Scott Peck On The Loveless Cafe
Signature Required sits down with Scott Peck, Executive Chef of Loveless Cafe, for a conversation about Southern cooking, culinary leadership, and what it takes to steward one of Tennessee’s most iconic restaurants. From biscuits and fried chicken to cast iron, kitchen culture, and the tension between tradition and innovation, Scott shares his journey from a nervous first interview to leading a Nashville institution. As Loveless celebrates 75 years, the episode explores the craftsmanship behind its famous food, the business discipline required to sustain a beloved brand, and the hospitality that keeps people coming back generation after generation.
About Scott Peck
Scott Peck is the Executive Chef of Loveless Cafe, one of Tennessee’s most iconic restaurants known for its classic Southern cooking and longstanding tradition of hospitality. A Nashville native, Scott began his culinary career at 18 and built his experience through years of hands-on work in professional kitchens rather than formal culinary school. Since joining Loveless in 2012, he has helped lead the kitchen and uphold the restaurant’s 75-year legacy, balancing the responsibility of preserving beloved traditions like handmade biscuits and fried chicken while guiding a large team that serves guests from across Tennessee and around the world.
Tradition, Hospitality & Tennessee Culture
Loveless Cafe has become far more than a restaurant. For 75 years, it has been a gathering place that reflects the heart of Tennessee hospitality. Families celebrate milestones there, travelers make it a first stop when visiting Nashville, and generations of locals return for the familiar experience of Southern cooking done with care. Under leaders like Scott Peck, the restaurant continues to balance tradition with thoughtful growth, ensuring that the food, culture, and welcoming spirit that built Loveless remain part of Tennessee’s story for years to come.
Resources
Loveless Cafe
Loveless Events
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Spencer: Welcome to Signature Required. It is intended for Tennesseans by Tennessean.
Scott Peck, executive Chef for Loveless Cafe. Welcome to Signature Required.
Scott: Thank you guys for, uh, coming out and um, thanks for having me.
Spencer: Saying the name Loveless Cafe generally requires no introduction. So the overwhelming majority of people that are watching that are listening already know where we are, what Loveless is about, but rather than assume that everyone knows, give the 20 second summary of where we're at.
So that way I can dive into the more important things in this conversation, which is gonna be biscuits and fried chicken. Yeah. Like biscuits. Yeah, that's right.
Scott: All right. 20 seconds is a bit tough for 75 years, but I think I can kind of narrow it down a little bit. I mean, we are a Nashville icon known for classic southern cooking.
We've been around for 75 years. We've got you know, [00:01:00] our restaurant. We sort of call it our, our mothership or our pirate ship, depending on how you look at it. Um, and then we also have a really strong, uh, retail presence kind of tied directly to what we do. It's all sort of food based. And then, you know, we've sort of gone into some apparel.
And then we also have a pretty strong oh, catering stance, which is, you know, sort of where we're at today. We're inside of our catering venue. We also have a food truck that's sort of rolls around. So I guess that is the small version.
Spencer: 80% of the time we are in our studio filming.
That is not where we are today. So you just mentioned we're in where on what kind of feels like a campus? I mean, it's not like one building here. You all have a empire.
Scott: Yeah. You know, it started off as just that little restaurant up front. You know, the, the WA cafe was a original owner's home. Um, and then we sort of grew out and got some hotel rooms, I think back in the seventies, if I remember right.
Um, and then it kind of kept growing and we got the event venue and yeah, we, we do have kind of a, a big sprawling, uh, piece of property out here. I think we've got about five acres or so. Somewhere in the ballpark of like 10 or 11 [00:02:00] buildings with all sorts of different stuff going on in each of em.
Carli: Yeah, I was gonna say, this is a home away from home for us. All of our kids fundraisers are here. We end up here multiple times a quarter, just here to celebrate different things. You guys do a really good job in your catering event, venue. That's where you started, right?
Scott: At Loveis? Uh, I did, yeah. When I, I first came to Loveis, uh, back in 2012.
They were looking for a, uh, sous chef in the catering world. I had sort of recently switched from the restaurant side to the catering side. Um, which is just a, you know, small differences. You know, trying to serve everybody at once as opposed to doing, you know, courses throughout the night. Um, and yeah, I mean that was, that was sort of where I came in and got a feel for the Loveless and got to learn the loveless and I just sort of grew from there.
I've been hit with them now for 13, going on 14 years.
Spencer: Wow. I feel like coming on board with an institution as regionally famous as Loveless. Being the executive chef is a huge deal. Like I think where we have to start this [00:03:00] conversation is who is Scott Peck? Because when you're bringing in somebody to be responsible for the legacy of Loveless.
It's a Nashville institution, and if you do it wrong, you will be tarred and feathered.
Scott: Yeah, no, it, uh, it certainly has some, uh, some stresses that go with it. Um, I try to let my head get too big, you know, with that title. When, when I tell people about it, I, I try to always, you know, walk it down a little bit.
Hey, I still wash dishes. I, I still go back there and fry chicken and roll biscuits. Like I, I'm still, you know. Just a low man on the totem pole at times. Uh, but there are other times where I've gotta put my chef coat on and I'm really know, responsible for quite a few moving pieces. So who is Scott Peck?
Tell us your story. How did you get here? So, uh, I'm, I'm actually a Nashville native, which is kinda like a unicorn these days. Um, I was born and raised in Mount Juliet and, um, you know, when I lived there, it was a small town. I had, I think maybe two traffic lights. It is a very different place now.
It has grown up just [00:04:00] like all of Nashville has. Got into the kitchens when I was, uh, 18, fresh outta high school, thinking maybe I, I wanna go down the culinary path. I was thinking about going like to culinary school, and after I got into kitchens, I just kind of. Quickly kept learning inside of kitchens and kept getting new positions.
And by the time I was ready to actually like go out and go to culinary school, I was a sous chef with another company. I was hiring kids coming outta culinary school. I was like, for me to go and do that just sort of felt like it was gonna be a step backwards. So I just kind of stayed in the profession and just kind of found myself in the right spots at the right time.
Was was willing to. Work hard and do the long hours and, um, also do a little bit of like self-teaching, you know, outside of when I was actually at work. And that is sort of how, I guess I've, I've landed here.
