John Burns Paterson grew up in his family’s restaurant in Montgomery, Alabama, and sometimes, with roots that deep, there’s no way to truly escape them. Hospitality is in his blood.
While attending the College of Charleston Tourism and Hospitality Management, Paterson was also working at one of the South’s most revered fine dining establishments, now-closed McCrady’s. It is also where he met his wife Emily, who is from Birmingham, but also happened to have family in Nashville.
After moving to New York City in 2011, John was part of the sommelier teams at famed restaurants such as the NoMad New York, and served as wine director for Tom Colicchio’s craftbar.
Then Paterson joined the Frankies 457 team in 2015. He was hired to reimagine the beverage, service and food programs within the family of iconic Italian-American restaurants founded by chefs Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, both born and raised in Queens.
During Paterson’s tenure, the restaurant evolved to offer an impressive wine lists, celebrating a range of emerging and established producers from Italy, France and Spain. He brought this ethos to the opening list of Franks Wine Bar, which received the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence in 2021.
The Road to Nashville
In the summer of 2020 Paterson and his wife decided that their time in New York had run its course. “We loved it, but we really wanted to be closer to family,” he said. His wife’s sister, Fuller Hanan (a founder of Nashville Design Week), was pregnant at the time, and then COVID changed everything.
“I had been in New York for 10 years and could count on two hands the amount of times I’d seen my family,” he said.
But once they made the decision to move to Nashville, the hardest part was still ahead of him — telling Castronovo and Falcinelli that he was leaving.
“I was really emotional about it,” he says. “I was like, ‘I love it here, but Emily and I have made the decision that it just time for us to do something different.’”
Paterson, who was excited about the food scene in Nashville, told “the Frankies” he intended to open a restaurant, but he could have never imagined what would happen next. What Paterson didn’t know at the time was that Castronovo and Falcinelli had already been in talks about bringing Paterson in as a partner. They asked him if he wanted to open a Frankies in Nashville.
After the initial shock, the proposition was a no-brainer for Paterson.
“I didn’t even flinch,” he said. “I know Frankies better than I know anything else in this business. And I love it. I believe in it. And I had been really, really sad about leaving. So, this conversation I had so much anxiety about turned into, maybe, one of the most life changing conversations of my career.”
In November 2020, Paterson and his wife bought a home in East Nashville via FaceTime, with the help of her sister Fuller Hanan, who at the time was working with the architectural firm Pfeffer Torode. They then rented it out for a year while they looked for a space for Frankies, which they found a year later, literally down the street from their new home.
“I’m sitting in the parking lot of Frankie’s right now and I can see my house,” he said.
An east side Evolution
So in September 2023, Paterson introduced the magic of the two Franks’ iconic Brooklyn restaurants to the South and, tucked within a quiet East Nashville neighborhood, opened the Frankies Nashville “campus,” which includes Frankies 925 Spuntino, the Pizzeria, Bottega, and the Big Hall at Frankies, all an extension of the Brooklyn-based original.
“We came into the space and started to see the possibilities, but we didn’t want to do a really splashy build out that would cost a fortune, ” Paterson said of what was once an old mattress factory. Knowing they wouldn’t be able to replicate the aesthetic of Brooklyn, they did hope to bring some of the feeling and let it interpret naturally over time in Nashville.
“One of the things that we were very real with ourselves about was knowing that because it worked in Brooklyn doesn’t necessarily mean it will work anywhere else,” Paterson says. “But, we felt at the core that Frankies’ food is approachable to everyone, and that, really and truly, everyone likes Italian food.”
The first bottega opened by the iconic brand is at the Nashville location, filled with antiques and eclectic finds discovered by Paterson. A large window behind the counter gives guests a front row seat to the Frankies pasta-making operation. Paterson’s Montgomery roots lend a special Southern influence to the New York-Italian market experience, with country hams incorporated into the salumi program and a custom floor-art installation by his mother-in-law, a Birmingham native and current resident.
And ever since they have opened, Paterson and his team have strived to foster community among their neighbors by delivering delicious, seasonal meals in a warm, welcoming atmosphere.
“Nashville’s a very manic market, from a consumer perspective,” Paterson says. “But if it’s good, they’ll come back. We are not trying to be trendy, because trends die. We want to be a classic institution, a restaurant where people can rely on us to be here seven days a week, and the food will be what it’s supposed to be. And hopefully, when you walk in the doors, you forget about everything else that’s happening outside.”
The Many Sides of Frankies Nashville
Frankies 925 Spuntino brings to Nashville the comforting, effortlessly elegant Italian-American fare that guests have enjoyed in Brooklyn at the original Frankies 457 Spuntino since 2004. Open daily for dinner, the restaurant serves a menu of antipasti, salumi, soups, salads, hand-crafted pastas and other specialty dishes such as meatballs, eggplant marinara and tomato-braised short ribs.
The Pizzeria at Frankies is a craft slice shop serving signature slices and pies using artisanal ingredients, produced in-house and sourced from Italian artisans. Open for dine-in or carry-out during lunch and dinner every day, the pizzeria offers round and Sicilian pies, a signature Caesar salad, and rotating desserts, plus beer, wine, and the Frankies negroni.
The Bottega at Frankies is a specialty market that opened in early 2024 offering coffee, morning pastries, and an assortment of prepared foods and products representing Italian culinary craftsmanship, including salumi, cheeses, plus internationally celebrated olive oil produced in Selinunte, Sicily, and new line of pastas from Frankies 457 Specialty Foods.
The Frankies 457 Specialty Foods line was founded by Falcinelli and Castonovo as a way to introduce America to high-quality Italian ingredients. The line of jarred olives, olive oils and handmade pastas are the result of a respect for heritage, and a lifetime of experience. Castelvetrano olives are grown on the chefs’ farm in Selinunte, Sicily, where they are harvested, cold-pressed, and packaged on-site before making their way to the Bottega’s shelves.
The Big Hall at Frankies is a grand, high-ceilinged event space that accommodates parties ranging from 25 to 250 people for any occasion.
