Category: Food Reviews

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

Ann Barnes: Back in the Ladle

Ann Barnes cooks just about anything for Corinne’s Very Special Catering. (Photos: courtesy Ann Barnes)

Ann Barnes says her sister, Susan Overton, used to ask her every morning, “What are you doing sitting in your blue chair?”

Overton was tired of watching Barnes sitting in the blue chair in the living room and working crossword puzzles.

The only blue her sister probably wanted to see was the bleu cheesesteak sandwich Barnes served at her Just for Lunch restaurant in Chickasaw Oaks.

The words struck home for Barnes, who had been retired from the restaurant and catering business for almost 10 years. Barnes, who felt like “an old racehorse out to pasture,” thought, “Well, hell. That’s what I am doing. Sitting in the blue chair.”

So, she decided to get back to work instead of “sitting here doing nothing.” 

She’s now owner of Corinne’s Very Special Catering, where she makes her signature dishes, including beef Wellington and homemade rolls, as well as new items, including her charcuterie displays and crawfish étouffée. Her business, named after her late mother Corinne Batson, is “a full-time big catering company” that she operates out of Memphis Kitchen Co-Op.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Barnes moved to Memphis in 1967. She began doing cooking jobs “years and years ago in the ’70s for the people who would let me.”

One of them was her next door neighbor, who asked her to make something for a party. Barnes made coquilles Saint Jacques, which she still makes today. Her criteria? The food has to look pretty and taste good. “If it doesn’t look pretty and taste good, I wouldn’t serve it.”

Barnes got the idea to open her first restaurant after Overton opened her Very Special Tea Room in Little Rock, Arkansas. She took the menu items from her sister’s restaurant and opened Just for Lunch at 4730 Poplar in 1981.

One of Overton’s friends, who ate at Just for Lunch, told Overton, “Susan, somebody stole your restaurant. They’re serving your muffins. They’re using your china. Baskets with fresh flowers on the table.” 

“Legally, anybody else would have had to pay something. I had an easy-made blueprint. Tea room chicken salad, ham salad, egg and olive, aspic, rolls, tiny muffins, fancy desserts.”

And, she says, “They evolved into my recipes. But the core menu was my sister’s.”

Her first Just for Lunch restaurant was an immediate success. “We filled up every day. I was so grateful.”

She concurrently ran Just for Lunch Catering.

Barnes moved the Just for Lunch restaurant to 4720 Spottswood Avenue in 1999.

Finally, in 2008, she moved it to 3092 Poplar Avenue. “Right before the housing market collapse, I borrowed a ton of money and moved to Chickasaw Oaks.”

The restaurant at her new location wasn’t exactly like her previous Just for Lunch restaurants. “I kind of expanded it to a little more sophisticated menu. Like we had specials of the day.”

Items included the bleu cheesesteak sandwich, oysters Benedict, and Mediterranean or “lamb” burgers.

She closed the Just for Lunch in Chickasaw Oaks in 2016. “I was tired.”

And she closed her catering business. “Thirty-five years is a long time.”

Barnes catered her first job in about eight years after she got out of the blue chair. She contacted the person in charge of Feast on the Farm, the Agricenter International fundraiser held last August, and said, “I’m a caterer. How do I participate?”

They asked her what she wanted to do. Barnes replied, “Cucumber soup with toasted almonds and cheese biscuits.”

When Barnes was told, “Would it throw you if I told you it was for 600 people?”, she said she had cooked for 4,000 people.

She followed that event with a catering job for the 30th anniversary of The Cadre, which is “such a beautiful old building. Banks had such fabulous lobbies. Now it’s an event center and it has been for 30 years. I’d done one of the first events there. Not the first.”

Whether it’s classic party fare or something unusual such as blackened salmon with apricot glaze or rum cream pie with Myer’s dark rum, Barnes helps customers plan the perfect menu for their occasions.

She makes everything from “upscale wedding/bar and bat mitzvah special occasion food” to “something as small as a family reunion. From soup to nuts. I’d say fried chicken to caviar.”

Barnes is happy to be back. “I want to make people happy with wonderful food. And that’s magical to me. That’s my goal. And I can. And I will.”  

To reach Barnes, call 901-489-7812 or go to corinnesveryspecialcatering.com.

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

Neely’s Interstate Bar-B-Que Shares the Familial Love

May and Ken Neely (Photo: Michael Donahue)

I thought I’d been to all the Neely’s barbecue restaurants, but I was surprised when I recently saw Neely’s Interstate Bar-B-Que at 7209 Winchester Road. 

It’s owned by Ken and May Neely. Ken is one of the sons of the original Neely’s founder, Jim Neely. Ken instantly greeted me when I walked in. I could feel the warmth.

I ordered a barbecue plate with barbecued beans as a side. The barbecue was delicious, and the beans were a pleasant surprise. The taste transported me to nostalgic backyard barbecues. They had a smokiness I’ve never experienced at other barbecue places.