Carli: I have to ask, we talk a lot about skills training, next level degrees and certification, and I love your story because you taught, you learned hands-on
Scott: mm-hmm.
Carli: In the kitchen. So I'm imagining that came with lots of burns, [00:05:00] cuts and bruises along the time. But what do you think was the moment that you said, yes, this is for me? Like what was the kitchen atmosphere that did it for you?
Scott: Uh, it was probably, um. I don't know if it was one like defining moment. So you know, inside my first job.
When I went in for the interview, 18, no real kitchen experience. I bombed my interview. The guy, he brought out some scales and some little things, and like while we were talking, he was having me kind of weigh up and do some portioning just to see how I was sort of with multitasking and had any of that.
I messed it all up. It was terrible and it got done. He just kind of told me, I don't, I don't really think I can bring you on. And I said, look, I'm, I want to do this. Pay me the least, you can pay me and I will come in and work for you. And if, if inside of day one or day two or within a week, you know, if you don't think I'm gonna make it, cut me free.
No hard feelings. And, um, that job I went from the lowest man on the totem pole up to, you know, they [00:06:00] were, they were trying to move me into like an a KM or a kitchen manager, uh, position. Within about two years. Wow. So like going through it and, and I think everybody likes to win. So me sort of achieving that, that quickly and overshadowing people who had trained me at one point kind of like inspired me to keep going.
And then when I, when I switched from the restaurant world and went into catering. I was working with a great chef who strong sassier, strong Italian backgrounds, and he just showed me a whole new side of things, a lot new ingredients and just, I thought I was a big dog coming into that kitchen.
And when I got in there, I did not know anything. One of the earliest stories I kind of remember is we were, um, doing an inventory, which is just a unfun part of the culinary scene. And I got down to the very last item on the list. And at that time I'd already been exposed to so many new ingredients that I didn't know what they were or you know, how to even pronounce 'em.
And I was like, what is this, uh, maringi I'm looking for? And it was meringue.
Carli: That's awesome.
Scott: So, you know, I think [00:07:00] moving into that, uh, the catering scene and moving into that much exposure of like new elements and new things I knew nothing about just kind of helped re, revitalize me again.
You know, worked with him for a, a very long time. I mean, it was a tearful goodbye when it was time for me to move on. And that's, that's sort of when I came to the Loveless. And similar to working in my first kitchen job, it's, you know, as I was able to sort of move through the ranks and achieve new things and learn more stuff it just kind of keeps me, you know, interested and involved in the, in the culinary world.
Carli: Did you grow up cooking?
Scott: Oh, I mean, a little bit. There were certain dishes that I would definitely cook at home. Um, I think scrambled eggs was the first thing I ever made. That's the
Carli: first thing I learned how to make too. Yep. Was scrambled eggs
Scott: the first thing my daughter learned how to make. Mm. And as I got older, I was able to kind of do more.
I was always a little bit interested, you know, one of my earliest memories was reaching my head over the stove to smell what my mom was cooking. And I touched my whip to the pan and burned my whip. Yeah. And then, oh, [00:08:00] another like home cooking memory that really stuck with me was when we discovered deep frying turkeys.
We were, oh no, one of the first people in my neighborhood to do it. And, you know, after that first year we started making it for other people and we were like frying like three and four turkeys. One year my dad had to work and wasn't gonna be able to fry all these turkeys, but I had helped him every year since we had started doing it.
So me and my mom thought, okay, well, we'll fry the turkeys, and we fried all of 'em, except for the last one perfectly. When we got to the last one, I just could not get the temperature of the oil up hot enough. After I dropped that vinyl Turkey in it, I just kept turning it up and turning it up and
Spencer: oh gosh,
Scott: we even sort of thought, okay, well, you know, the temps only been around 300.
We need it at three 50. Um, we'll just give it a little bit more time to cook then, you know, just to make sure it's fully done. By the time we went and pulled that Turkey out. It was completely black. It was a skeleton. Oh. We tossed it out the yard. Even the dog wouldn't touch it. It was scared of it. What I had done is I, I had stuck the probe that goes into the [00:09:00] frying oil, actually into the Turkey itself.
Oh. And just didn't realize, that little simple mistake I'd made.
Carli: Oh. But it is those simple mistakes, like I bet you never did that again.
Scott: I have not done that one again.
Carli: Yeah. Yeah.
Spencer: So when you think at the start, the first interview that you bombed. Why do you feel like you bombed it? Were you nervous in the interview?
Oh,
Scott: I was very nervous. Yeah. Okay. You know, leading up to that, I think the only job I'd had was, you know, simple grocery store and mm-hmm. Stuff like that. And, for those it was like, are you a young man who's willing to come in here and move around some bananas? And I was like, I am that young man.
And you know, I got in, uh, this one, you know, I was, I was nervous, knew that I did not know anything about cooking. Mm-hmm. Um, and I mean, it very much showed in inside of that interview for sure.
Carli: So to be an executive chef, when I think of Loveless, I think about the things I crave, right? Like I crave your jam with a biscuit.
Scott: Mm-hmm.
Carli: I crave fried chicken, like I'm here for the soul food. But you also come up with new things and you have seasonal things and you're always, I am imagine [00:10:00] navigating the tension between tradition. And keeping up and innovating. Right. So how do you feel like your background helps you do that?
Because I love that you're not classically trained, you learned on the job, which feels very loveless to me. So how does that help you navigate the tension of what you're up to now?
Scott: That is. One of the best questions I think someone's ever asked, uh, working at the level list, that is like one of the hardest things to try to balance is, you know, as chefs, you know, we, we somewhat envision ourselves as artists and we wanna bring in these crazy ingredients that no one's ever seen.
But at the same time, we have a responsibility. To the brand, to, to, we have a responsibility for what people are expecting. Mm-hmm. It's like there's all sorts of different things I could bring in, but it just may not necessarily be that loveless experience that people are looking for. Mm-hmm.
Um, luckily with our catering side and then some of the fun events that we do, like we do Dine Nashville and stuff like that, we get to partner with other restaurants and go a little bit outside of the traditional loveless [00:11:00] box. And, you know, to answer your question, I guess the happy medium that I have found is if I can find a way to.
