By Janet Scott
M.L.Rose Craft Beer and Burgers, a critically acclaimed Nashville restaurant, will open its sixth Middle Tennessee location on Oct. 21 at 2145 Nashville Pike in Gallatin.
The new restaurant was buzzing with activity on Friday morning, preparing for the “family orientation” to be held that night.
“We’ll be welcoming each and every person on the team,” said Chris Benke, general manager of the new Gallatin location. “The restaurant founder, Austin Ray, will be here along with many more from the main office. We’ll be putting a lot of emphasis on the M.L.Rose culture.”
That culture is summed up in four parts, according to Benke.
“Part one is treating every customer like a good neighbor,” he said. “The first M.L.Rose opened as a neighborhood bar in the Melrose area of Nashville. It was created because Austin Ray lived in the area and saw there was no good place to get craft beer. He decided to fill the void by creating a neighborhood restaurant called Melrose Pub—which turned into M.L.Rose Craft Beer and Burgers. That feeling of being a neighborhood pub is something he wants in every location.”
Part two, per Benke, is playing to win.
“This is about winning over the customer,” he explained. “If someone is having a bad day, turn that around. Or if someone is having a good day, make it a great one. We play to win by being the best part of a customer’s day.”
Part three is a business principle: details matter.
“Every beer and every burger,” Benke said. “We’ll be happy to prove this when we open.”
And part four, he concluded, is, “Let’s G-O-O-O-O!”
In other words, enthusiasm.
Chris Benke is never called by his first name, only his last—and it is usually pronounced “Beenkie.” He has lived in Sumner County for 30 years. His father and stepmother owned a restaurant in Hendersonville called Grandstands.
“I was a kid in the dish pit, standing on the glass rack so I could reach the sprayer—I was slave labor,” he joked. “By the time I was 16, I was managing the restaurant.”
Benke moved to Washington state and found himself wooing and marrying a former Grandstands colleague named Rochelle, and the two eventually came back to Hendersonville.
“We ran Grandstands, the Shack, and Anchor High Grill together,” he said.
Benke later moved into corporate restaurant management, working for many national chains over the years.
“I was the general manager (GM) at Red Robin for a while and had an assistant GM named Ray Grice, who became a friend,” he said. “We stayed in touch after each of us moved on. One night we were talking on the phone, and I was telling him about a bad night I’d had working as GM at a Longhorn. I said I was going to have to make a change, and he started shouting—telling me to send him my resume. He was the GM at the M.L.Rose in Mt. Juliet—and he knew the restaurant was about to expand. He thought I might be a good fit.”
The next thing Benke knew, he was interviewing with the upper management at M.L.Rose—including Austin Ray—and hasn’t looked back since.
“That was two years ago,” he said. “I spent most of this time at the Sylvan Park location in Nashville, subbing for a GM who needed some time off. I immersed myself in the M.L.Rose world—which makes me excited about opening this one in Gallatin.”
Every M.L.Rose is unique in its décor, according to Benke. The Gallatin location features wallpaper that’s a collage of pop culture images—posters of every celebrity imaginable, including Janis Joplin, the Beatles, Sylvester Stallone, Oprah Winfrey—and of course, Taylor Swift. One wall is dedicated to framed photos of Johnny Cash, displaying him at different ages. “This place is designed for the Sumner County area,” Benke said, “and it all comes from the mind of Austin Ray.”
M.L.Rose in Gallatin has 36 taps of craft beer.
“M.L.Rose is the only restaurant I know of that has a beer council,” Benke said. “We change our selection four times a year. The beer council decides what to keep, what to lose, and what to add.”
The beer council consists of the M.L.Rose upper management—including Austin Ray, Director of Operations Tom Perry, Beverage Director Julie Meirick, the GMs from every restaurant, and all the bar managers.
“Four times a year we have a day when we sample everything,” Benke said. “We also do anonymous surveys, asking our customers to rank the beers.”
The Gallatin location is the first M.L.Rose to be built from scratch. It features inside seating for more than 200 and has two dog-friendly patio spaces—one of them outfitted with a two-sided outdoor fireplace. There is also a kid-friendly game room—a feature unique to Gallatin, per Benke.
The menu offers an array of shareable snacks, beer braised and flash-fried wings, classic and creative craft burgers, and M.L.Rose’s signature crispy waffle fries in regular or sweet potato.
“We offer a burger of the month,” Benke said, adding, “and we’re holding a ‘Build Your Own Dream Burger’ contest right now.”
Special events at the restaurant include weekly team trivia on Mondays at 8 p.m. and two-for-one craft beer and cocktails on Thursdays. Brunch is offered on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. On Monday through Thursday, the restaurant is open from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays have an extended closing of 11 p.m.
Since the kitchen at M.L.Rose is not quite finished, the family orientation is being catered by Edley’s Bar-B-Que—located on the same block.
“The Edley’s people are our very good friends,” said Benke. “There’s going to be another restaurant next door as well—Rock’n Dough Pizza + Brewery. This block on Nashville Pike in Gallatin is going to be restaurant heaven—and we’ll all have each other’s backs.”
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