Randy Rayburn, beloved Nashville restaurateur and owner of Midtown Cafe, dies at 74

Randy Rayburn, the godfather of Nashville's restaurant scene whose eateries like Sunset Grill and Midtown Café became go-to destinations for the city's residents and power brokers alike, has died. He was 74.

His death was confirmed by his longtime friend and business partner Rick Sanjek on Thursday evening. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Rayburn took over the popular Midtown Café in 1997, 10 years after it opened, following his success with Sunset Grill, which he opened in 1990 in Hillsboro Village and closed in 2015. He is also known for Cabana, which he started in 2005

A well-known and beloved figure in town , Rayburn could often be found at Midtown Café discussing local news and happenings with friends.

The restaurant remains open, said spokesperson Tiffany Buchen.

“Randy's dream was to provide continued support for this community and his sons through the legacy of Midtown Café,” Buchen said. “They are here and will remain here. They have employees who have worked at the restaurant for over 25 years and will continue to celebrate and share this legacy and community for many more years to come.”

Jim Myers, former food reporter at The Tennessean, worked alongside Rayburn and Tony Giarratana on the restoration of Elliston Place Soda Shop.

“Randy was the OG of the Nashville restaurant scene,” Myers said. “Starting in the late '80s and around 1990, (Rayburn) defined what was the modern restaurant scene in Nashville.”

Myers called Rayburn “uncompromising” and said that he cared deeply about the meaning of true southern hospitality.

“Randy was larger than life, … he had this big personality,” Myers said. “If you went to one of his restaurants, Sunset Grill, Midtown (Café), Tavern on the Road, all of these different places, you always hope that he was there, because it made the experience better.”

Randy Rayburn started in politics

Rayburn was raised on a farm in Milan, Tennessee. He came to Nashville in 1971 after graduating from UT-Knoxville and began working for former state Sen. Jim Roberson from East Nashville. In the world of politics, he managed campaigns and acted as a press secretary, drawing from past writing experience on columns for local alt-weeklies, he told The Tennessean earlier this year.

After fundraising for U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas in the mid-1970s, he grew tired of the work and joined a roommate at his job in a downtown Nashville restaurant.

"I enjoyed it," Rayburn said in a previous Tennessean interview. "I'd never worked in a restaurant before, but I worked in a grocery store and grew up on a farm. I found it ultimately refreshing because it was non-adversarial."

By the late 1990s, he had left politics for the hospitality world full-time.

"I fell in love with the restaurant business because it was about making people happy," he said. "Politics doesn't do that. They trade on fear."

Rayburn's impact on Nashville's dining scene

As a veteran of Nashville’s dining scene, Rayburn inspired multiple generations of chefs and restaurateurs. He dedicated himself to building up the culinary arts program at Nashville State Community College, which was re-named for him in 2011.

Rayburn also formed Music City Hospitality Consulting alongside Bob Bedell and chef Paul Brennan. The consulting group focuses on working with new businesses and independent owners in Nashville.

Rayburn has had a hand in so many local restaurants that one local owner once described him as “peripatetic."

Rayburn had to look the word up: a traveler, or an Aristotelian philosopher.

“And a lot of the staff followed me," he said. "Not all, but the ones I wanted."

Rayburn endeared himself to his employees because he never lost sight of who really made restaurants run: the staff working on the floor and behind the scenes in the kitchen.

“They're the ones that make it work,” he said. “It's just about continuity, because guests love to be acknowledged.”

Rayburn believed that the secret to longevity in the restaurant business is to let employees grow, and to not watch over them too closely. You want consistency in your key players, he said.

“You have to learn to let people grow and make mistakes,” he said. “As long as they're of good heart, OK. If you can't let them grow, if you try to micromanage people, they'll leave — good people.”

It was ultimately the people, from the staff to the customers he met daily in dining rooms, that kept him in the restaurant business so long.

“That’s what I love about the business,” he said. “The unique personalities and the characters that I get to interact with. And I’ve gotten involved in the community because I get tired of bussing tables.”

Midtown Cafe's longevity: Why so many Nashville restaurants fail, while others thrive. Owners speak out

Restaurateur leaves legacy, unfinished work

Most recently, Rayburn was part of an effort with real estate developer Tony Giarratana to bring back Nashville's Rock Block — a Midtown haven for rock-and-roll fans frequented by Rayburn in the 1970s. They reopened Elliston Place Soda Shop in 2020 and were working on plans to bring back the formerly popular bar Gold Rush.

"It's the perfect location, it just needs a renaissance to occur," Rayburn told The Tennessean in February, of Rock Block. "The whole goal is to retain the grit and glory of the original space. I love my decades of misspent youth entertaining myself on the Rock Block.

"It was my favorite place to go after a long day at work," he said. "It became my favorite haunt to meet friends. There were diverse folks of all ages and social strata. It was really a mixing bowl, and that's what was so great about it."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Randy Rayburn, beloved Nashville restaurateur and owner of Midtown Cafe, dies at 74