Vandyland, R.I.P.

Venerable West End diner will close in June

Email | Print By Richard Lawson and E. Thomas Wood

02-24-2006 5:28 PM — If you were among the lucky few with breakfast privileges at Vandyland before it officially opens in the morning, you would hear the open secret from its regulars: This landmark Nashville establishment at 2916 West End Ave. is closing after 78 years in business. Mack McGee, a cook who has been at the restaurant since 1963, will serve his last meal sometime in May, just before the restaurant has to be out of the space.

Vandyland’s owner, Mitch Givens, is also shutting down West End Hardware next door at 2918 West End. All questions about the fate of Vandyland and West End Hardware have been deferred to Givens, who has been in Florida and isn’t discussing his plans until he gets back.

Thus, many of the reasons for the closing have been left for the regular patrons to reveal in their chatter. There’s talk of a hefty rent increase, somewhere around 400 percent, that persuaded Givens to decide on closing the businesses. The leases apparently have been year-to-year.

It’s no wonder that Margaret A. and Treglown P. Warner of Nashville, who own the properties, would see the potential for bringing in more rent. The appraised value of the parcels is $1.76 million. The area of West End has seen renewal over the past several years as condominiums and fresh retail rise. Stoney River restaurant is going up across West End, and a new concept, BrickTops, is under construction at the former site of the restaurant Houston’s, about block out West End from Vandyland.

Vandyland’s closing by June will be the final chapter in a history stretching back to 1928 at the West End site and back to 1902 for Candyland downtown, which was once a related enterprise.

Billy Pappas, born Vasilious Papoulias in Greece, owned the restaurant for some four decades. In the 1920s after coming to the United States, he went to work for a cousin who was a partner in the Candyland store when it was on Broadway where the federal courthouse now stands. Candyland also had another location on Church Street that lasted until the 1980s.

Pappas became a partner in the business when it opened the West End location in 1928. In 1945, he became sole owner of the West End location, ending common ownership between the two stores. Pappas died in 1985.

Givens acquired the business after Pappas died. Demand for the restaurant convinced him to keep it going instead of expanding the hardware store as he had intended. Legalities prevented him from using the Candyland name, however. But a change of a letter to reflect its proximity to Vanderbilt University kept the restaurant as popular as ever.

As Candyland or Vandyland, the eatery and ice cream parlor was where generations of Nashvillians hung out with friends, courted, and, like former Tennessean Publisher John Seigenthaler, worked as soda jerks to pick up spending money during high school. Now it will take its place, alongside such gathering places as the Cross Keys, the B&W Cafeteria and the original Ireland’s, in the landscape of Nashville’s collective memory.

Related links:

• GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush campaigns at Vandyland with golfing buddies Amy Grant and Vince Gill, March 2000
• Jane and Michael Stern visit Vandyland for NPR's "The Splendid Table", October 2005