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by Mike Kelly (Author)
The story of Jimmy Kelly's Steak House, Nashville's oldest fine restaurant and the family who started it--of stills, saloons, and speakeasies, and of a family who was tough and resourceful, who lost everything, and picked themselves up and started again.
When young James Kelly fled the Irish Famine in 1848, he arrived in America with a roll of copper tubing under his shirt. To make whiskey, of course. And he did--in the green rolling hills of Middle Tennessee. Later his son John would open a saloon, initiating the family custom of serving up "a great steak and a generous pour of whiskey" that continues to this day. Readers will delight in tales of bootleggers and rumrunners, saloons and speakeasies, of hard workers with strong family values, the old genteel Nashville and the new Nashville recording industry, and the mysterious difference between whiskey and bourbon. There are stories about Jack Daniel, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (and even Trigger), Al Capone, Bob Dylan, Grantland Rice, John Jay Hooker Sr., and local characters only a Nashvillian could love. The story of the Kelly family in Tennessee takes readers from the Civil War to Nashville's postwar boom and the turn of a new century: the Roaring 20s that followed the first World War, the temperance movement that led to Prohibition, and the speakeasy solution that led honest Kelly men to defy a patently bad law as they built a family legacy of beloved restaurants in Nashville. Mike Kelly--James's great-grandson--has written a fine and rollicking tale of a most interesting time in American history. His affection for his family and his community shows on every page.Author Biography
Mike Kelly is the owner of Jimmy Kelly's Steak House, Nashville's oldest fine restaurant, and comes from a long line of saloon and restaurant owners. His great-grandfather, James Kelly, earned his keep making Tennessee moonshine and selling ice to Nashville saloons and restaurants. Mike's grandfather opened an elegant speakeasy during Prohibition, serving liquor and steaks to celebrities, Grand Ole Opry Stars, and famous politicians. And Mike's uncle Jimmy opened Jimmy Kelly's Steak House in Nashville, eventually passing it down to Mike's father, who then passed it down to Mike. Mike can still be found greeting guests at the door of the restaurant and telling the stories of the Kelly family and how they made their mark on the city of Nashville.
