Kevin A. Roberts
“The Mississippi River saved my life,” confesses Travis Parfait, who grew up in Louisiana on the river’s delta. The Cajun-born chef was disenchanted with his life and career and credits St. Louisan Pam Melton and her relationship with the river, for reviving both. In 2013 they opened Sister Cities Cajun & BBQ in South City. After their building was hit by a car—twice—they switched gears. A new Sister Cities opens at a different address (3550 S. Broadway) in May.
How did you two meet?
PM: Travis had a passion for food, which we talked about across the bar at Quincy Street Bistro here I worked. He asked me out repeatedly for four months until I finally said yes.
TP: [Smiling.] A thousand no’s and one yes still counts as a yes.
Whose idea was it to start a restaurant of your own?
TP: We both ended up working at Southtown Pub, where I became the pitmaster, under Jamie Brust, who happens to be a culinary rock star. My confit pork steaks are a version of what I learned from him. [Laughing.] At that point, I had truly assimilated to St. Louis. So the Cajun and BBQ concept wasn’t contrived; it was a natural progression. When the South Grand location presented itself to us, we thought we’d put a smoky spin on Cajun food.
PM: We’re big believers in sharing, too, so Sister Cities Cajun & BBQ seemed appropriate. I know that people in the city understand that. I got better tips in South City than when I worked in the county.
So combining the two was a smart move.
TP: Even if you like Cajun, you don’t want it every day of the week. Same goes for smoked meats and barbecue. Couples and families are constantly discussing where to eat. If a restaurant can get on their radar twice as often, that’s a good thing. I never wanted to be a one-trick pony.
Do you both contribute to the menu?
TP: I had never found the missing piece of my puzzle, and Pam was it. If I’m the chef, Pam’s the chef de cuisine. I wanted to put a breakfast burrito on the menu because kitchen guys love them—you can dive bomb it, wash your hands, and get right back to work. After taking a Facebook poll, Pam convinced me to do a slinger instead, and that’s how our Cajun slinger was born, using gumbo instead of chili over sweet potato smoked meat hash, which began as a combination of what I had on hand that day.
Just like they do in Cajun country.
TP: Exactly. All the comfort food I grew up with revolved around that one-pot philosophy.
All gumbos are a little different, and yours is no exception.
PM: A large number of our customers don’t eat pork, but we wanted them to still be able to enjoy our gumbo. We found a chicken sausage at G&W [Sausage Co.] that tasted as good as pork andouille, it was a local product, and may be the reason that gumbo became a signature item.
TP: Where I came from, there was no meat in gumbo, just seafood. But that’s another story.
Where did you grow up?
TP: Thirty miles south of New Orleans, in Dulac, where people ate far differently than people who lived in and visited New Orleans. Dulac’s as country as it gets. I never even knew what barbecue was until I got up here. Down there, people do seafood boils. When people raised pigs, we’d see an occasional pig roast, but that was it. The best food in Dulac comes out of little shacks. We’ve been trying to recreate this tempura-like fried chicken and pickle kabob from there and still haven’t been able to do it.
Pam, did you have a background in food before you met Travis?
PM: My mom started out at Old Mexico and then The Stratford House. When I was 7 or 8, we moved to Hillsboro, where she owed Raintree Golf Course & Country Club. She threw parties and luaus with firebreathers. The Cardinal players would show up, soap-opera actors—it was quite the place back in the day. I grew up with all that as the backdrop. When we opened Sister Cities, my mom insisted on making our beignets. Her recipe is two pages long. Beignets are not an easy thing to make.
What was the biggest surprise with the restaurant on South Grand?
PM: The time we thought we’d spend running the restaurant was doubled. I slept between shifts in a sleeping bag in the side room. And seeing a constant line across the street at Ted Drewes was humbling, because no one knew about us and we couldn’t afford to advertise. When I told my mom, who had been in the business, that I was opening a restaurant, she said to ‘have a baby instead… It’s easier, cheaper, and less time-consuming.’ A restaurant can kill someone weak; we were lucky that this one made our relationship stronger.
Talk about when that car hit your building and shut you down.
TP: One car hit the building in January, and three months later another car hit it, which was horrible but fortuitous. We stayed open through the first one, despite broken windows and broken doors and tarps on the transoms from where a utility pole had crashed through. The heating bill was high, and then it was the AC bill.
PM: Not only was the building in bad shape, but the location was difficult. One Friday night, all the meat was stolen off our smoker behind the restaurant, leaving basically a vertical flamethrower. We had to fight a fire and then explain to people why we had so little for them to eat that night.
