Obituary

Jack Arnold (1937-2023)

Jack Arnold was born in a three-room house with no water or electricity, tucked inside the Blue Ridge Parkway outside Asheville, North Carolina. He came into this world on top of the white-enameled kitchen table, a fitting beginning for a man whose life was dedicated to food and service.

On the urging of his mother’s doctor, he attended Vanderbilt University on a scholarship, and made ends meet by working in the old Rand Cafeteria, where he learned the basics of running a restaurant.

A voracious reader who was a fine storyteller himself, Jack always found a way to incorporate his love of literature into everyday life, if only to pluck a turn of phrase he admired and embellish an otherwise mundane story. For journalists trapped in his thrall, it meant an hour of listening and four hours of fact-checking.

In 1983, while working for Lynn Chandler, the owner of Elliston Place Soda Shop and the Sylvan Park Restaurant, Jack purchased one of Chandler’s other properties on 8th Avenue South. That would become Arnold’s Country Kitchen and grow to become one of city’s brightest and most celebrated beacons for southern fare in a city known for meat and threes.

It might have been the best reality show in town, watching his kids grow up behind the steam table while Rose manned the register and Jack carved up heaping helpings of his trademark roast beef. If you were lucky, he might pause the line, lean past the heat lamp and tell you a ribald joke.

Jack’s personality cast a wide net of the city’s who’s who, from musicians and authors like Chet Atkins, Shel Silverstein and Gore Vidal, to local judges and public works employees, often sharing the same table and marveling at his turnip greens. Many would become his treasured fishing buddies, as few people enjoyed being out on the water and wetting a line as much as Jack.

In recent years, the toll of standing and running the restaurant was gifted to his family while Jack retreated to his books and waxing poetic about the state of politics.

Jack Arnold is survived by his wife Rose, 9 children, and a whole mess of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A Graveside Service will be held at Larkspur Conservation at Taylor Hollow, Monday, September 11, 2023 at 11 am . Please arrive 15 minutes prior to service time.