The Guitars Go Up Wednesday. The Lunch Rush Has to Wait Two More Weeks.
There is a particular kind of nervous energy in a restaurant the night before it opens, and on North Mt. Juliet Road this week somebody is living in it.
Rock N Roll Sushi opens Wednesday, September 23, at 1913 N. Mt. Juliet Road, Suite 100 — the Everette Downs center, up near Sprouts. It is the thirteenth Tennessee location for the chain and the eighty-first across the whole system, which is a respectable number for a concept that started as a single room in Mobile, Alabama in 2010.
The local detail is the one worth holding onto: the owners, Eric and Jenn Covell, already live in Mt. Juliet. This is not a corporate drop-in. It is two residents putting their name on a lease in the shopping center they presumably already drive past on the way home.
What the room is going for
The concept is exactly what the name promises, and it does not apologize for it. Guitars on the walls. Neon. Leather booths. Menus built to look like record sleeves. It is American-casual sushi rather than a quiet omakase counter — a room designed for a table of six on a Friday, not a reverent solo dinner.
The roll names carry the same joke all the way through: the VIP, the Volcano, the AXL, the Crowd Surfer. Appetizers include something called Headbanger Shrimp. Beyond the sushi case there is teppanyaki-style hibachi, ramen, and salads, plus catering. Dessert is a thing called Hall of Fame Brownies — fried brownie slices stacked with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, cherries, and both chocolate and caramel drizzle, which is less a dessert than a dare.
Go at night, at least at first
Here is the practical part, and it is the part most people will get wrong.
For the first two weeks the restaurant is running dinner only: 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 4 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Full service does not start until October 7, and that is when the doors open at 11 a.m. and lunch becomes an option — 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
So if you turn up at noon on September 25 expecting a hibachi lunch, you will be standing in a parking lot. Mark October 7.
Another corner of Everette Downs fills in
Zoom out and this is one more tenant in a center that has been steadily filling for most of the year. We wrote in July about what was landing at Everette Downs, and the list has kept growing since.
That is the real story underneath a single restaurant opening. Mt. Juliet spent a long stretch as a place people drove out of for dinner. The arithmetic has been quietly reversing — Nicoletto's Italian Kitchen on Lebanon Road is another data point — and a Wednesday opening with a neon guitar over the booths is one more reason to stay on this side of Old Hickory.
Planning a full evening around it? Our local's guide to Mt. Juliet has what else is worth your time nearby.
