The Las Vegas restaurant co-owned by the Jonas Brothers’ parents and inspired by the rock band’s great-grandmother is closing its doors after four years.
Nellie’s Southern Kitchen, the comfort food restaurant that served family recipes, shut down its Las Vegas location at the MGM Grand after service Monday.
“We are grateful to our dedicated staff and loyal guests who filled that space with so many unforgettable moments over the years,” Manolis Alpogianis, a spokesperson for the restaurant, said in a statement to People. “As our lease approached its expiration, we made a strategic decision about where to focus our long-term efforts.”
The mini restaurant chain is co-owned by Nick, Kevin, Joe and Franklin Jonas’ parents Denise and Kevin Jonas Sr. and is named after Kevin Sr.’s late grandmother.
While the Las Vegas Strip location is closed, the restaurant is still up and running in Belmont, North Carolina — Kevin Sr.’s hometown — which is where it first opened in 2016.
Nellie’s 11,000-square-foot Vegas location opened by the MGM Grand Garden Arena in June 2022, while the Jonas Brothers were performing in Las Vegas residency shows at the time.
The mini chain served Southern-inspired dishes from chicken and dumplings to shrimp and grits, according to its menu online. The recipes have been passed down in the famous family for generations
“My great-grandmother shared her recipes with my grandmother who shared them with my mother who shared them with our chefs,” Kevin Sr. previously 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.”
In a press release issued earlier this month, MGM Resorts International said there were no immediate plans to replace the restaurant,
“We invite everyone to visit our founding location in Belmont, NC, now celebrating a decade of great food and Southern hospitality,” the restaurant’s spokesperson said.
The closure comes after another Las Vegas restaurant was revealed to be shutting its doors last week — though Nellie’s Southern Kitchen was much less controversial than the Heart Attack Grill in the Neonopolis shopping center.
After boasting extremely calorific burgers on its menu since 2011, the “world’s most controversial” restaurant closed May 18 after deciding not to renew its long-running lease due to rising costs.
“This decision stems from the reality that major casinos have intentionally priced the average person out of the quintessential American experience of affordable indulgence,” the grill said on its website.
