MATT SNOW FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Not unexpected from the founder of a family-style Southern restaurant, except for one thing. King was raised in the small Central Massachusetts village of Otter River before relocating to the Tennessee capital 29 years ago. When he opened his first Monell’s location in the city’s historic Germantown neighborhood on Thanksgiving Day 1995, just a stone’s throw from Music Row, the thought of a Northerner making traditional Southern comfort food struck even King as strange. “Can you believe it? A Yankee cooking fried chicken,” says King, 48. “Go figure.”