Make it a, you know, represent a classic southern dish, but put it just a little bit of a, you know, more modern twist or a cool ingredient. Then I sort of have that liberty to, to play around.
Carli: I mean, it's a big responsibility. Your people's first stop, they come into Nashville, they're like, where am I gonna get Nashville Home cooking?
Let's go to Loveless. So I imagine that is pretty heavy.
Scott: Oh yeah.
Carli: Yeah.
Scott: Well, and we can be a, definitely a busy property. We got this big campus. We can certainly be busy. And like I said, people. Travel from all over the world to come dine with us. And it, you know, then they have to travel from Nashville and get here from the airport.
There's quite a bit of like, traveling and time that goes into it and expectation, and we don't wanna let 'em down. You know, there's, there's a lot, uh, a lot to it. And we just try to do our best and that's really all we can do.
Spencer: So I understand that you're a cast iron aficionado, right?
Scott: Uh, yeah, somewhat.
I've, I've [00:12:00] got quite a hefty cast iron collection.
Spencer: So tell me about that. Because my cast iron. Generally tends to rust.
Scott: Okay.
Spencer: And I cannot solve, I think we're doing it wrong. Be real. I'm doing it wrong. I
Carli: think we're doing it wrong.
Scott: Yeah, it might, it might be what you're cooking in it, but generally I find it's how people are caring for it.
Okay. So my cast irons at home they all live in my oven. They all wind up like when I'm done using 'em and I, and I've gone through and cleaned them, no soap and water, just, you know, take some salt, scrape away what you can remove the grease, uh, of them. But did
Carli: you say salt?
Scott: Cooked your salt.
Carli: Wait, start over.
Scott: Okay.
Carli: You clean. Pretend we know nothing because that's probably accurate. You clean your pan with salt?
Scott: I do. Okay. So the, and, and I use like a good coarse salt and really all it's doing is I'm using the, the roughness of the salt to help scrape away the little bits. Okay. That might be left behind that I'm not looking, you know, to have into my next dish.
Okay. Yeah, I, I can, I can go on and on, on cleaning a, proper way to clean a cast iron pan. There's [00:13:00] tons of videos out there. Check 'em out. Oil, a rag or a paper towel and coat or salt is the way to go.
Spencer: Cool. Kind of what's really fun to me is cooking and culinary. There's so much education out there to just, it feels either.
Totally inapproachable to some, like people are like, oh, I just don't cook. They feel intimidated by it, and I just wonder how. You navigate that as you're thinking about, teaching your kids or explaining what you do to others. Because for some reason it's like an especially intimidating space.
It seems hard to do for some and for others it's like what they love and it's what their passion is. So how do you, when you talk to somebody that is aspiring or thinking about that space, like how do you wrestle between those two things?
Scott: It's, you know, don't be afraid to play around with it, you know, the worst case scenario, you know, what are you gonna wind up with?
[00:14:00] Maybe something unedible, probably not, maybe not as good as you want it. That's okay. And just if you didn't nail it the first time, well just. Try again. Every dish that I'm good at making, I have severely messed up at some point.
Spencer: Yeah.
Scott: And it's either been unedible or maybe just not quite as good as I've wanted it.
So just don't be a afraid to sort of play around with it. I was talking to somebody the other day and when cooking at home. I rarely make the same dish the exact same way. I'm always making, you know, some sort of little edit here or there. I, oh, I wonder if it'll be good with this. Or maybe I, you know, last time I did a little bit too much of that.
And it, I think it gets on my wife's nerves a little bit, you know, it's a little inconsistent there. There's some family dishes that I leave the same. And of course, in the restaurant world, consistency is king. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I, I'll leave that plan around for the house. Mm-hmm. Um. But you know, just don't be afraid to sort of play around and, you know, you talked about like teaching my daughter or teaching other folks how to cook.
I sort of removed some of the obvious. Steps in it because, you know, if you look at it, if I name every [00:15:00] little thing, you know, pull the egg, crack the egg, mix the egg. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, we're gonna make scrambled eggs. That's an obvious, I, I'll show her sort of the important pieces of it. Wait till your pan is hot, you know, and you can tell that by what the butter is doing.
Is it butter bubbling or is it just kind of sitting there? Is it not even melted yet? Um. You know, cracking the egg. I'll let her do it her way. And then if she's, gets tired of fishing shells out, like, Hey, actually here's a way that you can crack an egg and it will help you from getting shells into the egg.
Yeah. Like it's
Spencer: experiential. Yeah, it's really experiential is I think what I'm, I'm hearing, so I, maybe let's switch and talk a little bit more specific to Loveless. Being in your role requires a lot of leadership. I mean, you have a significant team across this campus, and from what I understand about kitchens, the culture inside of a kitchen is a very wide bell curve of types of cultures.
Yeah, and I wonder, most what I hear from kitchen culture is that [00:16:00] it's just toxic, right? Like you have. The worst hours abusive dynamics, like really hard. But I, I know that can't be the goal setting out. So when you think about yourself as a leader inside of a historical brand like Loveless, what did you come in thinking about in establishing a culture for this place and how has that changed over time?
Scott: You know, I don't know if I have. Impacted the culture as, as much as maybe even, I would like to think you know, being such a well established brand and just a, historic piece. People who come to us, they know where they're applying, you know, they know where they're working, they know the history behind it, and they, they know how well we, you know, carry ourselves sort of in that, in that culinary scene.
So even starting on, they sort of know what they're getting into, you know, kitchen culture in whole. It may seem. Toxic, from the outside and certainly compared [00:17:00] to other businesses, it, it can seem very toxic. But you, you sort of, what you wind up with is, is a bit of this like comradery.
'cause we're all in it together. We're all working the same credit hours. We all got up at 3:00 AM and you know, where I see the team members themselves, maybe not getting along, usually sort of falls with, you know, how they're carrying themselves in the kitchen and how they're helping push towards our ultimate goal.
If there's one weak link who is, is slowing everything down and, you know, causing recos and stuff like that, the team themselves also know, who's causing that. And that's where that person can sort of find themselves in a bit of an outsider perspective. Uh, that's probably a big piece of what drove me to.
