Noshville Green Hills Closing June 30, 2027: What Comes Next

"I'm not happy at all. It's like a part of my life is going to be gone."

Mary Loventhal Jones said that to The Tennessean in July. She is 77, the only surviving original co-owner of Noshville and the sister of its founder, Tom Loventhal. The deli's last remaining restaurant, at 4014 Hillsboro Circle, will close on June 30, 2027. That is the day its lease with the building owner expires.

Restaurants rarely close this way. Most shut with a short note taped to the door. Noshville picked its ending a year ahead and told the city. As of this week, that leaves just under nine months of breakfasts and lunches on Hillsboro Circle. Meanwhile, the blocks around it have spent this fall adding new places to eat.

Why the end date comes from a lease

Melissa Hall has managed the deli for 27 years. She and Jones told The Tennessean they were ending Noshville in its current form because of rising costs, more competition among restaurants, and trouble hiring staff, among other challenges.

"We're all getting older and we want Noshville to go out on a high note," Hall said. "So we decided that it was time when our lease was up to close this chapter and say goodbye to something beautiful," Hall said, according to AOL.

The lease decided the timing. It gave the owners a natural stopping point, and it gave everyone else a firm date. WKRN reported that the deli announced its June 2027 goodbye on its own social media. The Nashville Post confirmed the June 30 last day and the Hillsboro Circle address.

The name will outlast this location. The owners sold the Noshville brand to Ben Weprin, founder of the Nashville investment firm AJ Capital Partners. A firm spokesperson said Weprin bought it as a personal investment, separate from the firm's holdings, because he wanted to preserve a legacy restaurant brand. No plans for when or where a new Noshville might open had been announced. A sold name with no address attached means that, for now, June 30 is the last confirmed day anyone can order at a Noshville counter.

The last one still open

Green Hills was never the original. Tom Loventhal fell for New York-style delis on his travels and opened the first Noshville at 1918 Broadway in December 1996. The chain grew to several locations and then shrank again. Hillsboro Circle outlasted all of them.

The Midtown flagship had more of a tug-of-war over its building. Jones said Loventhal sold that building to a hotel developer who promised to keep Noshville on the first floor. A year later, that developer sold the building and land to Vanderbilt University. Green Hills has now run for more than 21 years. That is longer than the Broadway original lasted.

The menu changed over that stretch too. The Tennessean noted that tongue sandwiches, knishes, chopped liver, the giant portions, and the New York cheesecake all fell away over the years, and even more items went during COVID. "We noticed that the younger generation was not purchasing the Old World deli favorites," Hall said, "and this forced us to move away from some of our traditional offerings."

That detail explains much of the closing. The managers had been adjusting to a changing city for years before they named an end date. Higher costs, more competition, and a thinner hiring pool are pressures that build slowly. The lease gave them a moment to stop.

New tables on the same streets

This fall, Green Hills gained restaurants within a few blocks of the deli.

Waldo's Chicken & Beer opened on Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 4106 Hillsboro Circle. That puts it on the same street as Noshville, in the building that was long a Wendy's. The menu is built around Southern fried and rotisserie chicken in sandwiches, baskets, bowls, and plates, with house-made sides, cheese biscuits, beer, and cocktails. Hours run 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

The next evening, Lupo Notte opened at 2035 Richard Jones Road, inside the Vertis Green Hills development. It is the first full-service restaurant from Southern Land Company, the Nashville-based developer that also runs the dining at Westhaven Golf Club in Franklin. The menu is upscale Italian: house-made pasta, 12-inch pizzas from a three-deck oven, wagyu beef carpaccio, and Lupo meatballs.

Executive Chef Owen Lane came from Pastis, and before that he worked at Audrey and June in East Nashville and The Boardroom in Westhaven. He grew up on a family farm in Leipers Fork. At opening, Lupo Notte served dinner only, from 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Lunch was announced for this fall. As of Oct. 8, the restaurant's contact page still listed dinner hours only, so lunch had not started yet.

Neither opening has anything to do with Noshville's decision, which the managers tied to costs, competition across the restaurant business, and staffing. Taken together, though, they show a Green Hills dining scene that is still adding new places while one of its oldest ones counts down.

The calendar between now and June 30, 2027

Noshville is still running a normal schedule. Its location page lists daily hours of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and still advertises catering. No coverage so far has mentioned changes to hours, the menu, or catering for the final year. No farewell events have been announced either. Hall's request was simple: "We want everybody to come out and support us and enjoy the Noshville concept for the next year... make your mother happy; eat and enjoy." A counter server told Williamson Source that she and a group of regulars planned to meet for breakfast once a month.

Here's what is on the calendar over the next nine months:

• This fall: Lupo Notte's announced start of lunch service, not yet live as of Oct. 8.
• Late spring 2027: Epice, the Lebanese restaurant run by Siege Hospitality, is targeted to open at 3827 Cleghorn Ave. after moving from 12South, according to owner Andrew Fawaz in the Nashville Post.
• June 30, 2027: Noshville's last day at 4014 Hillsboro Circle.

Those last two dates fall within weeks of each other. If Epice keeps to its target, Green Hills will be welcoming a restaurant on Cleghorn Avenue in roughly the same season Noshville closes on Hillsboro Circle. Until then, the deli is open at 7 every morning.

Noshville's story is one I recognize from decades of commercial work in Franklin and around Middle Tennessee. A lease date often decides the future of a place people love, and the timing matters as much as the business itself. If you own a building, hold a lease, or are working out what comes next for a long-held property, Loy Hardcastle is glad to talk it through with you. Let's Connect.