Twenty years on Main Street, told by the people who lived it
In 2006, Jason McConnell signed a lease on Main Street before Franklin was the dining town it is today. Plenty of people told him not to. Twenty years later, Red Pony is still here, and the reason has always been the people inside it.
Hosts who became directors. Servers who met their spouses on the floor. Cooks who went on to run kitchens of their own. Parents and kids clocking in under the same roof. Together they've carried this restaurant through a pandemic, a fire, and a return home, with regulars checking in on them every step of the way.
We asked a few of them to tell us how it started. Here's what they had to say.
A Place to Call Home: Adam Beck
Adam Beck started at Red Pony in 2013 as a server, and 13 years later, he’s the sous chef.
Adam raised all three of his children while working at Red Pony, watching them go from little kids to grown adults. Both of his sons eventually worked for the company during high school, and his wife worked here when they were young.
“I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs in life, and this place has always been right up by my side the entire journey,” he says.
When Adam needed time for his family, particularly as his kids finished high school and moved into college, the restaurant gave him room to be there for them.
All the while, Red Pony was growing, too. Adam remembers weeknights when the restaurant might serve 35 guests. Today, he says, fewer than 100 in a night would be unusual. The challenge has been figuring out how to serve that many people in the same space while maintaining the same close-knit team spirit that existed when he started.
Adam says the leadership team knows his children’s names, his wife’s name.
“I just don’t think that’s normal for some places,” he says.
It has also given Adam room to grow in the kitchen, try new things, and help other people find their footing along the way. He says he has only had three jobs in his adult life and has little interest in searching for another kitchen.
So when he was asked to describe Red Pony in one word, it came quickly.
“Home.”
A Temporary Job That Stuck: Sharon Davis
Sharon Davis assumed her job at Red Pony would be temporary when she started in 2008.
“And now it’s been, what, 17, 18 years?” she laughs. Sharon is currently the director of operations for McConnell Hospitality Group.
Over the years, Sharon moved from the front door into leadership. For her, managing people is all about figuring out what someone is good at and advocating for them when they need it.
As she puts it, “putting people in positions where they can really shine.”
Red Pony shaped every facet of Sharon’s life. The boyfriend who helped get her the job became her husband, and the restaurant played a big part in their love story. They fell in love while working at Red Pony, held their wedding reception at McConnell House, and celebrated family milestones throughout the restaurant group over the years.
Nearly 18 years later, Sharon has watched Red Pony change, survive hard seasons like a structure fire in 2021, and grow alongside a booming Franklin. Through it all, she says the relationship between the restaurant, its staff, and its longtime guests has remained a shining example of excellence.
“The regulars show up with flowers and letters for people when they’ve gotten married or they go through things,” she says.
When asked to describe Red Pony in one word, Sharon chose “intentional.”
“There is deliberate thought that goes into everything,” she says. “And I’m really proud of that.”
From Behind the Bar to the Spirits Industry: Roland Price
Roland Price started at Red Pony in 2012 as a server, then quickly moved behind the bar and eventually became the bar manager. Today, he works for Proximo Spirits, overseeing the tequila and whiskey sales.
Roland remembers arriving at Red Pony with an immediate feeling that this was different than anywhere else he’d worked.
“It felt like the restaurant I’d been waiting to work for,” he says.
He credits Jason McConnell with creating a culture of mentorship that encouraged employees to grow… even if that growth eventually took them somewhere else.
Roland describes Jason’s philosophy as, “I want you to leave better than how we found you.”
That eventually happened quite literally.
While working at Red Pony, he traveled to Mexico with the restaurant team to select a tequila barrel for the restaurants, and that later helped him land a job with Patron.
“That actually would never have happened either if I hadn’t worked for Pony,” he says.
Roland traces much of his confidence and direction back to those years behind the bar in Franklin.
“It changed my life,” he says. “I will forever be grateful for the years at Red Pony because it gave me the courage and the vision to do what I’m doing now.”
Culture First: Kenji Ichikawa
Kenji Ichikawa started at Red Pony as a server. Today he owns his very own restaurant just up the road: Soy Bistro in Brentwood.
Long before he opened a restaurant of his own, he already knew that was where he hoped his career would take him. But at the time, he assumed building a successful restaurant started with the food first.
“The food’s got to be the hit,” he remembers thinking.
But Red Pony and Jason McConnell’s leadership changed that. Kenji quickly noticed how much attention was paid to the people working inside the restaurant.
“I think by the time I left, the priority list was: culture, food, aesthetic,” he says.
Kenji also watched how Jason led the team. Rather than constantly looking over someone’s shoulder, he says Jason gave employees structure, listened, and ultimately trusted them to do their jobs.
“I’ve learned to be patient. I’ve learned to listen,” Kenji says. “For me, being an owner, it’s helped tremendously.”
Learning how to run a successful restaurant was far from the only impact Red Pony had on Kenji.
Three folks he met through Red Pony stood beside him as best men at his wedding. Now they all have children, but when they get together, conversations still tend to find their way back to the restaurant.
From Host Stand to CPA: Emily Benavides
Emily Benavides started at Red Pony in 2011 as a hostess. She was just beginning college and had no idea yet what she wanted to do for a living. But that uncertainty completely changed during a conversation she had at the host stand.
“I was trying to come up with a major that I needed to declare for,” Emily remembers. Josh, one of the servers at the time, suggested she was good at math. Lean into it.
“But I don’t want to go into physics or engineering or anything like that,” she rebuttled.
Try accounting, he said.
“And that’s literally how it all started, was here with my career,” Emily says.
