Is Germantown good for brunch?

February 19, 2026

Yes, and it is one of the better options in Nashville if you want to avoid the standard Nashville brunch experience, which involves waiting an hour outside Biscuit Love on a Sunday while hungover people in cowboy hats take up sidewalk space.

Germantown brunch is quieter, better cooked, and more adult-oriented than the options in 12 South or East Nashville’s more Instagram-dependent spots. The tradeoff is that the neighborhood has fewer dedicated brunch spots, so your choices are more limited.

Where to go

Monell’s Dining and Catering is the right choice if you want the full Southern brunch experience. The building is a Victorian house that opened in 1905 and still has original features. Everything is served family-style at communal tables: fried chicken, biscuits, hash brown casserole, biscuits and gravy, eggs. It is all-you-can-eat, which is not subtle. The communal seating means you share a table with strangers, which is either appealing or alarming depending on your social mode. Crowds build toward 10am; arriving at opening is the move.

Von Elrod’s Beer Hall and Kitchen runs weekend brunch Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 2pm. The menu includes hand-cranked breakfast sausage, malted blueberry pancakes, chicken fried chicken and biscuits, and the signature Big Ass Mimosas served in one-liter steins. If you want something that leans more toward a beer hall experience with brunch food rather than a conventional brunch, this is unusual and fun.

Red Bicycle is the most café-style option, with crepes, pastries, sandwiches, and brunch items in a family-friendly setting. The weekend morning crowd is predictable arrive before 10am or expect to wait.

Steadfast Coffee handles the lighter end of the brunch spectrum: a weekend brunch menu of egg sandwiches, savory porridge, and coffee drinks executed at a higher level than most places. If you want something substantive but not a full Southern spread, this works well.

The larger context

The best brunch in Germantown is probably at one of the dinner restaurants doing a weekend service City House does Sunday Supper, which is not technically brunch but is special enough to plan around. 5th and Taylor has a brunch-adjacent weekend menu worth checking. The neighborhood’s fine dining scene does not disappear on weekends, and the same quality that applies to dinner applies to midday meals.

For a standard Nashville “see and be seen” brunch, Germantown is the wrong choice. For people who want to eat well on a Sunday morning in a neighborhood that does not feel like a performance, it is one of the better options in the city.

Sources

Related posts:

  1. Which Nashville Neighborhood Has the Best Coffee Shops? East Nashville has the best concentration of serious independent coffee shops, but several other neighborhoods make legitimate claims and serve different purposes. East Nashville: Depth and Character East Nashville's coffee......
  2. What Are the Best Music Venues in East Nashville? East Nashville hosts Nashville's most diverse live music scene outside of the Broadway honky-tonk corridor, covering indie rock, country, folk, Americana, bluegrass, and everything in between. These are the venues......
  3. Is 12 South Walkable? 12 South is the most walkable neighborhood in Nashville, and it's not particularly close. Within the neighborhood itself, everything runs along a half-mile stretch of 12th Avenue South. Coffee shop......
  4. What Is a Nashville-Style Breakfast? Nashville breakfast has two modes: the long-standing Southern tradition and the modern brunch-restaurant version that has taken over the city in the last decade. They coexist and serve different purposes.......
  5. What Is the Best Brunch in Nashville? Nashville has developed one of the more serious brunch cultures in the South. The good news is that the city now has enough quality options that you can choose based......
  6. What Areas of Nashville Are Not Walkable? The honest answer is: most of Nashville. The city's overall Walk Score is 29 out of 100, placing it 48th among large US cities. That puts Nashville below Atlanta (49),......
  7. What Is the Difference Between East Nashville and The Gulch? These two neighborhoods represent opposite answers to the question of what Nashville can be. They're about three miles apart, but the distance in character is much larger. Geography First East......
  8. How Far Is 12 South from Broadway? 12 South is about three miles south of Broadway, and the distance is significant enough that it functions as a separate destination rather than a neighborhood you visit on the......
  9. Where Is the Country Music Hall of Fame? The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is located at 222 Fifth Avenue South in Nashville's SoBro neighborhood, directly south of Lower Broadway and three blocks from the main......
  10. What Is the Best Thing to Do in The Gulch? Go to the Station Inn on a Sunday night. The specific recommendation is the Sunday night jam session at the Station Inn, 402 12th Avenue South, which has been running......
  11. What does Germantown look like architecturally compared to other Nashville neighborhoods? Walk into most Nashville neighborhoods and the built environment reads clearly: East Nashville means Victorian cottages and craftsman bungalows, The Gulch is glass-and-steel condos stacked on parking decks, 12 South......
  12. What three things is Germantown most famous for? Ask people who know Nashville and the answer comes back the same way almost every time: food, history, and walkability. These three things are not incidental to Germantown they define......
  13. What is the vibe of Germantown? Germantown is what Nashville looks like when it is not trying to perform Nashville. There are no bachelorette sashes here, no pedal taverns, no cover bands playing Florida Georgia Line......
  14. What are the best restaurants in Germantown? Germantown punches well above its weight for a neighborhood of 18 city blocks. The concentration of seriously good restaurants here (including multiple James Beard Award winners and nominees) makes it......

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *