Barbara’s Home Cookin

I really want to like this place… but the ONLY good thing I can say about the place is the rolls are delicious. The rest of our food was under seasoned and bland. All of the sides tasted like they were dumped straight from a can. The fried chicken seemed like it was cooked hours before it was served and thrown into a warming drawer. For the $ 40 price tag for 3 meals, it is also way overpriced (2 of us even got water to drink.) I will definitely not be returning… EVER!

We love this place! I especially like the chicken salad and the spinach salad. Very homey atmosphere and good service. A good meat and three spot in Grassland.

YES, YES, 1,000xs YES.
This place is THE place for a casual lunch or to take family from out of town. The staff is super sweet, everything is «baby» this and «sweetheart» that. The ladies who work here have these amazing South African accents that are swoon-​worthy. The food is just to die for. Get the poppyseed chicken. You get a meat & 2 veggies (off the chalkboard menus) and it’s around $ 7 – 8. You get a ton of food and rolls that seriously fall apart in your mouth. I love going early for lunch. Chances are that they still have yesterday’s rolls bagged up and on sale at the checkout counter for a couple bucks and you KNOW you need some of those to take home. I’ve never had to wait, but it’s always a comfortable busy crowd.
This is a great place to go with family after church or for lunch with coworkers. There is a lot of space in the different rooms, so big parties are easily accomidated. I love that it’s tucked away back in a residential area; it was literally someone’s home that has been converted into the cutest little hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurant ever. It’s family owned & operated and about as low-​key as it gets. This is by no means a dinner date spot, definitely not anything fancy. But the quality of the food and service keeps me coming back for those «causal little lunches» and I expect that it will for a very long time.

Below average
food and service… The place is nasty!

Dined there this past Sunday, with a friend who had never been. Extremely disappointed at the attitude, tone and impatience of the server and worse yet the cashier. I have patronized Barbara’s when I was with other groups from our church which is right around the corner and did not experience this rudeness.
The server was impatient, rude and snippy and the cashier was even worse even though there was no other patrons waiting to check out. The server did eventually try to make nice with us, but it was too little, too late as we observed that they did not treat or speak to the other patrons in this matter.
Even though I have enjoyed their food in the past, we will never patronize this establishment again. You can have the best food in town, not that they do, but if you are partial to your guests who help keep you in business, lack customer service and people skills it does not matter.
Using the power of the review to warn would be patrons that you may or may not receive a warm and friendly welcome probably depending on who you are and what you look like. We absolutely did not feel welcome.
I regret not getting up and walking out to go dine elsewhere. Please be consistent in how you treat customers. The experience left a bad taste in our mouth.

Took the kids after church and enjoyed a splendid lunch! Great menu selection… terrific service… I only wish we would’ve left some room for dessert! We’ll be back.

We enjoyed a delicious meal at Barbara’s. The winning combination for me was the poppyseed chicken, mashed potatoes, and pineapple casserole. And our waitress was delightful.

How does this place not have more reviews!!! This joint is holy. It’s in an unassuming little house, but Miss Barbara has been feeding people for decades. She’s legendary here. Go for the poppyseed chicken or tenders– try the pineapple casserole and don’t even dare pass on the rolls. Trust me.

Great food. Wait staff are great. Poppy seed chicken casserole and bread is AMAZING! Don’t go expecting high end eating. It’s a hole in the wall for sure, but the food is great, even if it’s on the higher $$$$ side!

This is real deal, deep south home cooking. Don’t confuse Barbara’s with other southern/​soul food places that serve bland, mushy church pot luck food. The roast beef is really boldly spiced, the poppy seed chicken is tangy and creamy, the «vegetables» are prepared authentically and well seasoned and the desserts are just right.

This always reminds us of going to a favorite aunt’s house for dinner. Everything is cooked the way you remember it being cooked at Granny and Paw Paw’s house. The meats are not over cooked and the veggies are varied enough to meet most folks tastes. Barbara doesn’t cook it very often, but she has a seafood casserole that’s unbelievable. My wife loves the cobbler offerings (usually two different flavors to choose from). However, the first thing you run into as you come in the front door is the dessert case that shows a much larger repertoire of sweets.
Very nice Southern vibe even with the servers being from about as far south as you can go (South Africa).

Worth the drive if you love home style cooking! Rolls like you got at the school cafeteria when they were baked from scratch. Real butter and freshly prepared yummy entrées. Save room for dessert. They’re all homemade as well. I’ll be back with friends and family in tow!

Love this place. Nowhere compares. Which is why I called to make sure they would be open until 3 and would have a full menu on Sunday, which is today. They said yes. I walked in the door at 2:20. They were out of everything, and not seating anyone.
My friends and I are on our way back to Nashville, and I am so hungry I don’t think I believe in anything anymore. Right now, I hate you, Barbara. But I’ll get over it, and I’ll come back, I always do, because you own my soul.

Finding a down-​home southern food place without the pretentious facades that abound in this area is a wonder in itself, but these ladies know how to bring on the simple comfort food that many of us grew up with. My first visit this evening was graced with the amazing poppyseed chicken, green beans, and pineapple casserole, along with a couple of tasty yeasty rolls. I took home a whole coconut pie that melts in your mouth. This may be my new home away from home.

This is a quaint, off the beaten path, family-​run, country experience without pretense. It’s not trying for a Michelin Star (and it will never have one) but, it’s right up there with as good as no-​frills tucked away in the country is gonna get: complete with sassy wait staff. Barbara’s reminds me a bit of a town eatery I knew as a tweener: the Chat And Chew (really; yes, you can imagine.) What you see is what you get. And it’s usually good.
Service? Some of the other reviews note it: you may not get a refilled glass without asking. So… you’re an adult… ask. Or go thirsty. There’s a certain atmosphere with the waitresses… that of the mother-​in-​law that thinks you’re not good enough for her baby, but she’ll show you what to eat. And you’ll like it.
Price? Ok. The place is located in Williamson County, Tennessee and some of the more expensive property in the state. Overhead alone could drive the pricing to extremes. Entrees are on the high-​ish side, but you’ll get full on $ 10-​$ 12.
Based upon Unilocal pics, the menu hasn’t changed much in a few years. That speaks volumes if you’re listening. Mouthfuls, actually. Years. And they’re still cooking.
I arrived with nine others in tow for lunch. That means that most of the menu was sampled by the group. The only complaint was about the pineapple casserole. Plates were otherwise cleaned. The only thing missed from my perspective was presence of a chicken-​fried beef steak. And cream gravy… nope; not here.

The poppy-​seed chicken is to DIE FOR, omg. The environment is like nothing I have seen before truly amazing!

Good food, great waitress!

What an overpriced dump. The service took forever even though they were not that busy. $ 10.95 for a meat and 2 meal (no drink included) is WAY overpriced. The bathrooms are incredibly dirty as well as the rest of the chairs and tables in this restaurant. I agree with another reviewer that the establishment obviously doesn’t like having kids here as we were given the cold shoulder by the server and the lady at checkout made under-​the-​breath comments about them, even though they were well behaved. We never received refills while we were sitting there– even for water. Fortunately I didn’t care for the cold, fake southern food either because we will not be back.

The food was good, not great. The service was terrible! Apparently you have to dress like a Brentwood elite to be welcome at this restaurant. My girlfriend and I were out riding my motorcycle when we looked on Unilocal to find a spot to stop and eat at. When we pulled up the place looked like a dump, it’s a converted house that’s run down. The entire time the workers were giving me dirty looks (I guess a motorcycle vest is scary). After the waitress brought of drinks and food, she never checked back with us to see if we needed refills or condiments. She did check on the tables beside us 15+ times while we sat with empty drink cups and no dipping sauces for our chicken. We will not be back.

Been coming here for years! Chocolate meringue pie, cinnamon rolls, banana pudding, and coconut cake are staples! Chicken, turnip greens and mac n cheese make my tummy happy!

First visit for us! We love little quirky places and this sure fits the bill. I have to say, we enjoyed our meal just as much as we have at The Loveless and it was a lot less chaotic. I find their homemade dinner rolls better than the biscuits too. I had the chicken poppyseed dish and it really was wonderful. Hubby had fried chicken. One piece wasn’t so great but the other made up for it! We got there a little later in their serving hours and sat inside so we could watch everything going on. The staff was beyond friendly and really fun to chat with… witty ladies with great advice on the menu choices. When I was struggling with my dessert choice they suggested I have a little bit of both… genius. Dessert and the poppyseed dish were the highlights. The sides were tasty but not much different than at other places of this type. All in all we’d have no problem going back.

I come here every time I come to visit my Dad & Stepmom in Nashville. It’s one of the most unique places you’ll ever see. It’s basically a house turned into a restaurant. The food is fantastic, I are the best fried chicken in my life today! Banana pudding & fresh bread are A+ too.

this place makes my heart happy. it also makes my stomach happy. the fried chicken gave me an inferiority complex (regarding my inability to even closely emulate it), the macaroni was wonderful – creamy, rich, hot, fresh – even better than the kraft blue box stuff (and i loooove that powdery goodness). the banana pudding almost got me fired (because i didn’t bring any back to share with my bosses) – (this is actually a joke, not the goodness of it, the firing part).

Barbara’s is one of my favorite spots in/​around Nashville. The servers are so nice and never fail to address you with a sweet nickname (my darling, sweetheart, etc). I’ve never had anything that wasn’t delicious (apart from the squash casserole on one occasion — it was bland and mushy). And the giant, yeasty rolls are A-​MAZING.
A slight negative: I ordered a banana pudding to go once, and it was disappointingly teeny (about the size of a kid’s lunch-​sized snack pack). For the price, one would hope to have a large enough dessert to share. Also the last time we visited, my boyfriend ordered fried chicken, something he’s done many times in the past and never been disappointed in. What he received that day was burned and dried out. It was a dark brown in color, clearly overcooked, and shouldn’t have been served at all. We would have happily waited for some fresh chicken. This experience was out of the ordinary, however.
I also wish it was open on Saturday! There have been more than a couple of occasions where we forgot that they were closed on Saturday and made the drive out there.