Then what happened?
PM: We were stuck with fixed costs whether the doors were open or not and were rebuilding a building that wasn’t ours. We knew we had to move on, and that’s when we thought about doing something unorthodox, like a popup. Melt on Cherokee wasn’t open at night, and the owners were amenable to such an arrangement, so I proposed that we’d sell our food for us and their booze for them. At the time, we didn’t know they were on their way out, so we ended up taking over the lease until it expired, which kept our brand alive while we were looking for a new space.
What’s been your biggest success and biggest disappointment?
PM: We were amazed that we could get people to look past broken windows, faulty electric, and a dining room that was either too hot or too cold and keep coming back. We were grateful, but embarrassed. The biggest disappointment was that we were never consistently able to give customers the complete experience in a comfortable atmosphere.
You have an interesting way of telling a customer you’re out of something.
PM: A chef or owner doesn’t ever want to have to do that, but I am good at knowing what people want. It’s possible to steer people without letting them know.
TP: People in the county like crab cakes and mussels; people in our neighborhood like nachos. You’ve enriched the experience for both and neither party ever knew you were out of wings.
The new location was supposed to open last August. What caused the delay?
TP: The building had been vacant for eight years, for starters. Then, one of the main walls collapsed which ended up costing the owner more than he originally paid for the building. On a positive note, we found a safe downstairs and are planning a safe cracking party.
PM: The idea is to sell raffle tickets and the winner gets the contents…no matter how valuable or sordid.
TP: Maybe Geraldo [Rivera] will stop by.
Describe the layout of the new place.
TP: There are 120 seats. There’ll be a deck and patio bar in back, plus an urban farm, as well as a dog park. How many restaurants can claim all that? It’ll take us a little time to complete, but what we’d like to do is create a new public house.
What decorations are on the walls?
TP: There’s a Ouija board made from the building’s recycled wood. A collection of ceramic tiles from the New Orleans Jazz Fest. Three stained glass panels depicting a cowboy riding a crawfish.
PM: And a tribute to my nephew, who’s the highest scorer in the NAHL, and happens to play in Shreveport…for the Mudbugs.
What changes have you made to the menu?
TP: I’ve added a vegetarian stir-fry using steamed, chunked cauliflower as the starch. The char and caramelization is incredible. I’ve also tinkered with pizza crusts made from cauliflower and people have gone crazy over them.
You cook wings differently than most.
TP: Chicken is largely a canvas. My dry rub has aromatics in it—like thyme and sage, the backdrop spices in Cajun food. Nobody does that. We use a large wing, one that’s less apt to dry out, smoke it and finish it in a high heat convection oven with more of the rub.
Will you offer a pork steak?
TP: Only as a special, because those sales are uneven. Strangely enough, we have had people complain that ours were too tender, due to the cooking technique: smoked for about an hour, then sealed in film and foil, and cooked the rest of the way in the smoker at 180 degrees. The rendered fat has nowhere to go but back into the meat.
What makes for a proper gumbo?
TP: It starts with a dark roux, using oil not butter. Preferably oil that’s been used to fry chicken—oil with character. That’s a Cajun trick. And it ends with the taster unable to identify every ingredient. It’s what a stew or chili want to be.
PM: Good gumbo tends to be the gumbo of your youth. I like okra as an ingredient and as a thickener, for example. Other folks think that is a crime.
Want to share any gumbo secrets?
TP: I use a combination of seafood stock and vegetable stock. And I use both clams and clam juice, which is not common, but it adds so much flavor.
PM: Without them, his gumbo’s not the same; adding them makes it competition-worthy.
Why no shrimp and grits? It’s a New Orleans staple.
Grits is what mama [mah-MAH, as in grandma] cooked when she wasn’t feeling well. We do a grit cake with shrimp instead, which is far more interesting.
What’s the best sandwich on the menu?
TP: We get the most compliments on the Cuban. The homemade pickles are key component as is the Goose Poop, a locally-made, sweet-hot relish that sets that sandwich apart.
And then there’s “the best fish tacos I've ever had."
PM: I coined that phrase for Travis’ blackened tacos. Shameless, I know.
TP: I was dredging catfish fillets in butter, then seasoning, then into a hot dry skillet. Using butter as the dredge is key. No other butter or oil is necessary. It’s a lost technique that produces textbook results. Redfish is the blackening fish of choice and the ban on it was just lifted, so they should be even better than they were before. I’m covering the charbroiler with cast iron skillets and using it as a blackening station. The problem with blackening is that it’s hard keeping enough skillets hot so chefs rush the process and the product often suffers.