Get better when I got into my first kitchen job is things were certainly, you could be a lot more vocal about your dislikes of other people. So if you were going slow, you would get nicknames like turtle and, you know, slow poke and all sorts of other things. Maybe a little bit more colorful language.
But, uh, if you were, if you were dragging the team down, they would certainly let you know. So you wanted to pick it up so that you were, part of the, of the [00:18:00] team working towards the ultimate goal and, and not pulling everybody down.
Carli: Okay. I don't get to talk to famous chefs that often, so I have some chefy questions.
Okay. For you. First, the number one thing you hear about chefs is that when they get home, the last thing they wanna do. Is make food. And so you talked about how you might tweak things at home, but you don't on the job. Let's be brutally honest. Do you like to cook when you're at home or is it like you're done?
Done.
Scott: I make the best peanut butter and jelly you'll ever have.
Carli: Thank you. Okay. That makes me feel better. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: The mechanics car is barely running. The plumber sink leaks. And the, uh, the chef's family does not get to enjoy my cooking as much as my customers do.
Carli: Okay. Thank you. I, I feel like that's the real, real.
Second, are you allowed to have a favorite dish to make, or do you have to say, I love them all, our biscuits are delicious? Or is there something that you're like, no, really this is what I like to make?
Scott: So that, that's also an interesting question. Uh, I, I hang out with other chefs and stuff and that it's a question we don't [00:19:00] love to get asked a lot of times.
Um, sorry. And it's No, no, no. It's, it's totally fine. The reason behind it, I think is interesting. And it's just, it's whatever is sort of on our mind at the time. So like right here, right now, like if I am I thinking about like what's my favorite dish to make versus like, you know, what's my favorite dish to eat?
Probably my favorite dish to make right now. It is gonna be, you know, some form of ramen because I've been playing around with that more at home just 'cause I really like to eat it. But my favorite dish to eat right now is probably gonna be oh our. The levels is like country fried steak, but then I take it and I dip it in a Nashville hot chicken sauce and serve it over top of like mashed potatoes on one half and mac and cheese on the other.
Carli: Wait, can I go eat that? When you're done, just ask where it Scot's way and they'll hook you up. Yeah. Oh, you heard it here first. Scott's Way, the secret menu at Loveless. Yeah. You know, we've said on this show a couple of different times that we have an aspiring pastry chef in our house. We have a kid that just has [00:20:00] taken to cooking much like it seems like you did just a little younger than when you started.
And I think as parents, I like to cook, but a lot of what I'm doing is trying to get meals on the table between practice. Mm-hmm. And make sure my kids aren't going through a drive through every day. Yeah. We go through plenty, but preferably not every day. How do I support raising a kid that this is something that they're passionate about and dreaming about when I have no clue.
Or what to do with it? What would you advise or what are you doing for your kids if they're interested?
Scott: I mean, so my daughter the way I sort of cultivate that is, um, she's got a drawer inside of our kitchen that's just full of kids cooking stuff. Um, little plastic knives and a cutting board and little like cookie cutters, little miniature whisks and spatulas and, and all that kind of stuff.
So I just let them, or I, you know, I let her sort of play around with it, do whatever she wants to with it. It's like I allow her to have that space and then if there's anything I can provide for her, like she got it really into decorating cookies. And what I meant by that is she wanted me to provide her with some like [00:21:00] soft chocolate chip cookies and she would spread Nutella and then put sprinkles and stuff like that on it.
Carli: Yeah. This is my type of child. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. So I was letting her do that. I was like, okay, I will buy you the stuff you need and I will give you the time to do it and I will let you do it on, one term I get to. Eat it if it looks good. And also you're gonna help me clean up this mess.
Carli: Now are you honest?
When it's good and not good, are you the kind of dad that's like, you gotta tell 'em. It's if it's inedible, right?
Scott: Well, yes. If it's inedible, then I will let her know. And but usually I'm at least in the kitchen so I can help avoid, get to that point. Okay. Yeah. If it's, you know, a food safety issue, um, you know, then I will certainly jump in.
And then if it's, uh, just not gonna yield exactly what she thinks, then I will try to help, you know, push her a little bit. I do have to remind her sometimes, like, Hey, people pay me to do this. Yeah. They
Carli: never believe you
Scott: do this. Oh yeah, no.
Carli: I try to tell my kids, 'cause I have teenagers now too, that I was like, I know you think I'm super annoying, but like in the world [00:22:00] people genuinely get along with me.
Like, it's an amazing fact that that's a thing that happens. Yeah,
Scott: yeah, yeah.
Carli: Okay. Another question for you at Loveless, people are coming from all over the world. You have to keep your poker face right, be a professional. But have you ever been truly starstruck by someone that came in?
Scott: Oh, I, I don't know if, I have been truly starstruck and I just don't know if there's any celebrity that would really, you know, me, it's not your vibe. Maybe intimidated, but not,
Carli: okay. I didn't know if it'd be another chef, if it would be like a local celebrity sports.
Scott: Yeah. Who, uh, um, oh, we had the cake boss come through for one of his shows.
Carli: Did you?
Scott: And I was certainly nervous leading up to that. Yeah. Um, but I mean, once he got here, he was just the nicest guy. Really easy to work with. And it, you know, it wound up being fine, but leading up to it, I think there was a lot more tension than when he was actually here. Uh, the country music stars and, you know, all the Nashville celebrities who come through they don't really, strike me as much and we, we try to make a big [00:23:00] deal about it.
So a lot of times folks will come and go, and I might not even know that we're here. Um, you know, we sort of pride ourselves on being the place where celebrities can come and we're gonna treat you just like everybody else. Everybody's gonna get the same sort of high level of, uh, treatment.
Carli: Has Miss Dolly come through?
Scott: Not to my knowledge not in, not
Carli: in my tenure. That one that would getting, but
Scott: she may have snuck through and I didn't know it.
Carli: I don't think Dolly sneaks anywhere. I think Dolly owns her space pretty, uh, pretty robustly.
Scott: But if she wants to come through, I'll be happy to get her. I was
Carli: gonna say, who should we be inviting for you?
Yeah, put it out there. Miss Dolly. Come to the Loveless.
Scott: Now. We will certainly have celebrities who come through and sort of want that special treatment. Are surprised when they can't get it. Um, you know, we, like I said, we tend to be busy. Sometimes we'll be on a wait. There's ways around that with reservations and stuff like that.
Of course. We'll, we will get calls from different celebrity handlers, Hey, I'm coming through with X, Y, or Z, and sort of expecting us to be like, oh, great, we'll have a table in the back ready for you. And we're like, okay, well, you know, we're on a hour wait right [00:24:00] now and, uh, tour party, your
Carli: tour bus cannot be accommodated.
Scott: Yeah. When your party gets here, let us know and, um, you know, we'll go ahead and get you guys on the, on the list and we'll get you in. And they're just, you know, blown away that we won't. Do that special accommodation. It's like, you're, you're, you're no more important to us than any of our other customers.
Yeah. It's like, as important as you may be in the music scene or wherever else,
Carli: everyone's a celebrity at the love list.
Scott: That's
Carli: right. Get in line.
Scott: Yeah,
Carli: that's
Scott: right.
Carli: Love it.
Spencer: Scott, when you think about the challenge of cooking. For so many and such quantity. Yeah, I'd love to just understand mechanically some of it.
'cause like I love to grill, I love my smoker and I can handle, four racks of ribs, six racks of ribs. I can have a pork butt, but like if I had to cook 30 racks of ribs or 300 racks of ribs, like the quality of what I do would just be obliterated. It would be a disaster. And so.
Scott: Like, how many biscuits a day do you all make here?
Oh, I [00:25:00] think at the most, uh, you know, at our absolute busiest peak, we're looking at like 10,000 biscuits a day.
Spencer: 10,000 biscuits a day. Okay. I'm glad I chose that example, 'cause that I was hoping you weren't gonna be like, oh, I don't know. You know, maybe just a couple hundred. No. Okay. 10,000. 10,000.
Yeah. So, just mechanically walk me through how you make 10,000 biscuits in a day.
Scott: So I mean it's all, a lot of it's sort of done by planning and I utilize something quite a bit. Uh, I don't know if it's a term in the culinary world. It's certainly one that I've coined. And it's sort of a reverse timeline.
And what I mean by that is, okay, I know I need to serve at this time. So then I start working backwards. All right, well, how long is it gonna take me to prep? Leading up to that, what team do I have available? Okay, based on that, we need to start at this time. And all right, how long is it gonna take us to gather the materials and get everything together and mix the dough and all that?
All right, I need to start at this time. And then that sort of becomes my starting point. And then I work back towards, you know, the actual execution of it.
Carli: Oh my gosh. You just outlined how I do every day of [00:26:00] life except for pickup line and kids' sports. Okay. If they gotta be there, they gotta have their uniform by this time and eat by this time.
So I am, well, I know a reverse engineered timeline.
Scott: Oh yeah.
Spencer: So like, how many ovens do you have? Like, is is the mixer just as just an enormous, the
Carli: size of a car
Spencer: mixer?
Scott: Well, I'll, I'll blow your mind again. So
Carli: they probably don't use a mixer. Hand
Scott: mix it. Hand mix,
Spencer: yeah. No.
Scott: Yes. Did I
Carli: just 10,000 said that?
Scott: Hand mix.
I mean, we're talking
Carli: muscle memory
Scott: buckets on buckets. On buckets. Yeah. You, uh, it will give you a great shoulder workout. I mean, it, it is not for the faint of heart. I've seen many people mi mix a bucket and just be sweating both arms burning. It's certainly, it, it takes some strength.
Carli: Is it like the first thing you do to haze people when they start here?
Be like, we gotta see if you can mix a bucket of biscuits.
Scott: Well, not the biscuits. Okay. Because, you know, we are, we care about the biscuits. We're known for at least two things, if nothing else, and that's gonna be fried chicken and biscuits, so. Mm-hmm. That is not something we just hand off. There's a very select few who sort of know that process and [00:27:00] know that recipe and all that.
Mm-hmm. Um. So it, you know, hazing wise, you're gonna spend a little bit of time in our dish room and you know, some of the fun old kitchen stuff we'll send you with a key looking for the wine cellar that doesn't exist or, you know, run from one kitchen to another, getting buckets of steam and, you know, stuff like that.
But not, yeah, not the biscuit though. That's not amazing.
Spencer: Uh, and so how many ovens do you have?
Scott: Ovens oh two.
About 1416 between our event venue and our main kitchen I've got a test kitchen that's got two others in it. So 20 ovens kind of floating around.
Spencer: How often are like you at full capacity on ovens like. Are you generally blowing and going to where you could be using all 20 regularly? Or is it like, uh, we generally don't go above six.
Scott: No, I mean, certain times of year the, the catering. Venue is absolutely bumping, you know? Mm-hmm. Doing an event every day, if not multiple. The food truck can be out 12 hours a day. Mm-hmm. [00:28:00] Ovens rolling the whole time on those. Okay. And inside of the restaurant, I mean, even if we wanted to, you know, knock down walls and add even more seating honestly, our kitchen couldn't really pump out that much more.
It's like we are, we're sort of at the, at the capacity. There's certain, certain times of day and certain days of the week where we're definitely not at capacity. But like, was Saturday in the middle of summer when everybody's on breaks and we've got tourists coming into Nashville.
I mean, we are, we are bumping. It is busy.
Carli: I can't imagine. I like to bake. Right. So like a tray of cookies and I know on my oven exactly which spot in the oven's gonna like burn that cookie. Mm-hmm. And which part is gonna make the gooeys one? I can't imagine trying to find the hot spots on 20 different ovens.
Scott: We actually, uh, most of our ovens we are not well location wise. You, all of my cooks who work with all the different ovens, they know exactly where they are. Like they know their thing. Hot versus cold. Yeah. And then our ovens too. Um, you know, they're pr they're pretty pricey. And that's mostly for [00:29:00] the even cooking.
That we are looking for those. Yeah. He
Carli: has the good stuff. He doesn't have to do the toast test in his oven.