Ken gave me a tour. A painting by Jamond Bullock depicts Jim and Ken with his cousins. Everyone pictured is or has been affiliated with Neely’s barbecue restaurants.

“The first one, of course, is Jim Neely’s Interstate Bar-B-Que,” Ken says. His dad still operates the restaurant at 2265 South Third that he opened in 1980.

Jim had been working in an insurance business in California before he moved back to Memphis and opened a grocery store on Third Street. “My dad found success in selling small sausage sandwiches. Chopped sandwiches that he would do and put into a hot box.” He then bought the adjoining space, which had been a juke joint, and opened the barbecue restaurant. 

Jim was “always a good backyard barbecuer growing up. So, he just always had a knack for a good barbecue.”

Ken and his cousins, all of whom Jim raised, worked at the Third Street location until 1986 when the cousins “wanted to step out on their own and start their brand. And that’s how the Neely’s brand got started.” They all began opening their own Neely’s restaurants over the years. 

Tony and Patrick Neely opened a Neely’s on the corner of Orleans Street and Madison Avenue, which moved to 670 Jefferson Avenue two years later. “The only thing different about that one was the sauce recipe. We make our own sauce recipes. My dad says, ‘I taught them everything they know about barbecuing, but I didn’t teach them everything I know.’ Both of them had to formulate their own slaw and sauce based on what they remember about my mother making the slaw and sauce.”

They later opened a second restaurant on Mount Moriah Road, and Patrick and his former wife, Gina Neely, went on to star in the popular Food Network TV show, Down Home With the Neelys. 

At one point, two Neely’s barbecue restaurants were in the Memphis International Airport. In 2000, Jim opened Jim Neely’s Interstate Bar-B-Que in Southaven, Mississippi. In 2008, Ken and May opened their first restaurant, Ken Neely’s Hickory Bar-B-Que, at 7444 Winchester Road. “I always felt we needed to open up something out in this area, Southeast Shelby County.”

In 2016, they moved to the current location, which had been another Neely’s restaurant, owned by Jim and Tony.

The cooking process is the “common thread” at all the restaurants, Ken says. They cook with the same type of pit, which uses hickory and charcoal. The meat is cooked on a rotisserie, which gives it a smoky taste.

“I do all the cooking. I know how I want my food to come out, so I do all the cooking here,” he says. He’s a “hands-on” cook. “Attention to details. I pay attention to make sure I have ample smoke in my pit for the flavor of the meat.”

The meat is “rightly seasoned,” says Ken, borrowing the phrase popularized by the late Irene Cleaves of Four Way Grill fame. “One thing that I really specialize in doing is rightly seasoning my meat before I even cook it, and letting it marinate. Because that’s part of it. Too much seasoning is going to make it look like it’s burned.”

And those smoky beans? “The beans are made with brown sugar, molasses, and my barbecue sauce. More importantly, I cook them in the pit.”

His barbecued beans are “smoked,” he says. “Same thing for my greens and green beans.” Ken added the green beans about two years ago. “And I am the only location that does greens and green beans.”

All the Neely’s restaurants do barbecued spaghetti, but Ken says, “I’m the only location that does a smoked mac-and-cheese. I put it in the pit and get a little smoke in it.”

Like the other Neely’s restaurants, Ken and May sell the signature “Sock It to Me” cake. “It was originally started by my sister-in-law’s mother in California.”

Putting all the Neely’s restaurants together, Ken says, “We make one big beautiful family.” 

And, Ken says, he sees his customers as part of that family. “I even go out to the table and I refer to them as ‘family.’ When you come here, you’re family.” 

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

Working Out Never Tasted So Good

Richard and Molly McCracken with kids Kaylee and Ryker (Photo by Michael Donahue)

Richard and Molly McCracken are still keeping people in shape — as far as food goes.

The McCrackens are owners of Memphis Kitchen Co-Op at 7946 Fischer Steel Road in Cordova. They also are owners of Amplified Meal Prep: healthy meals that can be purchased online at eatamplified.com and at the co-op’s Memphis Kitchen Co-Op Marketplace.

Amplified Meal Prep has been “going on about seven years now,” Richard says. The idea behind the food is to get people to eat “the Amplified way: maintain weight or weight loss.”

And just to give people a healthy body. “Eating healthy just has so many health benefits. That’s what we do.”

Richard, who was born in Chicago, and Molly, who is from Ohio, were college athletes. Richard went to University of Central Missouri, and Molly went to Morehead State University. “She was a gymnast and cheerleader, and I was a wrestler in college.”

Richard, who does the cooking, began helping in the kitchen when he was “a little kid.” His mom, K.C. Bryant, taught him. “We never bought ‘box’ anything. My mom made everything from scratch. She always needed help, so I would always help her in the kitchen.”

He made sloppy joes and “Heavenly Hamburger” — noodles and marinara with cream cheese and cheddar cheese on it. That’s one of “Mimi’s Meals,” which they carry online and at the market.

Richard continued to cook. “I cooked for all my teammates in college. That was just like meat and carbs. I wasn’t doing anything crazy.”

Being college athletes, he says, they tried to “eat pretty clean.”

Richard met Molly at WellWorX gym, where they both worked at the time. That’s also where Richard and a business partner began their Ultimate Foods business 10 years ago. It was the predecessor to Amplified Meal Prep. “We just wanted to create healthy fast food.”

“Nick’s Barbecue Bowl,” which included barbecued chicken and sweet potatoes, was one of their most popular bowls, he says.

He and Molly began Amplified Meal Prep seven years ago. “That started at my friends’ house. We were making meals for them.”

The co-op, which they opened three years ago in a 6,500 square-foot-building, is for people who don’t have room in their homes to make food in quantity. They now house 60 small businesses, Richard says.  

Their commercial equipment includes eight convection ovens, eight standard ovens, four 10-burner stoves, two flat-top grills, a 30-quart and 60-quart mixer, food processors, a 24-by-14-foot walk-in cooler, a 32-by-7-foot walk-in display cooler, 50 prep tables, 120 storage shelves, and 40 feet of vent hood space. They also added a baker’s rotating rack oven, Richard says. “It’s a super cool oven.”

Recently, the McCrackens have been concentrating on catering. They previously did some catering, including weddings and for some Memphis Grizzlies players. “A little catering stuff here and there, but we never really
have put it out there that we actually
do catering.”

Their catering menu fare isn’t strictly for those who are health-conscious, Richard says. “We do everything. We can do the healthy all the way to deep Southern fried cooking.”

Healthy items would be “the fresh fruit and veggies. More lean cuts of meat and that kind of stuff. Not heavy lasagnas or your pastas with sauces, or anything Alfredo. We’re not going to do anything like that in the healthy catering. We’re going to keep it pretty clean, but still it’s going to be good.”

If someone doesn’t want the emphasis to be on healthy cooking, Richard says, “We can do fried chicken. We can do lasagna, chicken wings, any type of Italian, any type of Asian. Literally anything.”

They recently introduced a brand-new Amplified Meal Prep breakfast menu online and in the
co-op market. “We’ve switched out all the breakfasts. All the breakfasts are brand-new.”

And, he says, “We’ll have a new lunch and dinner menu in the next couple of weeks.”

Other new Amplified Meal Prep dishes included a seared tuna poke bowl. They also are offering new salads, including one with salmon, coconut rice, and mango, and a Santa Fe salad with Southwestern-seasoned chicken over Romaine lettuce, tortilla strips, a chipotle dressing, and tomato.

The “Amp Market Salad” consists of chicken, granola, blueberries, strawberries, and apples with “a tangy vinaigrette dressing.”

And their “Bang Bang” chicken salad is “chicken with our Bang Bang dressing. It’s like a sweet, spicy dressing over chicken with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and other goodies.”

Richard and Molly also are planning to get into shipping. They want to ship their Amplified Meal Prep meals regionally. “We want to ship to the Nashville area, the Atlanta area, and, hopefully, after that we can probably expand a little more.”

They will ship “everything that’s available online. They order and we just pack it up. Put cold packs in and send it to them.” 

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

Crave Sweets Bake Shop

Angela Alexander, Gena Mosely, Lana Hickey, and Morgan Kelly (Photo: Frank Chin)

Crave Sweets Bake Shop owner Lana Hickey provided edible brew — pastries made with beer — to the recent Science of Beer event at the Museum of Science & History (MoSH).

And she joked, “Okay. I’m coming for the trophy this year.”

MoSH special events coordinator John Mullikin told her Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken came in number one at the event’s best food category for the past two years.

But not this year. Crave Sweets took the first place spot at the January 12th event.

“We did chocolate stout cake with rum butter cream and butterscotch beer brownies,” Hickey says. “We had people coming to our booth nonstop.”

Their molasses cookies were the only thing not made with beer. “We make our molasses cookies to be dipped in the beer.”

She was surprised at the response. Typically, “savory items,” not sweets, are paired with beer, she says. 

Hickey knows a thing or two about sweets. She’s the owner of two locations of Crave Sweets Bake Shop: one at 11615 Hwy. 70 in Arlington, Tennessee, and the other at 1730 South Germantown Road, Suite 123, near Moondance Grill.

Hickey began cooking in her hometown of Sumner, Mississippi. “I did a lot of cooking in my teenage years for my siblings. My mom worked multiple jobs.”

Hickey learned a lot from her mother and her grandmother. “And the rest is pretty much self-taught. It was Southern style food. Your typical pinto beans and cornbread and meat and threes.”

But that’s not what sparked her interest in cooking. In high school, she took a class on photographing food. She thought, “People get paid to create plates like this?”