Soon, the restaurant managers offered Emily extra hours in the office, where she learned to run checks, work in QuickBooks, and get her first introduction to the work she would eventually build a career around.
“I feel like a lot of managers wouldn’t give that kind of leeway or that trust to come in off hours and work the books,” she says.
Red Pony was Emily’s first real job, and it pushed her in other ways, too. A naturally quiet, reserved kid, she learned to project her voice, handle conflict, and manage plenty of strong personalities.
Today, Emily is a CPA and accountant.
Back Where He Started: Chris Weber
Chris Weber was part of Red Pony’s opening crew in 2006. At 24, he helped put the tables together, figure out the layout, and build the bar while the restaurant was springing to life.
“I had no clue how that was going to impact me when I got older,” Chris says.
He spent the next two decades in the restaurant business, eventually opening his own restaurants. When those restaurants closed in 2024, his life felt upended.
And then Jason called.
“He asked if I wanted to come back,” Chris says emotionally. “Jason helped me get back on my feet. And I’m forever grateful for that.”
He returned to Red Pony in November 2024, nearly 20 years after helping open it, and stepped behind the bar again.
Walking through the back door was strange at first… the restaurant had changed over the years, but much of what he remembered had not.
“The culture that he had built back in ’06 was still here,” Chris says.
After a week or so, Chris says, he settled back in “like a puzzle piece.”
Even some of the guests were familiar. Regulars Chris served in 2006 were still sitting at the bar when he returned, often now joined by their children. In another 20 years, he hopes to see his regulars joined by yet another generation.
Coming Full Circle: Chris Capaldi
Chris Capaldi knew Red Pony long before he worked there. A Franklin native who had been in the restaurant industry since he was 16, he bartended at one of the few late-night industry spots in town when Red Pony opened in 2006.
Chris had worked for larger restaurant companies before, where he says it was easy to feel like “just a number.” He wanted something different.
When Jason McConnell began putting together the team for Cork & Cow in 2012, friends from Red Pony encouraged Chris to meet with him. He came on to run the bar, built the restaurant’s cocktail and wine program, and two years later became beverage director for Red Pony, 55 South, and Cork & Cow.
Fourteen years later, Chris is still with McConnell Hospitality Group.
“The job has always challenged me to grow, both professionally and personally,” he says.
His role has taken him around the country and overseas, working with people throughout the wine and spirits industry and bringing those experiences back to Franklin.
But when Chris talks about why he has stayed, his career accomplishments aren’t what moves him.
His son does.
“My teenage son now works here at Red Pony,” Chris says. “He was five years old when I started working for this company.”
When asked to describe Red Pony in one word, Chris first said “family.”
Then he thought about it again.
“Opportunity.”
Setting the Bar: Brandon Crosby
Brandon Crosby started at Red Pony in 2006 as a line cook on sauté, where he learned the ropes of the culinary industry. Today, he and his wife own Chupper Time Catering in Huntsville, Alabama.
More than anything, he remembers Jason McConnell being patient while he found his footing in the kitchen.
“Jason really set a bar really high for us, and he gave us the opportunity to succeed or fail,” Brandon says.
At the time, confidence in the kitchen didn’t come naturally to him, but over time he followed Jason’s leadership mantra that expected greatness, but gave the team plenty of room to step up and grow their own skills.
The relationship extended beyond the kitchen, too. Jason would ask Brandon to watch his dogs while he was out of town, let him stay at the house, and invited him to swim in the pool. With Brandon’s own older brother living in Chicago, Jason started to fill some of that space.
“He kind of brought me in as like a little brother,” Brandon says.
These days, Brandon and his wife own Chupper Time Catering in Huntsville, Alabama, but lessons from those early years in Franklin still follow him into his own kitchen. The one that stands above the rest: never get too comfortable with what you’re putting out.
“Jason kind of instilled in us as young chefs and aspiring chefs to never be satisfied with your product,” Brandon says.
He and his wife have carried that same mentality into their own business, always looking for a way to make the next event, dish, or service better than the last.
And there was another lesson Brandon picked up at Red Pony, one he can sum up in five words.
“Be kind to your employees.”
Growing Up at Red Pony: Aaron Sura
In high school, Aaron Sura saw someone wearing a cheeky T-shirt. It said: “A restaurant, not a strip club.” It was a memorable tagline, a funny piece of merchandise, that would go on to change his life.
A few years later, fresh out of high school and looking for a job, he recalled that shirt and dropped off an application at Red Pony. He was hired as a server assistant in 2009.
“I think the nicest restaurant I had ever been to was probably like a Red Lobster,” he laughs.
He quickly got up to speed on how to properly present a bottle of wine (bartenders would let him practice with house wine), what spirits lived behind the bar, and what ingredients made up the dishes on the rotating menu. With a head scratch and a smile, he admits he had only ever seen tuna in a can before seeing it served as a steak. Eventually, he worked his way up to a server at the restaurant.
Looking back now, he notes that Red Pony saw him transition from a high school kid into a grown-up.
Growing up in a restaurant also means collecting a few war stories. There were nights when the lights went out during service, credit card machines stopped working, or the restaurant filled with smoke. New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day shifts could leave the team feeling, as Aaron puts it, “like we just survived something.”
But those long, hardworking nights built friendships that lasted well beyond closing time, and for Aaron, would ultimately change his life. Aaron met his wife, Jasmine, through another server, who invited them both to a birthday party. In 2026, Aaron and Jasmine welcomed twins.
Although he was long off the serving rotation, friends he met through the restaurant showed up with gifts and helped with the babies after they were born.
When asked to describe Red Pony in one word, Aaron landed on “love.”
“Love for food, love for cocktails, love for people, love for work.”