Scott: No, my, my oven at home. It is definitely, uh, not my, you know, oven tier. So that is always a little bit different for me, having to sort of switch gears, always have to turn that thing it seems like 25, 30 degrees hotter.
It's like
Carli: one dial, boil the sun, you never know. Yeah.
Scott: And then temperature wise almost all of 'em do not get moved from the temperature that they're on. You know, we're always cooking consistently at the same sort of temperature. So like some ovens That makes sense. Uh, maybe cooking different sides and stuff like that.
And that's all they do. I've got one oven that my baker who bakes off our pies is locked down. That is her oven. Do not touch it. Uh, and then we've got our biscuit ovens that that's all they do all day is just, cook biscuits. So they're all sort of set. I mean, we could almost just set 'em and pop the dial off and, never touch it again.
Carli: Well, and y'all have a big birthday.
Scott: We
Carli: do this year. So I imagine you'll be cranking out more biscuits than ever for the 75th anniversary. Tell us about that.
Scott: I, I certainly hope so. Uh, yeah. So we're turning, [00:30:00] uh, 75 this year and we were trying to think of ways to really celebrate this, uh, this, this big birthday for us.
You know, it is very unusual for a restaurant to last more than five years. Mm-hmm. Much less 75 years. So, um, we have, we're looking to, and we are partnering with, uh, uh, other restaurants in Nashville. And sort of the idea behind it is new Nashville with, uh, old Nashville. Uh, so we're trying to partner with a lot of popular restaurants in Nashville to do sort of never before seen, oh, collaborations. So we're allowing them to pull different ingredients of ours whether it be, you know, some of our chicken breading recipe, or utilize some of our jams or, uh, even some of our our biscuit dough, uh, to make dishes inside of their restaurants. And it's all sort of gonna, gonna lead up to one big party we're gonna do here on the, uh, property.
To celebrate our 75 year, you know, we'll have all those restaurants come back out and serve a little bit of what they were, what they were cooking. And then, you know, obviously we're in Nashville, so we're gonna have some live music going on. Yeah. And, [00:31:00] uh, probably bring some games and stuff too to help keep all the, uh, kids entertained.
Carli: Now are you allowed to tell us who you're collabing with or is it still under wraps?
Scott: Uh, I don't think it's under wraps. I mean, some of them I'm already, uh oh. Started serving the different dishes, so, uh. I believe the Countrypolitan kicked us off here in, uh, January, uh, you know, hotel here in Nashville. We just did a Dine Nashville event with, uh, locust as part of our collaboration with them.
Uh, Michelin Star winners. Excellent guys. I mean, they're doing some really cool stuff.
Spencer: Do you know what they did in that collaboration at Locust?
Scott: Uh, yeah, I was here for it.
Spencer: What did they cook? What did they make?
Scott: So, the menu for that, we, uh, we had folks come in, we actually did it here on property.
We closed the restaurant to the public for the first time ever and had it as a ticketed event that evening. We still pumped out biscuits that day, so anybody who showed up. We felt awful about it, but we at least sent them outta here with, uh, some biscuits and a skip the weight pass. So when they come back, oh, they'll just go right to the front of the line.
Sweet. Come right in. That's but we started everybody off with, uh, oh, [00:32:00] the level side. We did some smoked deviled eggs with a bit of like a candied bacon and mustard caviar on top. And they did, uh, they had some oysters floating around. 'cause I mean, who just have. Raw oysters floating around. Uh, so they did some oysters and, uh, some skinny timms, which are like some meat sticks that they were making.
Uh, in-house. It is the fanciest you know, slim gym you'll ever see. Uh, it was so good. Did it with like a little bit of a parsley sauce. We had a couple cocktails to sort of greet people as they came in, and then we brought 'em in and the, uh, we did loveless biscuits and then they did some crumpets.
We, oh. And while people were having crumpets, they were just walking around with a big tent of caviar and dropping a little caviar on everybody's plate. Whoa. Oh my gosh. This is so bougie. Oh, yeah. No, it was, it was the fanciest thing. We have done, definitely in a long time. Mm-hmm. Our serving team, we were having them do it and they were.
Petrified, you know, 'cause they know loveless food, but they don't know, you know, this type of cuisine. Yeah. Uh, you know, we're doing a sword, a play on our country fried steak with [00:33:00] swordfish, but also with like a Nashville hot chicken theme, but utilizing some curry. It was really good. It was a interesting menu.
Loveless, we. Pulled some frog legs back out, uh, which is something we haven't done in quite a while. And we smoked those and hit those with a, uh, a hot honey kind of a play on a special we do. It was a, it was a really good meal. It was really nice.
Spencer: So just as thinking about a, a follow up of different cuisines, like for those that don't know locust, as you mentioned, Michelin star, really high end, expensive, fine dining.
If we had to make you. As an executive chef, as uncomfortable as possible. Okay, so like we take you out of your place here and we drop you into first a cuisine and second, a style that would make you like, man, I really feel out of my element. What are two things that come to mind? 'cause I could make an argument to say, we could pull you outta here [00:34:00] and put you in a five star restaurant and you would be just fine.
I can make an argument that all across the spectrum. So what would be an especially challenging cuisine for you and an especially challenging style or element there that would make it tough
Carli: vibe.
Scott: Interesting. I would probably lean more towards sort of the Asian side of things.
Spencer: Okay.
Scott: Certainly not something I've dabbled with a lot over the past two Dine Nashville events. We have partnered with folks who are more familiar with that zone. So that certainly made me feel a little bit more uneasy. Mm-hmm. Um, and then probably that really high end, oh, prim and proper, uh, towel over the arm, find dining experience.
Good. And just, and it should be pretty obvious just looking at the love list compared to, you know, those, it's like we're a lot more laid back and wearing t-shirts and, Hey y'all, how y'all doing? Yeah.
Carli: Which is why we love it. Yeah. You know, it's like you might go to one of those restaurants once for a birthday or twice, you know, if you can get in the door.
[00:35:00] But Loveless is one of those places that you wanna come back to again and again because it's got the muscle memory, it's got those smells and that sight and that feeling like we've been here from everything from weddings to school fundraisers to bridal showers. Yeah. And it's like you just have this memory here where you feel like you're coming home.