Students in the school’s home economics class provided some of the food. Hickey, who describes herself as “more of an artsy person,” says seeing the food with her artist’s eye enabled her, through “presentation and colors,” to “create art and put it on a plate.” 

Before seeing the fancy plates of food, Hickey “didn’t know what fine dining looked like.”

Olive Garden was the closest she’d gotten to that type of food, she says.

Because of that class, Hickey enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Atlanta, where she concentrated on French cuisine fine dining. “That’s actually my background. It wasn’t until after I graduated and got into the food industry that I started baking pastries.”

She made salads and desserts at the old Madison Hotel, now Hu. Hotel. “Our executive chef, Chris Windsor, had a list of items he would like for us to make, but he left it in our hands to come up with recipes. That kind of thing. So, I did get to be a little creative.”

One of her first original desserts was “bananas with white chocolate chips and caramel rolled up in a wonton wrapper, deep fried, and then rolled in cinnamon and sugar.”

Hickey stopped working at the hotel after she had her first child. But, when her daughter turned 3, Hickey returned to baking big time. “She got up on the counter. I’d Google a different recipe and we’d just kind of experiment on the weekend.

“I always cooked dinner every night for my family. When she and I would experiment, it would typically be baking. I jokingly told my husband, ‘I can’t get rusty. I have to stay on top of my skills ’cause I’m going to use them one day.’”

Her husband, Ben Hickey, is a chef who worked at the old Jarrett’s restaurant before becoming executive chef at Amerigo Italian Restaurant.

Lana made birthday cakes and pastries for Facebook friends before she and her husband opened Crave Coffee Bar and Bistro eight years ago in Arlington, Tennessee. “I always wanted to open a restaurant and a coffee shop.”

They served sandwiches and soups made from scratch as well as baked items, including homemade cinnamon rolls, blueberry biscuits, and Lana’s popular “sausage cheddar muffins.” 

She and her husband had a “huge following” at the restaurant, which they ran for eight years until closing it in October 2023.

In 2017, while they still owned the restaurant, Lana, who now had three children, decided to open a bakeshop. Running a bakeshop is easier than a restaurant, she says. “The hours are different. The holidays are different from a restaurant. I’m not there at night.”

She did the baking and her husband handled all the administrative duties, including finances and payroll.

Lana opened the Germantown location in October 2023. “We do all types of gourmet desserts, wedding cakes, custom cakes.”

Many of their recipes come from recipe books that belonged to Lana’s grandmother as well as grandmothers of her general managers. 

Their pastry menu changes every day, but they do keep “staple items,” including their “cheesecake brownies” and “strawberry crunch bars.” 

Their cheesecakes also are “never changing,” Lana says. “We recently started supplying those to Moondance. We do turtle cheesecake, red velvet, and traditional strawberry.”

And, “to be a little bit different,” she does a Biscoff or cookie butter cheesecake.

“The newest thing we have done is our banana pudding cake. Holy cow. It’s out of this world. It’s a banana butter cake with fresh bananas, white chocolate buttercream, and banana pudding filling. And then it has your vanilla wafer cookie crumble around the top and bottom edge.”

As for future plans, Hickey wants to open a third bakeshop location. She’s currently looking at Olive Branch, Mississippi, and Millington, Tennessee.

And opening another restaurant isn’t out of the question. It would be “fine dining French cuisine.”

And, yes, Hickey does take photos of her baked creations.

But, she adds, “It goes out our door so fast I mostly keep up with my photography skills with my children.” 

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

The Black Sheep Hot Sauces

Lawerence Russell (Photo: Michael Donahue)

The Black Sheep might sound like an unusual name for a hot sauce, but founder/creator Lawerence Russell has a good explanation.

“There’s hundreds and thousands of hot sauces,” he says. “The idea was, ‘This is not just another hot sauce.’ Black sheep stand out in the crowd. We do things differently.’”

Russell, 40, owner of Black Sheep Bottling Co., is a hot sauce lover. “And I love cooking food in a smoker. Smoking food. So anytime I would be smoking ribs, pork shoulders, [and had] the extra room on the smoker, I’d throw some peppers on there and make hot sauce out of it.”

He would “just slow smoke the peppers. Once the peppers are smoked, get them off the grill.”

Russell adds roasted garlic, sea salt, tomato, onion, and distilled white vinegar. He then blends everything together and brings it to a simmer.

Born in Abilene, Texas, Russell moved to Memphis when he was six months old. He was introduced to grilling by his dad on camping trips. “Just being around fire and that sort of thing. I’ve always loved the slow-cooking process. Keeping the fire right.”

And “being in Memphis around barbecue” didn’t hurt, either.

“I think I got my first barrel smoker when I was about 25. Up until then I just had a grill. I’d just grill with friends. Cooking out on football Sundays.”

