as the menu.
You'd be forgiven if you're skeptical. Bringing back a business with sentimental significance takes finesse — others have tried it with the soda shop in the past. This very street is the heart of debates about new and old Nashville. Myers, Rayburn and Bedell all had concerns. But now even Lisa Giarratana, who initially was angry with her husband over his ice cream parlor purchase, is convinced.
Giarratana had an opportunity to sell the business, and was ready to do so, when Lisa stopped him. "Honey, I just wanted to save it," Giarratana told her. "I didn't think we needed to own the thing."
"I think we should keep it," she countered.