Sunday dinner
Chitterlings, ox tails, turkey & dressing and spaghetti, served 11:00am to 3:00pm. The busiest table of the week, and the one worth queuing for.
Sunday menu →
Welcome to Silver Sands
A family kitchen on Locklayer Street
Located at 937 Locklayer Street, Silver Sands Cafe is a family owned restaurant that serves some of the best home made southern style food in the Downtown Nashville area. Popular family recipes have been passed down 3 generations now, including smothered pork chops, potatoes & onions, salmon croquettes, fried chicken, mac & cheese, greens, hot water corn bread and so much more! Besides the daily items that are prepared fresh everyday, there are special menu items that change daily. Stop in or view our menu to see what’s on the line today!
We are a meat-and-three in the truest Nashville sense: you pick a meat, you pick your sides, and a round of hot water cornbread comes with the plate. Nothing arrives from a freezer bag. The greens are cleaned by hand, the cobbler is baked in the pan it is served from, and the pots start going before dawn so the first plate of the morning is as good as the last.
The rotation
Every day cooks different
The meats and vegetables change with the day of the week. Pick a day to see what comes out of the kitchen.
Breakfast from 6:30am
Country ham, salmon croquettes, grits, potatoes & onions and pancakes, cooked to order Tuesday through Friday until 10:30am.
Breakfast menu →Catering & big orders
Anything on the menu, cooked in quantity for churches, offices, family reunions and funerals. Three days’ notice and a deposit gets it done.
Catering details →
What people drive across town for
The plates we are known for
Smothered pork chops
Browned, then finished slow in their own gravy until a fork is all you need. The single most requested plate in the building.
Hot water cornbread
Cornmeal scalded with boiling water and dropped straight into hot fat. Crisp shell, soft middle. One comes with every meal.
Ox tails
Cooked down for hours until the meat lets go of the bone, with a gravy dark enough to eat over rice on its own.
Salmon croquettes
Mixed, shaped and fried when you order them. On the breakfast line and the lunch line both, which tells you something.
Mac & cheese
Baked, not stirred. Cut in squares from the pan with the browned crust still on top.
Turnip & collard greens
Cleaned by hand and simmered with smoked meat until the pot liquor is worth saving.
Peach cobbler
Baked in the pan, spooned out warm. Banana pudding and chess squares hold down the rest of the dessert case.
Fried chicken
Seasoned, floured and dropped to order. Ask for it with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a roll.
Three generations
One family, one kitchen, seventy-odd years
The cafe was opened in the mid-1950s by Blanche Seay, in a neighbourhood that has changed almost beyond recognition around it. Her niece, Nellie McAdoo, ran the kitchen for many years after that. Today it belongs to Nellie’s daughter, Sophia Vaughn, the third woman in the family to stand behind this counter.
The recipes did not come out of a book. They were handed down at the stove, one cook at a time, and they are still cooked the way they were taught. A fourth generation is already learning them.
Silver Sands has outlasted a tornado, a pandemic and a building boom that now presses right up against its walls. It is one of the oldest Black-owned businesses in Nashville, and it is still open five days a week.
Words from customers
What people tell us
You definitely get your money’s worth!!! Excellent food and fantastic customer service. The owner really cares about her customers!!!!
I love love love me some Silver Sands!!! The only thing I don’t like is there’s so much to choose from!!!
Food is outstanding! Atmosphere is super friendly. Leaves me full and with a smile on my face.
Man this is some of the best country cooking you can ask for. Since I started coming here to Nashville, I have to have it at least once a week, and you will never leave feeling disappointed.
Plan your visit
Come hungry, come early
We are a walk-up counter, not a table-service restaurant. Get in line, tell the server what you want as you move along the steam table, pay at the end and find a seat or take it to go. It moves quickly even when the line reaches the door.
Come early if there is something specific you are after. When a pan is empty, that dish is done for the day.
- Address
- 937 Locklayer Street, Nashville, TN 37208 — in Hope Gardens, around the corner from the Nashville Farmers’ Market.
- Phone
- 615-780-9900 — call-in orders welcome.
- Hours
- Tuesday to Friday 6:30am–2:30pm · Sunday 11:00am–3:00pm · Closed Monday and Saturday.
- Payment
- Cash and cards. No checks.
Feeding Nashville since the mid-1950s
Breakfast, lunch, Sunday dinner and catering, from a kitchen that has never changed hands outside the family.