Four years after opening next to the MGM Grand Garden Arena with the Jonas Brothers in attendance, Nellie's Southern Kitchen is closing its Las Vegas location.
The Southern comfort food restaurant co-owned by Kevin Jonas Sr. and Denise Jonas, parents of the Jonas Brothers, will serve its last meal on May 25. A May 15 statement from MGM Resorts International confirmed the closure, and a spokesperson for the restaurant offered a statement to PEOPLE explaining the decision.
“We are grateful to our dedicated staff and loyal guests who filled that space with so many unforgettable moments over the years. As our lease approached its expiration, we made a strategic decision about where to focus our long-term efforts,” said Manolis Alpogianis, the restaurant's spokesperson. “We invite everyone to visit our founding location in Belmont, NC, now celebrating a decade of great food and Southern hospitality.”
The language is carefully professional, as these statements tend to be. But the restaurant it is describing is something more personal than a typical celebrity dining venture, and the closure is worth understanding in that context.
A Restaurant Built on an Actual Family Legacy
Nellie's Southern Kitchen was not created to capitalize on Jonas Brothers fame. It existed before the Brothers were performing Las Vegas residencies and before any of their names carried the commercial weight they do now. The original Belmont, North Carolina location opened in 2016. Kevin Sr.'s hometown. His grandmother's recipes.
Kevin Sr. described the origin in terms that make the whole project feel more intimate than most celebrity restaurants ever do. He grew up in his grandparents' house in Belmont, watching his grandmother come home from working at a cotton mill to cook for the family. The food she made became the foundation of what Nellie's would eventually serve.
“My great-grandmother shared her recipes with my grandmother who shared them with my mother who shared them with our chefs,” Kevin Sr. 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.”
That is a specific kind of inheritance. Not a brand concept developed in a boardroom. Actual recipes, protected across generations, handed to professional chefs with explicit instructions to honor them.
The menu reflected it. Nellie's Chicken N' Dumplin's. Fried chicken with macaroni and cheese and collard greens. Dishes that came from a woman who cooked for her family after long shifts in a mill, not from a culinary trend report.
Mario Nichols, the executive chef who ran the Las Vegas location from its opening, described the experience of eating there to PEOPLE in December 2023: “It's just like going to your mother's or your grandmother's. It's plenty of food. There's a lot of love, laughter, and just good times.”
The Las Vegas Opening and the Brothers' Involvement
The 11,000-square-foot Las Vegas location opened on June 4, 2022, inside the District by the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Kevin Sr. and Denise partnered with investment firm TLI Bedrock to make it happen, and the timing was deliberate. The Jonas Brothers were performing Las Vegas residency shows at the time, and the whole family, including youngest brother Franklin, came together to celebrate the opening.
Joe Jonas put the significance of the location into words in the original press release: “We have incredible memories performing at MGM Grand Garden Arena, so to have Nellie's next to it is surreal. Las Vegas has always had a special place in our hearts, and now our connection to the city and its community will be stronger than ever.”
Kevin Sr. had been thinking about a Vegas location for a long time. “I am really proud of our Belmont location and how we have survived through some obviously tough times,” he said. “But the Las Vegas location has been a long time coming. We started talking about Vegas before we even opened in Belmont.”
He set the standard simply: “There is no desire at Nellie's to be pretentious, and there is a requirement to be excellent. I hope critics will love it but I know that the people who visit and eat here will love it.”
Each of the Brothers had their own relationship with the menu. Kevin preferred the sweet end of things, particularly the Crunchy Chicken Tenders breaded with Captain Crunch. Joe gravitated toward the seasonal salad or the molasses glazed salmon. Nick's standing order was the Hawg Hill Sandwich. Franklin, the youngest, went straight for the Chicken N' Gravy.
Music was built into the experience from the beginning. “In the Jonas family, we all encourage music at the table so we have a small stage in Belmont and will have an even bigger stage in Vegas for live performances,” Kevin Sr. said. “We play everything from the Jonas Brothers to The Beatles, so everyone can enjoy it.”
Four Years Later
The Las Vegas chapter ran from June 2022 to May 2026. Four years next to one of Las Vegas's most active concert venues, during a period when the Jonas Brothers were among the most commercially active acts in the country. The lease expiration became the natural exit point, and the family's decision to consolidate around the Belmont location makes a certain kind of sense for a restaurant that was always more about roots than expansion.
The Belmont location is currently marking its tenth year. That is a meaningful milestone for any restaurant and a particularly meaningful one for a family operation built on recipes that predate the restaurant itself by generations.
For fans of the Brothers who visited Nellie's during a Vegas trip or during the residency era, the closure marks the end of something that was tied to a specific and formative chapter of the Jonas family's public life. The food was real. The story behind it was real. The Las Vegas location gave a lot of people a way into that story who might never have made it to North Carolina.
The Belmont, North Carolina location of Nellie's Southern Kitchen is open and currently celebrating its tenth anniversary. Last service at the Las Vegas location is May 25. For updates on the restaurant and the Jonas family's future plans, follow Nellie's Southern Kitchen on their official social channels.
