The Jonas Brothers’ Parents Share Their Food Traditions, Including Joe's Favorite Meal

Kevin, Joe, and Nick’s parents welcomed Food & Wine into their restaurant Nellie’s Southern Kitchen like family.

When the Jonas Brothers were growing up, however hectic their days got, there was always one priority: family meals, twice a day.

“We shared breakfast and dinner every day,” the boys’ father, Kevin Jonas Sr., told Food & Wine, of raising Kevin, now 36, Joe, 34, Nick, 31, as well as younger son Franklin, 23, with wife Denise, who he credits with instilling the tradition. “We would share stories of the day, go through what was coming the next day, and dream about the future as they were starting out. No matter how busy we were, we had family time around the Jonas table.”

Nowadays, the couple still value family meals, but in a different way, welcoming guests to their restaurant Nellie’s Southern Kitchen, which they opened in Belmont, North Carolina, in 2016. After all, this is like their home kitchen, as the Jonas family roots run deep in the cozy city of about 15,000. Located about 15 miles east of Charlotte, this is where Kevin Sr.’s grandmother, for whom the restaurant is named, passed along her family love through food.

After long days working in the cotton mill, Nellie would come home, peel the lint off her body, slip on her house dress and apron, and start cooking with a smile and a song, as hymns and southern tunes filled the kitchen. “Even though she was exhausted after a 12-hour shift, she’d still put out a spread,” he remembered.

The impressive range of dishes always featured tons of biscuits, served in various ways, with butter, gravy, and jelly. But the two most scrumptious in his memory are the chicken and dumplings and banana pudding, both now on the Nellie’s menu. No matter how shabbily they were presented (many Thanksgiving dinners were served on TV trays watching a football game), what radiated from the food was “love” and ”joy.”  “It seemed like she made them just for me,” he said.

Hailing from an Italian family, Denise shared the Jonas’ passion for good food, especially the green beans and tomatoes, in Nellie and her husband Paul’s garden. “I just couldn’t get over how the flavor was so rich,” she said. “If I could only have one food, it would be those tomatoes because of the way they were tended.”

As the young couple, who met on their first day of college at a Texas bible school, started to build their own life, there were challenging times without much, even struggling to keep a supply of toilet paper in the house. But it did help Denise refine her skills of making meals out of whatever they had. In fact, even as a boy, Nick honed in on his mom’s unique ability, once telling her what he loved about her was that she could “take nothing and make something great.”

While Denise admits she’s now often “intimidated” by the fact that her sons’ success means they have access to private chefs, that hasn’t stopped them from calling home and asking for mom’s recipes, all of which she’s proud to serve on their visits back.

When they return, Joe and Franklin always request Denise’s taco soup, while Kevin loves the way she makes spinach. “It’s not hard, but his wife will call me and ask how he likes it,” she said, revealing all she does is boil fresh spinach and add salt, pepper, olive oil, and some garlic. “It’s simple.”

But one of the “best compliments” she said she’s received recently was from Nick, who told her, “I’ve had chicken soup all over the world, there’s none like yours.”

Continuing the tradition of tables filled with a hearty spread, Denise also will make her boys chili cheese casserole (though she's not a fan of the word since "it seems to downplay your efforts"), as well as Texas sheet cake, angel food cake, rice pudding, lasagna, and a sweet potato dish that's been developed into the Sweet Caroline at Nellie's. One of her husband's favorites is her angel hair pasta with garlic, onions, fresh tomatoes, and broccoli, which is so light that he said it "makes you feel like you ate a salad."

While Denise denies she's a chef — simply a home cook without fear of the kitchen — Kevin Sr.'s culinary skills rank higher in creativity than content, as seen in one infamous incident now referred to as the "meatloaf explosion."

"Afterwards, I gathered the pieces and put them back together and formed it into a football stadium, with broccoli as the people," he admitted. Still, Denise looks fondly at her husband and says, "It was delicious" — just another of their constant compliments to one another that proves family love really does come first.

Now that there are also five granddaughters (Kevin and his wife Danielle have two daughters, Alena, 9, and Valentina, 7; Joe has two daughters with ex Sophie Turner; and Nick and his wife Priyanka Chopra-Jonas have a daughter Malti, almost 2), the proud grandparents are delighting in watching each family start their own traditions. "They parent differently than we parented, and it's interesting to watch," Denise said. "It's fun to see them become us, which they thought they'd never do — it really does tickle!"

But there is one thing that hasn't changed: "Their tables are filled with food and filled with love," Kevin Sr. said. "I'm so, so thankful that that is a reflection of how they were raised — and what we do at Nellie's."

While the star of the show at Nellie's — which opened a second Las Vegas outpost at the MGM Grand in 2022 — is good ol' southern home cooking, there are subtle nods to the Jonas Brothers' global success, including a hallway filled with their achievements that somehow feels more like proud parents putting their children's achievements on the fridge, rather than what they really are: Grammy-nominated artists with their own shiny new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Diehard fans will also find a burger named after one of their early songs, "Lovebug." "It didn't achieve chart success, but their career span has made it a fan favorite," Kevin Sr. says. "For many, that's the pivotal, quintessential Jonas Brothers song, which is so dear to the fans — and they'll know the Lovebug Burger means there's love in that burger."

And, of course, there's the biggest question: why did their sons choose to sing about another southern restaurant with their recent hit, "Waffle House." "It's not about Waffle House necessarily," Kevin Sr. says. "It's a place you go to talk and share life with heart and good conversations — and we have that all here."

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