Scott: Yeah.
Carli: That makes it really special, whereas. I, maybe it's just me, but I really love home cooking and like more family style food and I think as much as I love a fancy meal every once in a while, it's not the thing I would pick every day either.
Scott: Yeah. Mm-hmm. No, I mean I think that's it like exactly is we very much have that home cooking style, you know, whether or not you were born in the South, I feel like that home cooking feel still sort of resonates through like in, in what we're making.
It
Carli: feels like a hug.
Scott: Yeah,
Carli: like when you get a biscuit with that peach jam on top, you just feel like you're getting a hug on the inside, you know? Yeah. It's the best. So Locust was a really cool collab for you. Who else are you guys working for? If you can tell us if it's like not under wraps.
Scott: No, I think everybody that we've confirmed with, uh, would be happy [00:36:00] with us.
Sort of talking about it, you know, a little bit of the idea here is hopefully folks will go check out the dishes they're doing, you know, at their place. And then we have our, uh, big party on, uh, oh, September 19th. Uh, they can come out here and, you know, check out everybody else's. So we're, we're working with, uh, a couple Nashville Staples, like, uh, daddy's dogs, uh, frothy Monkey.
Uh, I believe, uh, five daughters is gonna be one that's coming on with us. Tough. I know, right? So, uh, just, you know, sort of the, the people you would sort of expect Cleatus Burger. Mm-hmm. They're sort of a, a little bit of a new up and comer, but we really like what they're doing over there, doing some great stuff and you know, like their business model.
So yeah, just a, a few of those guys and you know, I say old Nashville and New Nashville. Some of these guys have been around for 10 plus years, but I mean, it's not 75 years. So Frothy Monkey got me through college. Yeah. So I'm gonna definitely have to go try that. Hell yeah. Well, and I don't remember their menu being as large as it is, but they're doing some really cool stuff out there, and it's delicious.
Carli: I was really surprised. Delicious. Yeah. No, they're doing a great job. I'm blown away. Well, and coffee. I'm a caffeine aholic, so
Spencer: yeah. Scott, you said something a second [00:37:00] ago that most restaurants fail in five years or less. Loveless has been here for 75. If you just take a second and talk about why most restaurants do fail so early.
'cause I know it's true. You see it happen all the time. Is it. It. Most people that open restaurants don't have the business sense, like they know how to cook, but they don't know how to run a business. Or is it the temptation to cut quality or do people just like, Hey, I've had it and I'm bored with it, and there's no innovation like.
What are some of the things that you would speak into restaurateurs that kind of have grand opening and grand closing in five years?
Scott: I would say it's actually all three of those. Um, so, you know, when you open, you're new, everybody wants to come see you. It doesn't even matter if you're really all that good.
Uh, just being new to the a neighborhood, people are gonna come out and check you out. They're like, Hey, a new restaurant. Let's see what they're all about. Yeah. And you know, that's gonna be sort of your first chance to start, uh, capturing some [00:38:00] clientele. So then when you start off, you've got this business, surge, if you will, money's flowing in.
It's real easy to take your eye off the ball financially and watch sort of all those costs that matter. It's easy to, you know, let, uh, food costs get away from you or labor cost or disposables or all of 'em. And then, yeah, sort of that final piece is, all right, now the newness is worn off. You don't have.
That, inflated surge of being a new restaurant and you're not doing great on cost controls, and you start to see that because the money's not coming in as much. So then you go into slash mode, okay, let's, let's look at slash and labor. Let me, you know, drop to even smaller skeleton teams. Let me try to go and drop cost inside of my products.
And you wind up, cutting the wrong products and, and making a worse product. So you just sort mm-hmm. Then you, you grow that perpetual, uh, you know, downside of sales from dropping your cost and running skeleton teams and putting out poorer products. So maybe, and I think we've all done this.
We've been to a new restaurant, had a great [00:39:00] experience. Mm-hmm. And then we went maybe two weeks after opening, or a month after opening. And it was still pretty good. I mean, not as good as it was the first time. Then you go like two months later or a year later and, uh, it's like, oh man, they've really, you know, sort of fallen off.
Maybe you try 'em one more time, you know, hoping it'll be as good as that first time and when they don't hit it. I think we all just kind of, you know, write 'em off. I'm not gonna go waste my time or my money there, even if you, you know, bring the manager over and, you know, got it for free or got a free dessert or whatever, you know, they'll try to do to keep you happy.
You're, you lose confidence and I'm gonna go have a good dinner here. Yeah, I tell you what, dinner's like my favorite thing in a day. Yeah. I look forward to my mealtime. It's when our family gathers, it's when we all get to hang out. So I get that. Like if you're not getting for your hard-earned money, the experience you want, you're not going back.
Yeah. No, I mean, and you know, some of us will leave reviews and some of us won't. And I know from my side of things, I don't think I've left a review anywhere unless it was a positive one. And maybe it's just too much understanding of what goes on [00:40:00] behind the scenes. But I'll just kind of decide I'm not gonna try again.
It's not worth it.
Spencer: I was gonna ask that question. When you are eating out, do you think that you have more patience because of what you know in the experience? Or do you feel like you have less patience because of. What you know and your experience.
Carli: That's a great question.
Scott: So, um, I understand too much behind the scenes for sure.
Spencer: Uhhuh
Scott: if you, you know, I guess where I lose my patients is more on the. Serving side. And maybe that's a back of house, first front of house thing. But you know, the server from my side, I can see them, I can see where they're at and if it's, you know, if we don't see them for a while, I'm like, okay, well, you don't, I know you don't really have much going on in the back, so you're back there hiding or you're on your phone or whatever.
If we're getting poor service, that's where I'm gonna lose my patients. And it'll be reflected in, in, in how I'm tipping the food quality itself when it comes to me. I can tell if it's, you know, [00:41:00] pre-made versus fresh or if it's a pre breaded tender. You know, we've all tasted those, like in the culinary world, I like food shows and stuff and I, I can tell that sort of quality, but like, if it comes to like my food being a little bit cold or, something along those lines, or my steak is a little bit overcooked, I'm like, I, you know, I get it.