Russell came up with his smoky hot sauce “kind of on a whim. Part of it was what peppers I could get at the store. Most hot sauces you get peppers, vinegar, water, and salt.”

He wanted something different. So, along with garlic and onions, he began smoking the peppers, which gave a “smoky flavor” to his hot sauce.

Russell decided to sell his hot sauce commercially about five years ago. He liked the idea of starting a small business. “Learn the process and go through everything.”

He also loved visiting the local farmers markets. “I always enjoyed being there. I thought if I would have a product, I could be a part of the farmers market.”

Russell got his business license, and began bottling his hot sauce at a commercial kitchen at Crosstown Concourse.

He brought his hot sauce to a farmers market for the first time in 2019. “I thought I’d sell maybe five or 10 bottles. I sold over 60. We were offering samples: ‘Give it a try.’ Everybody who tasted it bought it.”

Russell now has three hot sauce flavors. Original is great on “everything from eggs and sandwiches to grilled meats and veggies.”

On Fire, a hotter version of Original, is for people with a higher heat tolerance. He kicked up the heat by adding more habanero peppers.

Gone Green, which includes smoked poblano and serrano peppers, is similar to salsa verde, Russell says. “I love it on enchiladas and black beans and rice.”

Russell uses his hot sauce “two to three times a day. I’ll put it on my eggs in the morning for breakfast. If I’m having fried rice or a sandwich at lunch I’ll put it on. And then for dinner whatever I’m having — grilled steak or veggies — I’ll add it to that.”

Among others who love his hot sauce are the cooks at Dory restaurant.

David Krog, who, along with his wife, Amanda, owns Dory, says he serves Black Sheep hot sauces with the staff meals at the restaurant. “We put out the green and then the red with our family meal most every day,” he says.

Krog discovered the hot sauce when Russell gave him a bottle. Their children attend the same school. “I brought it to the restaurant and put it out and we all tasted the red and the green. The response from all of those cooks was unexpected for me. These guys were over the moon with this product. This guy’s hot sauce. I told him, ‘I’m in shock. All of my guys think this is an incredible product.’”

Black Sheep hot sauces are available at High Point Grocery, Triangle Meat Market, and Doc’s Wine, Spirits & More. 

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

Home Place Pastures Hosts Hill Country Boucherie

Marshall Bartlett (Photo: Michael Donahue)

After a three-year break, the Hill Country Boucherie and Blues Picnic will take place September 3rd at Home Place Pastures in Como, Mississippi.

“Boucherie is a Cajun word,” says Home Place Pastures owner Marshall Bartlett. “I think it’s actually a French word that means ‘butcher shop’ or ‘meat store.’ It’s been adapted to mean sort of a celebration. Cajun Acadians brought it down to the Cajun country. They would harvest a pig and cook it right there and dedicate the bounty of the whole animal, add music to make it festive. Just a big party.

“We’re doing the same thing. There’s no active harvesting going on, but we’re challenging our chefs to utilize those culinary traditions, utilize the whole animal, like nose-to-tail eating.”

The restaurant teams are from “Memphis to New Orleans and everywhere in between.” The first boucherie featured one chef and drew about 100 people. The last event drew around 1,000. Guests can pay $110 for a dinner ticket, which includes the music, or just pay $10 for the music after the dinner.

Dinner guests meet by the lake and pick up a two-ounce portion of each chef’s dish buffet-style. “They’re all labeled. At the end you vote on your favorite, and we give out prizes to the chef that wins. Afterward, you walk next door to the farm shed, where we have live music.”

Food will be available there, too. “Burgers and bologna sandwiches and beer. We’re keeping it pretty simple, pretty country.”

A native of Como, Bartlett says his boucherie is based on a family tradition at the Home Place, his family farm. In the fall, they held dove-hunt parties with “good food, good people — and we celebrated music in this area.”

The boucherie also harkens back to the annual picnic hosted by the late Othar Turner on his farm near Sardis, Mississippi. “He’d cook the whole goat, sell sandwiches, tons of beer.”

Bartlett learned “how people in the South don’t waste anything. They cook every part of the animal and make a lot of innovations in this process — delicious innovations and discoveries.

“We just wanted to figure out if we could bring all of that together in one cool event.”

Bartlett, who now lives in Memphis, started Home Place Pastures eight years ago. It produces “pastured pork and grass-fed beef” on 500 acres of his family’s 1,800-acre farm.

He added “Pastures” to “Home Place,” Bartlett says, “because we are trying to convert the road crop operation to a full regenerative grazing operation.”

Bartlett moved back to Como three years after he graduated from Dartmouth. “I loved the farm so much ’cause I grew up there and it meant the world to me. I didn’t want to see the agricultural legacy of my family go by the wayside.”

He’s the fifth generation on the farm, which dates to about 1871.

The family grows cotton, corn, and soybeans, but Bartlett wanted to build a brand using “local, humane, regenerative meat production.

