Best road-trip restaurants in Tennessee
Start here: 89 route-useful dining stops in Tennessee, grouped by town and filtered by cuisine or price. This is the curated road-trip layer, not every restaurant in the state.
Updated 2026-07-01. Check current hours, reservations, and seasonal closures before you go.
13 spots of 89 · Clear filters
Manchester1
Memphis3
Warm, hospitable downtown Memphis soul-food spot where Betty Joyce Chester-Tamayo serves fried chicken, cabbage and famous ghetto-aid punch.
Cult Memphis fried-chicken destination born in nearby Mason, frying spicy-battered birds served with slaw and beans downtown.
Historic South Memphis soul-food restaurant, a civil-rights-era gathering place still serving fried catfish, greens and neckbones.
Nashville9Town guide →
A four-story honky-tonk pairing Southern plates and live music on Broadway. (Lower Broadway)
James Beard American Classic cafeteria that is the gold standard for the meat-and-three. (The Gulch)
A no-frills 1997 institution beloved for cayenne-crusted chicken and hot fish. (East Nashville)
The modern hot-chicken standard-bearer with a heat ladder to Shut the Cluck Up. (Midtown)
Communal family-style feasting in a 1905 Victorian mansion with skillet-fried chicken. (Germantown)
Family-style Southern feast served at shared tables in a Germantown Victorian, where bowls of comfort food are passed until you surrender.
The family that invented Nashville hot chicken in the 1930s, still frying it to order. (Nolensville Pike)
Third-generation soul-food haven tucked near the Farmers' Market, nourishing Nashvillians with hearty daily-changing plates for over seventy years.
Family-run since 1954, a soul-food cafeteria feeding locals for generations. (North Nashville)
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