We cover food and we cover entertainment and this story sits squarely at the intersection of both, so we are covering it.
Nellie’s Southern Kitchen, the Southern comfort food restaurant owned by the Jonas Brothers’ parents Kevin Jonas Sr. and Denise Jonas, is closing its Las Vegas location. Last service is May 25. The restaurant has been operating for four years in the District by the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and it is closing because the lease is up and the family has decided to focus their energy on the original location in Belmont, North Carolina.
That is the basic news. Here is why we think it deserves more than a passing mention.
The spokesperson for the restaurant told PEOPLE: “We are grateful to our dedicated staff and loyal guests who filled that space with so many unforgettable moments over the years. As our lease approached its expiration, we made a strategic decision about where to focus our long-term efforts. We invite everyone to visit our founding location in Belmont, NC, now celebrating a decade of great food and Southern hospitality.”
Standard closure statement, handled professionally. But Nellie’s Southern Kitchen is not a standard celebrity restaurant, and we want to make sure that context does not get lost in the news cycle.
This Restaurant Has a Real Story Behind It
We have covered enough celebrity restaurant openings to know when something is a branding exercise and when something is genuine. Nellie’s has always felt like the second thing.
The restaurant is named after Kevin Sr.’s late great-grandmother. Not a made-up name meant to evoke Southern warmth. His actual great-grandmother. The original Belmont, North Carolina location opened in 2016, a full decade before the restaurant is now celebrating its anniversary there, in Kevin Sr.’s actual hometown.
Kevin Sr. talked about the origin story in a way that made us feel it: he grew up in his grandparents’ house watching his grandmother come home from working in a Belmont cotton mill and cook for the family. Those are the recipes that Nellie’s serves. “My great-grandmother shared her recipes with my grandmother who shared them with my mother who shared them with our chefs,” he told PEOPLE. “We have protected the natural recipes and made sure that our professional chefs at Nellie’s knew how to make them like my family before figuring out how to serve them to our customers.”
That is a lineage. Recipes that went from a woman working a mill to her granddaughter’s kitchen to a professional restaurant in Las Vegas. That is not nothing.
The menu reflects it. Nellie’s Chicken N’ Dumplin’s. Fried chicken with macaroni and cheese and collard greens. These are not dishes invented by a culinary consultant. They are dishes that existed before any Jonas Brother was famous and will exist after the Las Vegas location is gone.
Mario Nichols, the executive chef who ran the Las Vegas location since it opened, described the experience to PEOPLE in December 2023 in the simplest possible terms: “It’s just like going to your mother’s or your grandmother’s. It’s plenty of food. There’s a lot of love, laughter, and just good times.”
The Las Vegas Opening Was a Genuine Moment
The 11,000-square-foot Las Vegas location opened June 4, 2022, right next to the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Kevin Sr. and Denise partnered with investment firm TLI Bedrock to make it happen. The Brothers, all of them including youngest Franklin, showed up for the opening because it was the family business and they were proud of it.
Joe Jonas said something at the time that stuck with us: “We have incredible memories performing at MGM Grand Garden Arena, so to have Nellie’s next to it is surreal. Las Vegas has always had a special place in our hearts, and now our connection to the city and its community will be stronger than ever.”
Kevin Sr. had been planning Vegas before Belmont even opened. “I am really proud of our Belmont location and how we have survived through some obviously tough times,” he said. “But the Las Vegas location has been a long time coming. We started talking about Vegas before we even opened in Belmont.”
He also set the bar clearly: “There is no desire at Nellie’s to be pretentious, and there is a requirement to be excellent. I hope critics will love it but I know that the people who visit and eat here will love it.”
Each of the Brothers had their go-to orders. Kevin was all about the sweet plates, particularly the Crunchy Chicken Tenders breaded with Captain Crunch. Joe went for the seasonal salad or the molasses glazed salmon. Nick’s standard was the Hawg Hill Sandwich. Franklin, the youngest Jonas, ordered the Chicken N’ Gravy.
Music was woven into the whole experience because of course it was. “In the Jonas family, we all encourage music at the table so we have a small stage in Belmont and will have an even bigger stage in Vegas for live performances,” Kevin Sr. said. “We play everything from the Jonas Brothers to The Beatles, so everyone can enjoy it.”
What We Actually Think About This Closure
We are a food site and we want to give you our honest read.
Nellie’s Southern Kitchen Las Vegas was the kind of restaurant that is harder to find than people realize. It was not pretentious. It was not trying to be something it was not. It was a family serving their grandmother’s food to strangers in a city where most restaurants exist to separate people from their money as efficiently as possible. The fact that it lasted four years next to one of Las Vegas’s most active concert venues, through a post-pandemic restaurant landscape that swallowed a lot of better-funded operations, says something about what it was.
The Belmont location is still there and currently marking its tenth year. That is where the heart of this project has always been anyway. Kevin Sr. said when the Vegas location opened that he started talking about it before Belmont even existed, which tells you that Belmont was always the foundation. Everything else was an extension of that.
For Jonas Brothers fans who ate at Nellie’s during a Vegas trip or during the residency era, we hope you have good memories of it. For anyone who never made it there, the Belmont location is celebrating a decade and the recipes are the same ones they always were.
Nellie’s Southern Kitchen in Belmont, North Carolina is open and currently celebrating ten years. Follow their social channels for updates. If you are a Jonas Brothers fan planning a visit to the original location, it is worth the trip. Last service in Las Vegas is May 25.