“You’re using animal impact and focusing on soil health to run a farm like an ecosystem rather than a linear high-production model of one product like corn and cotton. In the process of doing all that, you really enhance the health of our watershed and our environment in general to promote biodiversity and combat climate change.”

Home Place Pastures also includes the Farm Store. “It’s a really cool butcher shop. We serve lunch four days a week, Thursday through Sunday.

“We’ve got house-made bologna sandwiches and our grass-fed burger. The fried pork chop sandwich is outstanding. We make all the meat, obviously. It’s raised and processed right here, so it’s pretty unique.”

Memphians also can order Home Place Pastures meat via its website and have it delivered to their home.

For more information on the Hill Country Boucherie and Blues Picnic, go to homeplacepastures.com.

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

The Secret Smash Society

(Photo: Michael Donahue) Schuyler O’Brien, Harrison Downing, and Cole Jeanes

Shhhhh. It’s The Secret Smash Society.

It consists of three chefs: Harrison Downing, chef/sandwich artist at Greys Fine Cheese; Schuyler O’Brien, who is in culinary operations at City Silo Table + Pantry; and Cole Jeanes, chef/owner of Kinfolk restaurant.

They sell smash burgers at pop-ups, which are supposedly secret, but they’re not. They post the locations a few weeks in advance at The Secret Smash Society on Instagram. “The secret is where we’re going to be next,” Downing says.

The pop-ups usually are held at breweries or other places that don’t have a kitchen. They set up their flat-top and get to work.

A smash burger is just what it sounds like. “It’s a cheeseburger,” Jeanes says. “We do two patties, three ounces each. The smash comes from a burger press. You smash it until it’s completely flat. The idea is to get as much surface area as possible. It’s thin and crusty. It’s all about texture.”

“It’s a faster cook time,” Downing says. “The fat goes back in the meat ’cause it doesn’t have time to render out.”

Their beef is from Home Place Pastures in Como, Mississippi. “We use Martin’s potato roll,” Jeanes says. “It’s a four-inch roll.”

“We toast that,” Downing says. “It’s three-ounce patties with cheese, Kraft singles. Classy. It’s got to be Kraft singles.” The pickles have to be “on the bottom. I’m a big advocate of pickles, lettuce, tomato, and really finely shaved onion.”

They then add what they call their Daddy’s Sauce — “a burger sauce we make. Duke’s mayo-based sauce, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire. It’s similar to a Big Mac sauce.”

Downing describes their smash burger as “a sophisticated Big Mac.” The hamburger comes with a bag of potato chips. But only one kind. “I’m a classic Lays man,” he says.

They don’t know of anybody else in Memphis doing a smash burger. “We just decided to hop into it.”

The first Secret Smash Society pop-up was at High Cotton Brewing Company. “We had a lot more people there than we expected,” Downing says. “And they were ready to go the second Cole threw that first piece of meat on the flat-top.

“It helped that we all cooked in kitchens before and were able to verbalize and not look up, keep our heads down, and keep going. Schuyler, being the experienced guy he is, talked us to where we were supposed to be. We would have been in rough waters if he wasn’t there.”

“I think we hit around 120 [burgers] ’cause we had a little meat left over,” Jeanes says. “We ran 120 to 150 in two hours, two patties each. My arm was pretty much numb by the time we got done.”

Using a burger press, they pressed “about 300 burger balls,” Downing says. “It’s a handheld piece of metal that’s flat. And you just make sure that it’s greased up.”

The first pop-up was a hit. “People really loved it. Within a week after, I had almost every brewery reaching out wanting us to do one there.”

They’d like to do pop-ups “ideally, once a month,” Downing says. They all have their own work schedules, but, he says, “I think we’re moving toward getting more on the books.”

The next pop-up will be September 4th at The Hill Country Boucherie at Home Place Pastures.

In addition to sharing a love of cooking, O’Brien and Jeanes are fathers of new baby boys. Downing and his wife are expecting a baby boy in October. “Right after our first one was when Luca was born,” says O’Brien, who refers to their shared experience of fatherhood and starting their smash burger pop-ups as “the battle of the babies. We’re learning how to do all this while we’re all living the dad life.”

“Schuyler went ahead and coined our new name as The Patty Daddies,” Downing says.

Find @thesecretsmashsociety on Instagram to book a pop-up.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink Food Reviews

Troy Davis’ Groovy Italian Ice

Troy Davis (Photo: Alice Kerley)

Italian ice is hot — as in, very popular.

Just ask Troy Davis. He recently rolled his Groovy Italian Ice food truck into Shelby Farms Park and set up shop.

“They sold me out twice,” he says.

Davis knew he was onto a good thing when he participated in the Soulful Food Truck Festival March 13th at Tiger Lane. “It did amazing. We sold out about 4:30 [p.m.]. We opened at noon.”

