STOW — You might call Jordan and Reanna “Nan” Mackey accidental restaurateurs, except he had plenty of professional kitchen experience before they opened Nan’s Kitchen & Market here. What they didn’t have was any idea how an entirely takeout menu would do in the area. A restaurant without seats.
The Mackeys thought the concept was perfect for a pandemic. The investors did not, he says, but agreed to go along. “I said to the investors, ‘This is not about you anymore. If I win, you win.’ “
It seems like they are all winning. Mackey calls Nan’s “a Boston Market for Generation Z,” because you can stop by on the way home and get your entire dinner for a variety of tastes and preferences.
Nan’s is so busy that no one could have imagined this. Customers stop by starting at 7 a.m. for a breakfast sandwich and other early-morning classics. Groups come at lunch and use one of the picnic tables on the property or dine al fresco on the grass somewhere on the 2-plus acres. They pull in on their way home from work and sports games. Customers order in advance online (you can order in person, but you’ll have a wait). The idea here is that you can get a grain bowl with a large selection of toppings and dressings, Nan’s now-famous fried chicken, which is made to order (it requires a two-hour lead time), an exceptional fried chicken sandwich, fresh biscuits, and a number of seasonal drinks, iced teas, and other sandwiches. There are plenty of choices for vegetarians and vegans, and family-sized orders of fried chicken every which way.
The market area carries cookbooks and products from local vendors. An organic and biodynamic wine area is large, with most white wines in a cooler, chilled, and ready for dinner (alas, no wine is allowed if you picnic on the grounds).
On weekends, Jordan Mackey or his dad, Joe, become parking attendants and manage the lot because it’s so crowded.
In 2020, the couple found the real estate on Route 117 where Nan’s now sits. It was once Stowaway Inn and was being rebuilt as a gift shop and cafe. “The entire community had been driving by it during construction,” says Jordan Mackey. Then suddenly it was for sale.
He and his wife had a business plan to open a fried chicken restaurant, but it was sitting on a shelf while he ran 29 Rustic Mediterranean in Sudbury (a redo of 29 Sudbury). It opened and closed within a year. Now the duo have reopened the Sudbury location as Sobre Mesa, and they have a second Nan’s location in Southborough.
Mackey had worked for the Dig restaurant group, a mostly vegetarian fast-food outfit. He opened more than a dozen Dig locations in New York and now at Nan’s uses a similar lean-protein bowl concept.
For instance, you can order a coriander and Aleppo-pepper scented chicken shawarma bowl on greens (or grains) with grilled broccoli, spicy kale, and a harissa vinaigrette. That dressing might be zhoug, the Middle Eastern spicy cilantro sauce, Greek tzatziki, with a yogurt base, garlic tahini, or pesto.
Grains, or the hefty part of the bowls, might begin with brown rice, farro, “black bean business” (with rainbow quinoa and sumac-cured lemons) or kale. Salads include beets with apples, spring roots, Green Goddess cucumbers, potatoes and beans, shaved cauliflower, spicy green beans, ratatouille, and sweet potatoes.
And that fried chicken: It never sits under a heat lamp, so it’s deliciously crunchy with juicy meat and bones you feel like crunching. In a perfect sandwich on a brioche bun, Nan’s Original Fried Chicken Sammie is spread with Calabrian chile mayo with a cabbage, broccoli, and kale slaw tucked inside.
The big square biscuits are buttery and flaky and the sweet tea, made with MEM Irish breakfast (superb choice for this) isn’t too sweet.
Much of the produce comes from neighboring farms. By mid-summer, says Mackey, it will all be local.
A kitchen that can produce food this good needs to pay a little more attention to desserts. Massachusetts Mud Pie with Oreos is a great idea but tastes packaged. Same with Southern Banana Pudding with vanilla wafers. Chocolate chunk cookies, hardly a cut above slice-and-bake, might be improved slightly by a longer baking time.
Nan packs our order, which is ready long after we’ve settled into a picnic table, with heaps of cookies and says several times that she regrets the delay.
One day a woman picking up an order was kept waiting, Mackey tells me, and when Nan apologized (with cookies) the woman told her not to worry. “You’re feeding our family for a tiny bit more than we could do it ourselves,” said the customer, “and you’re giving us our time back.”
“Spend more time with your kids,” advises Mackey, a dad of two. “Get out the board games.”
271 Great Road (Route 117), Stow, www.nansmarket.com. Sandwiches $9.95-$11.95; grain bowls $13.95-$15.95; 5-10 piece fried chicken $14.95-$29.95.
Sheryl Julian can be reached at sheryl.julian@globe.com.