According to recent reporting and permits, a local favorite restaurant Saffire is set to make a comeback inside Franklin’s recently renovated The Factory, a historic stove factory turned retail and restaurant conglomerate, located at 230 Franklin Rd.
The tentative timeline for reopening is the summer of 2024, though the exact grand opening date is too far out to determine.
Helmed by Tom Morales of TomKats Hospitality, Saffire once operated from 2001 to 2017, reportedly closing due to struggles from “trying to maintain the reputation that we had built,” Morales stated in a recent Nashville Business Journal article.
The concept combines Southern staples and comfort food such as oysters, gumbo, steak biscuits, shrimp and grits, and smoked prime rib. Saffire’s revival will include its original 300-year-old wooden bar as shown on its new Instagram, and will offer around 175 seats inside, about 20 bar seats, and 50-60 outside seats under the water tower at The Factory. The restaurant was known amongst locals for placing unique brass name plaques in front of seats at the bar, where regulars predicted to return for a weekly happy hour would sit in the same seat.
“We feel like hospitality will be the main ingredient. Knowing and greeting people, that’s a neighborhood restaurant, and hopefully, we’ll know everybody like we used to,” Morales originally told the Business Journal.
Stay tuned for additional opening updates from Saffire and TomKats Hospitality on its website, Instagram, and Facebook pages.