He got the idea to sell Italian ice about two years ago. “I wanted to bring something different to Memphis. You got a lot of people doing snow cones. And you got Baskin-Robbins and all that doing ice cream. So, I said, ‘I want to do Italian ice.’”

Italian ice isn’t the same as a snow cone, Davis says. “A snow cone is kind of crunchy. Italian ice is soft and smooth.”

He offers a variety of Italian ices. “I do eight flavors, but, eventually, I want to do at least 20.”

Davis currently sells blueberry, strawberry, cherry, pineapple, mango, cotton candy, and strawberry lemonade. “The most popular is strawberry lemonade. They’ll be gone in an hour.”

Davis, who also owns a lawn service, TD’s Lawn Care, discovered Italian ice during one of his jobs. He met a man selling it on his food truck. He told Davis, “You need to do it. It’s easier to scoop and there’s a bigger profit margin.”

A native of Nashville, Davis was adopted by his grandmother when he was 10 and moved to Memphis, where he began his lawn service. “I was cutting grass at 10 years old. Walking around the neighborhood cutting grass.

“I took it seriously about two or three years ago. I really sat down and started looking at the numbers and started realizing I could make a good profit over the years. I started buying better equipment to make the job easier for me.”

He originally was going to call his Italian ice business TD’s Italian Ice, but he thought, “I’ve already got TD’s Lawn Care.

“I was talking to my girl. She said, ‘You should do ‘Groovy Italian Ice.’”

“Groovy” conjured up “bright colors, happiness, peace, and love,” which Davis then used in his logo.

Strawberry lemonade is his favorite flavor. “I like strawberry and lemon mixed together. I like sour apple, too.”

He gets flavor requests from customers. “Sometimes people ask, ‘Can you mix it?’” Davis will then mix together flavors like blueberry, pineapple, and lemon.

Along with Italian ice, Davis also sells nachos and jumbo hot dogs on the food truck. And he sells his homemade cookies: strawberry lemonade, lemon, and regular strawberry. “I’m not necessarily a good cook. I’m still learning. Right now I’ve started baking cookies.”

His first batch of cookies he brought to the food truck sold out, Davis says. “The way we advertise our business is it’s unique and different. We were doing the cookies for a test run, and I saw that people really liked the cookies. So, I’m going to start making the cookies now. Really, I looked on YouTube at how to make the strawberry lemonade cookies.”

Davis plans to open an additional food truck. And he’d eventually like to open a brick-and-mortar business, where he’ll sell more food in addition to the Italian ice and cookies. “Like funnel cakes, chicken tenders, hamburgers, funnel fries, different kinds of carnival food.”

Grass-cutting time will hit around the end of March, so Davis’ sister, Ashley Randolph, will be helping with the food truck business.

And after a particularly grueling yard-cutting job in the blazing sun, Davis probably will quench his thirst with one of his Italian ices. And it’ll probably be strawberry lemonade.

To find out where the Groovy Italian Ice truck will be, go to @groovy_italianicellc on Instagram.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink Food Reviews

Josh McLane Brings his Sandwich Skills to South Point Grocery

Josh McLane (Photo: Courtesy Josh McLane)

If John Montagu was the Earl of Sandwich in the 1700s, Josh McLane could be the Sammie King in 2022.

McLane created all except one of the sandwiches at South Point Kitchen in the new South Point Grocery. These include The HEELS, named after the rock band featuring McLane and Brennan Whalen.

The sandwiches are selling like hotcakes. Since the store opened March 10th, they’ve been “slammed,” McLane says. “It’s turning out very well right out of the gate.”

McLane, who describes himself as “the menu-maker and prep guy,” says the current menu features nine sandwiches, as well as garlic bread. “I kept it small and moderately simple, so I knew we could put out a good-quality product every time. … I don’t swing too hard for the fences and set myself up to fail.”

McLane, who opened the Hi Tone kitchen, credits that venue and its owner Brian “Skinny” McCabe “for pulling any of this off.”

Patrick Kickham works with McLane at South Point Kitchen. “I got Patrick from the Hi Tone. That’s how I knew he was good. It’s as close to us going to the same college as I could get.”

In addition to The HEELS, made with spicy peanut butter, jalapeño strawberry jam, bacon, and provolone cheese, the menu includes Me Spinach, which features fresh spinach with garlic butter, provolone, French onions, and tomatoes. “It’s done on a griddle like a grilled cheese sandwich. We’ve been selling those like they’re going out of style.”

The Grinder, McLane’s go-to sandwich, includes salami, banana peppers, pesto, and coppa, which is “like salt-cured ham with a little bit of a bite to it.”

The Club is the sandwich McLane didn’t create. “I totally ripped off Subway,” he says. “They stopped making The Club, so I was like, ‘Well, that was one of my favorite sandwiches, so I’m going to make it.’ Turkey, roast beef, bacon, tomato, and Swiss. I covered it. It’s just a damn cover song.”

Everything except The Grinder and The Club were staples at the Hi Tone.

