Monell's has run more than one location before. Over three decades the Germantown institution has expanded and pulled back more than once, most recently operating an outpost inside Nashville International Airport for 13 years before changes to the airport's concession lineup forced that location to close. Owner Michael King had a decision to make about where the freed-up energy would go next. He didn't pick another spot inside Nashville. He picked Ashland City, and specifically the marina at the foot of the Cumberland River, in a building called the Harbor House.
That decision is worth sitting with, because it tells you something about what's actually happening on this stretch of river that a list of new restaurants wouldn't.
A Restaurant Follows the Marina, Not the Other Way Around
King didn't wake up one day and decide Ashland City needed a second Monell's. He bought the marina first. According to the Cheatham County Exchange, King told the paper the inspiration for a Cheatham County location came directly from purchasing the marina property, and that after years of running multiple locations he wanted to slow down and focus on two: the original Germantown restaurant and the new one on the water. He lives in Ashland City. He's called himself "a Yankee in a Southern kitchen" for so long it's becoming the title of his next cookbook, and the same interview noted his current kitchen turns out about 18 tons of chicken a month, all of it done in iron skillets.
The sequence matters. This isn't a restaurant group scouting Cheatham County as an expansion market and picking Ashland City off a spreadsheet. It's a guy who already owned a dock deciding to put a kitchen next to it, then choosing to run just two locations going forward instead of the several he's kept open over the years: the original Germantown restaurant and Monell's on the Cumberland, set to open this fall inside the Harbor House at the marina.
What the Marina's Own Regulars Already Noticed
Boaters who dock at Harpeth Shoals Marina, the 142-slip covered marina attached to the Braxton condominium towers, had already started noticing something before King's name showed up in the news. Reviews left by people who tie up there for the season describe a building under construction at the marina that will include both showers and a restaurant, exactly the kind of infrastructure a place needs before it can host a kitchen at all. Reviewers also mention newer ownership actively upgrading the property, adding amenities, and running the fuel dock without requiring an appointment, changes that read as small on their own but add up to a marina being actively reinvested in rather than just maintained.
That's the piece easy to miss if you only hear about this as "a restaurant opening." The marina had to become a place worth building a restaurant at first. The Ashland City Port Project, a $33 million initiative already underway nearby, is part of the same wave, bringing new jobs and economic activity to the riverfront corridor around the same stretch of water. None of these projects were announced together. They're converging on the same half-mile of riverbank at the same time, which is a different story than any one of them told alone.
Riverbluff Park Already Had the Crowd
None of this is starting from zero. Riverbluff Park, a short walk from the marina, has been the place Ashland City already gathers, with or without a new restaurant next door. On a given weekend the park hosts:
- A Saturday morning farmers market
- A boat ramp and picnic areas along the water
- Soccer fields, tennis courts, disc golf, and pickleball courts
- A dog park and walking access to the Cumberland River Bicentennial Trail
The park has also been the site of the River and Roots Festival and Summerfest, two events that already draw people down to the water before there was a restaurant to walk to afterward. The Cheatham County Fair just wrapped its run at the fairgrounds off Fairgrounds Road, September 15 through 19, the kind of week-long, non-negotiable calendar fixture that tells you the county's rhythm isn't waiting on real estate news to feel busy. Monell's isn't creating foot traffic on the riverfront. It's opening into foot traffic that was already there, which is a much better bet for a restaurant than the reverse.
Fifteen Minutes Up Highway 70
Ashland City isn't the only Cheatham County town making a version of this move. Fifteen minutes northeast on Highway 70, Kingston Springs is working through its own quieter build-out. City manager Lawless has talked about plans to renovate the town's old train depot, the structure the community formed around when it grew up along the railroad line, with the goal of turning it into a space people can actually use. He's also described the small-town character that makes the renovation worth doing in the first place, the kind of place where you can walk into a restaurant on a Friday night and know half the room. Entrepreneurs have started looking at Kingston Springs' downtown core as a place to open something new, the same instinct that led King to the Ashland City marina rather than another Nashville storefront.
Neither town is chasing volume. Kingston Springs' population sits around 2,800 people, and nobody involved in the depot project or the marina buildout is talking about turning either place into something bigger than it is. What's changing is smaller and more specific: a depot gets a second life, a marina gets a restaurant, a port project brings work to a stretch of river that used to just be scenery. It's the kind of change you'd only notice if you were already paying attention to this particular county, which is exactly the point. If you want the wider county picture, the neighborhood page on Cheatham County rounds up more of what makes the area distinct from the rest of greater Nashville.
The marina's fuel dock still runs without an appointment. The farmers market still sets up Saturday mornings. What's new is that this fall, after closing the airport location and choosing to keep just two Monell's running, the second one isn't downtown or in another Nashville neighborhood. It's at the end of a dock in Ashland City.
If you know someone relocating to Nashville who'd trade a downtown high-rise view for a boat slip and a table at Monell's, ReLo Nash already knows this stretch of river well enough to make the introduction. Book your relocation consultation with Misty Maynor whenever that conversation comes up.