Is it true that you don’t like fish tacos?
TP: Not personally, but Sister Cities became famous for them, so we’ve added some non-fish versions, a steak chimichurri and a blackened zucchini taco with corn and poblano salsa, which will be the one people will be talking about.
Side dishes in places like yours seem to be getting more bold and experimental. Good idea or bad?
PM: Good. Side dishes like pasta gratinee, polenta fries, and grit tots are a big reason why Travis and I eat out.
TP: Our classic sides are not classically made. The Cajun slaw dressing is cut with yogurt, so it’s not too heavy and I grind my own meat for the dirty rice. If you don’t exercise some poetic license, there’s no individuality.
On the beverage side, your Hurricane Kennedy cocktail is unique.
PM: I blend fresh-squeezed juices and muddled berries with three kinds of rum…and a touch of Irish whiskey, for my mom whose name is Kennedy. The sangrias are unusual, too. I put tequila in one of them and it totally works.
TP: Our sangrias are a far cry from the lame ones made with corked red wine and fruit cocktail.
Your sodas are different, too.
PM: We use real sugar sodas from Excel but also have a lo-cal bottled product that’s sweetened with sugar and Stevia, in unusual flavors like black cherry tarragon and orange hibiscus.
Do you operate your business according to any sort of mantra?
TP: Volume trumps cost. Twenty percent of $100 dollars is good, but 10 percent of $500 is better. So many people in the business have trouble thinking that way.
PM: Our wings are a high-cost item at the price we sell them, but the additional volume they generate is insane. Same goes for the nachos. Having a loss leader or two in a restaurant is not a bad thing.
Talk about the counter-service menu at lunch.
PM: We want a fast-casual option for customers who don’t have the time to sit down and eat. We have our own currency online that you can buy and pay with. You can use OPER to order and pay from your desk. The menu is four kinds of po’boys, all for one price, that are ready in a hurry.
People familiar with Sister Cities always mention a guy named J.J. Did he stay on?
TP: Pam often talks about how we were reaching our limit, and she asked a higher power for intervention. J.J., who lived in the neighborhood and would visit on occasion, was looking sullen one day, and Pam asked him if he wanted to make some extra money. He began washing dishes and ended up running the whole house from a power server position. Asking Sister Cities to exist without him is like asking the sun not to shine.
What’s the deal with the staff’s T-shirts?
PM: We thought it would be fun to put some of our favorite customer comments on the back, like “Sister Cities: home of the loneliest salt and pepper shakers.”
Have you planned any chef collaborations?
TP: I really want to do a chef “pro-am” dinner event, where an aspiring chef takes his best dish and teams up with a pro chef to make it a dinner event. It propagates the culture and gives some newbies a chance to shine.
What most impresses you about the chef culture in St. Louis?
PM: The camaraderie. I truly believe it’s unprecedented. Chefs here want other chefs to succeed. It’s not about competition; it’s about relevance.
What's one thing your customers should know about you?
TP: We’re stormy, passionate people. Crescendo is my favorite thing in the world. I love it in music, in nature, in human interaction, and I try to recreate it in food through boldness and intensity. But often when I get focused, people think I am angry, which is simply not the case.
Will living upstairs from your business be a good thing?
PM: We’ll actually be living upstairs from two businesses: the restaurant and the second floor, which we plan to rent out as an Airbnb.
TP: We realize that the whole paradigm of consumerism is shifting. Living upstairs will allow us to invest wholly in this place. We plan to purchase the building after a term.
What do you do to relax?
PM: Ever since I was 13, my mom has lived on a boat at the river confluence. Instead of hopping on a bike after school, my friends and I would hop on Waverunners. The water up there is clean and clear and the beaches on the river islands near St. Charles are beautiful — a lot of it is made by the dredgers but you’d never know the difference. It’s the best-kept secret in St. Louis. The lifestyle rubbed off on me first, and then on Travis. We own a boat up there and go on sunset cruises, hang out on the beach, ride Waverunners... That river—the one that joins the Sister Cities—is what keeps us sane.
It’s really had a profound effect on you both.
TP: The Mississippi River saved my life. I'd lost faith and faith in my craft.
PM: What I saw was a dried-up man with a lot of talent that I thought needed to be rehydrated.
TP: We went out to the river and with Pam’s help it rekindled me.
PM: The river saves a lot of lives that way.
