Roy's Meat Service is tucked away near Shelby Park in East Nashville, offers great deals on meat and prepared foods!
A few things to know:
*RMS is open seven days a week selling meat, sundries and breakfast, lunch and dinner fare. Hours are 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sundays. The food selections are available until they run out (and some of the faves do run out.)
*RMS owner Jeff Roy, who knows many of his customers by name, grew up in the Shelby Hills area of East Nashville, and started his meat business career at Nashville Wholesale Meats, where the owner taught him the business.
In 2015, he purchased Rick’s Market and moved his Roy Meat Service there on S. 19th Street, adding meats to the market inventory.
About a year after he set up his RMS shop, a fire damaged the market, and Roy remodeled and enlarged and improved the kitchen so that he could sell the prepared foods. Now he says he sells as much prepared food as he does meats.
*All of the vegetable side dish recipes came from Roy’s mother, Faye Roy, who he says was a wonderful cook. “My wife Christie would be with Mother in the kitchen learning the vegetable recipes and I would be in the yard with Daddy working his smoker,” he said.
*RMS serves biscuits (made every morning by Christie Roy) each morning starting at 7 a.m. “She does sausage biscuits, egg and cheese biscuits and when they are gone, they are gone.” Roy says the biscuits are homemade and “are delicious.”
*Barbecue is king on the daily menu. The barbecue is smoked on site twice a week by Roy with some help from his sons Dylan, Dustin and Zach. The cooking schedule means customers can always get pulled pork, pulled chicken, bologna, ribs and brisket on a plate, on a sandwich, by the pound or in a quesadilla.
*Roy said he and his dad, Teddy Roy, were heavily influenced by the East Nashville style of barbecue which Sam Cantrell made famous at his Cantrell’s barbecue shack on Lischey Avenue.
*Each day, RMS features about seven meats and a long list of side dishes. Prices range from $9.99-$17 for a meat and a couple of sides. The best deal is the meat and veggie combos that are $9.99 and are served with two sides, The most expensive items are the brisket or the ribs which are $8.99 and then you can add sides for $3 or $4 each.
*The RMS kitchen manager for lunch and dinner is Katrina Giles who oversees cooking the vegetables and side dishes (and who clearly loves being part of this team.)
*The outlier on the menu is the quesadilla, which is the same recipe that was served at the now closed Es Fernandos on Gallatin Road in the 1980s. Roy buys the queso from Vicki Chaires, the daughter of Vincente Chaires, the original Es Fernandos owner. Roy says his market sells 30-50 of them every day and they have celebrity status.
“Es Fernandos was Elvis’ favorite stop. He would always stop and get a green chile quesadilla on his way to Col. Tom Parker’s office,” Roy said. “Ours is the same one.”
FYI, the quesadillas are $6.99 each and you could easily make a meal out of one of these cheesy creations. Customers can choose between red (mild beef) or green (spicy pork) and even a mix between the two that Roy recommends. “We also have our pulled BBQ pork or chicken quesadillas that are made here in house.”
*RMS does a lot of catering for groups as small as a dozen guests up to as many as 600. The market also sells a lot of its meats to food truck businesses.
*Roy says lots of customers call in their orders (like ribs or chicken or brisket) to pick up later for a family meal or a get together. Also good to know is there are discounts for first responders.
