Opening a restaurant is different than it used to be. In days past, an owner could sneak open the doors and get the kinks out before anyone was the wiser. News of restaurant openings was spread by word of mouth, then juiced up by several professional restaurant reviews (which would occur only after 30 days, the standard still endorsed by the Association of Food Journalists).
Nowadays, there’s no grace period and no time to adjust, as was evidenced at Wednesday’s much-anticipated opening of Southern, the Rick Lewis/Mike Emerson collaboration adjacent to Pappy’s Smokehouse in Midtown.
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It wasn’t a disaster by any means—far from it—but it didn’t go as planned. In an attempt to give the kitchen crew at least a day to get acclimated, the opening was unannounced: “We just wanted to ease the doors open,” confessed Emerson (right).
Lewis, no stranger to the restaurant business, felt he had cooked off enough chicken to handle any initial onslaught. It didn’t work out that way.
“Several of the first people in line got multiple orders, one guy got 10,” Lewis said. “So much for getting ahead….we spent the rest of the day playing catch up.” It’s a common problem: instead of placing a large order in advance, customers just show up and drop the bomb in person. (This is one of the reasons Tim Hortons had such a crazy first few days.)
Social media is partly to blame. “Once the doors open, the whole world knows about it within 15 minutes,” Emerson quipped. “The line went from zero to long almost immediately.” Emerson looked at it philosophically: “It was social media that caused the line,” but also social media—with people constantly checking things on their phones—that keeps waiting in line tolerable.”
The other thing that makes a Pappy’s restaurant family line different is the staff’s direct involvement with it: even on day one, Lewis (right) was meeting and greeting customers with a taste of his soon-to-be-legendary collard greens and his mac n’ cheese, an authentic Southern-style version that’s baked, more like a casserole, and not “super creamy and gloppy.”
Besides the chicken (which we understand holds its crunch even when served cold), the early hits are The Gobbler, a Thanksgiving-esque sandwich with smoked turkey, “dressin’,” seasonal jam, greens, and an onion/herb mayo; and Lewis’ Hoppin’ John. “I knew we were on to something when one customer said he’d like ‘a gallon of this, please,’” Emerson said, “and I was pretty sure the guy was serious.”
Southern is starting off with limited hours, open Wed – Sun from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. “Running one shift and one crew will keep us smooth-running and consistent,” Emerson said, before adding, “it’s always better to start slow and add hours than to have to subtract them.”
We feel safe in saying there’s not going to be any subtraction in Southern’s future.