Asked how he created his sandwiches, McLane says, “I made lunch for me.”

His wife, Cara, a vegetarian, taste-tested his vegetarian sandwiches, and friends tried out the others. “I would make them for wrestling pay-per-views for my buddies.”

The sandwich shop will be doing specials in the future. “The best part about having a talented crew is letting them come up with specials,” McLane says. “If you have people full of creativity, you’d be stupid to not let them show that. My crew is awesome, and they’re all very talented.”

McLane began creating sandwiches as a child. “I made one. I thought I created it, but I was kind of ripping off other people. I did a Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich with dressing and turkey and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.”

Describing his sandwich-making process, McLane says, “I open the fridge and see what I have. My sandwich creating is very much like if you’re buzzed at 11 p.m. after you’ve been out and you’re hungry.”

But, “That’s not exactly how I do it.”

As for future items, McLane says. “I want to do a breakfast sandwich and call it Green Eggs and Ham.” That will feature pesto, two fried eggs, and country ham. “And it’s gangbusters, dude.”

A “lot of different specials” are in the works, but, McLane says, “I like paying attention to the present instead of worrying about the future.”

A stand-up comedian, McLane recorded an upcoming comedy album, Even If It’s Nothing. And he and Whalen recorded a new HEELS album, Pop Songs for a Dying Planet, which will be released later this year.

Whalen hasn’t yet visited South Point sandwich shop, McLane says. “Brennan is a good friend and is waiting until we’ve been open a week or two. Until we have our sea legs. He’s being nice.”

South Point Grocery is at 136 Webster Avenue; (901) 672-8225.

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

Zio Matto: “Here Comes the Gelato Man!”

Matteo Servente on the Zio Matto Gelato bike

Matteo Servente and Ryan Watt are peddling their gelato. Literally.

The Zio Matto Gelato owners recently bought a bicycle with an attached cart/cooler to help them sell their five-ounce gelato containers, which are already in area restaurants and markets.

“We had this idea of ‘How do we bring it to people as much as possible,’” says Servente. “The cart is such a visually iconic image in people’s minds.”

And, he says, “We could really use it to bring gelato to people for weddings, corporate events, whatever people might be interested in. It’s a great way to bring the gelato experience to your backyard or wherever you want it.”

Servente, who is from Torino, Italy, founded the business. “The name comes from my niece. When she was very little she couldn’t pronounce my name right. ‘Matteo’ was ‘Matto,’ which is ‘crazy,’ and ‘Zio’ is ‘uncle’ in Italian.”

Servente, a filmmaker and former Crosstown Arts resident artist, says Zio Matto is his main focus. “For many years I had been toying with the possibility of bringing some of these Italian treats to Memphis that I’m used to from growing up. Gelato became the obvious choice.”

He learned “the secret” to making gelato in Italy, and it seemed like the right treat to bring to “a place where the options of real, authentic gelato are not too many.”

Enter Watt, former Indie Memphis executive director. “Ryan and I have worked before in film and have known each other for years. We always had a good friendship and working relationship,” Servente says.

Before Indie Memphis, Watt owned a technology company at Emerge Memphis. “The challenge and excitement of growing something new is really what I get excited about,” he says.

“Gelato is not ice cream,” Servente explains. “It’s a part of the same family, but it’s a less fat version of ice cream. The texture is much silkier in ours and a little bit denser as opposed to the cold, almost icy, texture of ice cream. So, it kind of packs more flavor.

“As far as the ingredients go, there’s nothing really revolutionary in the way we make it. It’s more like the process of making it that makes us stand out. We don’t use the gelato machines that mass produce gelato. We just use kitchen mixers and our hands to make it and mix all the ingredients together. ‘Less is more’ is really what applies perfectly to the food-making process in Italy.”

Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza was the first restaurant to carry their gelato. “When the pandemic hit and they had to sort of readjust a little bit of their model, our pre-packaged containers were perfect.”

They’re now up to 15 locations, including High Point Grocery, Cordelia’s Market, Lucchesi’s Ravioli & Pasta Company, Ciao Bella Italian Grill, and David Grisanti’s Italian Restaurant. It’s available on Saturdays at the Downtown and Cooper-Young farmers markets.

Zio Matto’s six flavors include stracciatella. “A very popular flavor for gelato. The way we do it is Italian sweet cream with chocolate chips in it.”

The new bicycle/cart is ready to roll. “It’s not the easiest thing to ride,” Watt admits. “It’s nice to roll up and maybe park and serve gelato.”

But, he says, “Right now, we’re a pretty small team. Our plan is to use [the bicycle] for bookings. You may see it out and about so we can get the word out. Maybe it will become a league of bikes, and we’ll have to hire riders, people that can run the carts for us.”

And, like any “Good Humor Man” vehicle, Zio Matto’s bicycle comes with the proper accessory: “It does have a little bell,” Servente says.