They're short staffed, you know, they're. Trying their hardest, and I'll just, as long as it's still edible, I'll, I'll force it down. I'll, I'll pay my ticket and I'll, uh, move on. But you can't do that too, me too many times. Or just like, I, you know, was just saying I just may not come back.
Carli: Yeah. You'll vote with your feet.
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Huh.
Spencer: Well, Scott. Really fascinating. I have gotten to ask all kinds of questions that I didn't expect to get to learn about Loveless and your story. So thank you for sharing that. The way we end every podcast is I have three questions for you. Okay. That are short fill in the blank answers.
So if you'll just hear the prompt and then fill it in with a word or a short phrase that you think completes the thought. [00:42:00] Uh, just repeat the prompt back to me. When you answer it. Okay. Okay. All right. Here's number one. When people leave the Loveless Cafe, I hope they feel blank.
Scott: When people leave the Loveless Cafe, I hope they feel full.
Spencer: I like that. Number two, if I had to eat one loveless dish every day for a month. It would be
Scott: if I had to eat one loveless dish every day for a month, it would be the fried chicken.
Spencer: Mm-hmm. Me too. And number three, Loveless captures the heart of Tennessee. Cooking through Blank
Scott: Loveless captures the heart of Tennessee cooking through its history.
Spencer: Scott, seeing someone like yourself that has been entrusted with a brand as important as loveless to not just Nashville, [00:43:00] Tennessee, the region people travel from all over, has to make you feel great. And also a significant responsibility like I could imagine coming in as an executive chef that.
You wanna put your own fingerprint on something, right? Like you want it to be part of your brand and your identity and your story, and having to balance that tension, I have to imagine is tough, especially as an artist, right? Like you're an artist in a different sense. And to get to see that play out over time.
Now that you certainly have been doing this, you know, what, 14 years now? The campus, the business side of this is also amazing to me. There's a lot of coordination that goes on here and so I just really appreciate the opportunity to sit across from you and get to understand your personality more and the heart that you have for serving people.
Like I would [00:44:00] really, if someone asked, who is Scott Peck that we started off this podcast that way. Your humility really shines through in the time here. And I think there's a lot of chefs that that wouldn't be what I'd lead with. They may make amazing food, uh, delicious. But I really appreciate that trait, uh, in you two.
And it's also kind of iconically Tennessee. So thank you for serving so many people. Uh, here. That are Tennesseans and, and from all over. Thank you for serving our family as we've done, uh, and participated in a lot of events here and I really appreciate your time today.
Scott: Hey, well, I appreciate you guys coming out.
I mean, not just, you know, out here for this interview, but just coming through and, you know, being a regular customer at the Love Us. I, I really do appreciate that.
Spencer: We'll be back.
Scott: Oh, I hope so. Yeah.
Spencer: Scott Peck, executive chef for the Loveless Cafe on site here. It's fun. You kind of get the [00:45:00] whole experience of loveless. You really do have to be here. Yeah. In order to. Experience it how it's intended to be. Like you drive on property and you know it's gravel road and the campus is equal. Parts like folksy and you can tell it's been here for a long time, but you can tell that this is the spot that you need to visit in order to understand like real traditional southern cooking.
And it just. Does give you a little bit of a state change when you show up here and you know you're going to eat well and you don't necessarily have to think about the calories of what you're gonna eat, but you do know that you're gonna feel full
Carli: when you eat. I have dare say that word while we are on this campus.
No, it feels like you're pulling up to your memaw house. Yes. Like to your Memaw farm. And I remember, I mean, I'm a southern transplant, right? And so the first time that. I came to Loveless was with you, right? And learning what this is and what it tastes like. It [00:46:00] was really foundational for One of the things I love very much about Tennessee, but the thing I like the most about the loveless, truly, and you see it all over Scott, is everyone who's here is just so nice.
It's why everyone's moving here is why I wanted to stay here. It's like there's something about people that live here and work here and wanna serve people. That people are just kind and enjoyable to be around and we'll chit chat with you about their dog's, ex-girlfriend's, neighbor, right? Like it's just the best.
And his story of how he came up through kitchens, I just think is uniquely entrepreneurial. Like he was not afraid of hard work and burned hands. I know that he, you know, makes it sound like, yeah, and then I did this job and that job. It's like that dude. Did hard stuff to get where he is at and he's so modest about it and so kind, and so proud to be making biscuits and chicken and all of the things that make us happy, and I just love that.
I wish more people in culinary war like [00:47:00] Scott.
Spencer: I also appreciate that loveless, despite 75 years, has resisted the temptation of things that would. Almost certainly go unnoticed by the consumers. Like they still hand mix biscuits.
Carli: Yeah, that blows my mind.
Spencer: 10,000 biscuits a day, they're hand mixing them and I would just have to imagine that the distinction in flavor for me to be able to tell if they just put that in a automated mixing bowl rather than hand mixing it.
Like could I really tell the difference between that? Probably not, but they certainly believed that we could. And that's. A meaningful financial investment.
Carli: Yeah.
Spencer: I mean, that's not just like, oh, we like to stay traditional. That's a meaningful monetary commitment that they're making to it. And that is not easy to do.
Mm-hmm. Because all it takes is one year out [00:48:00] of those 75 years where you're like, okay, we just have to cut back. It's 2008. Yeah. We need more time. It's COVID. It's any number of different things. And so we, we just need to do this. Once you do that once, you never go back. Mm-hmm. And so I find that.
Fascinating, their mix between business and tradition and that's very apparent in their culture here.
Carli: Well, Scott has to be equal parts artist and gatekeeper. And we talked about that a lot on the podcast, but that is a unique tension and we've met a few people in different businesses that take over for after a certain period of time and what that looks like.
And it's a unique version of pressure, right? Mm-hmm. Not everyone is meant to start the business. Not everyone is meant to get it in the middle, but there are special people that are meant to sustain and stay culturally sound, and that is a skillset that I think is overlooked in business a lot.
'cause it's flashy and sexy to start the thing. But it's less sexy and flashy when it closes five years later. [00:49:00] Yep. Right? And so the ability to be sustainable and stay true to who you are is just really wonderful.
