For almost 32 years, the Hermitage Café at 45 Hermitage Ave. stood proud, if dingy, as the home of late-night drunks sobering up and early morning executives planning business over biscuits and gravy. It was cash only, and you only visited the bathroom if you absolutely couldn’t avoid it. The place was worn and bedraggled and everyone loved it.
It closed in 2021, and the property was sold out from under the owners for a rumored condo development. As a devoted client of the café (the early morning part, not the drunk part), I was bereft.
Something happened, I don’t know what, and the building did not fall into developers’ hands. And a saint named Jason Flores and Mr. J’s Original arrived. He cleaned up the place, made it bright and shiny, and installed a new, modern menu featuring hamburgers, other sandwiches, beef tallow fries (remember when McDonald’s had those? Me, neither.), and what I’m going to go out on a limb and declare the best pastrami sandwich in Nashville…