After a three-year wait, Felicia Suzanne’s restaurant at 383 South Main Street is now open. And the restaurant, owned by Felicia Willett-Schuchardt and her husband, Clay Schuchardt, is every bit as fabulous as people thought it would be.
She and Clay began looking for a new location in 2019, Felicia says. They previously were down the street on North Main Street. “We’d been there on that pedestrian mall 20 years,” she says.
“We wanted to stay Downtown,” Clay says. They live in the South Main district. “We are trying to bring back Downtown and bring people to this area again.”
They originally planned to open the new Felicia Suzanne’s in seven or eight months. But, Felicia says, “We were so invested in it we wanted to open it when it was right.”
The new space is a lot different from their old location, which used to house the old Lowenstein’s department store. “It was really one large main room,” Clay says.
With the new building, they were able to create several rooms, each with its own personality. Felicia wanted to get back to the original idea she had for her restaurant when she opened it. “Over the years we became the rehearsal dinners spot because of the patio. And a special occasion spot.”
She wanted the new restaurant to have “more of a neighborly bistro feel. Approachable.” The old Felicia Suzanne’s had white tablecloths, but now, she says, “We have these beautiful oak tabletops that were made by Old City Millwork Inc.”
“The building needed more love than we anticipated. We had to completely gut it and rip out all the plumbing and electrical. That’s another reason it took a little longer for us to open.”
They put in a walk-in cooler, an office, and a dish room. In addition to private dining rooms, the restaurant includes the main dining room, a bar area with table seating, a side porch with seating, and a back patio with seating.
They’ll continue to host special occasions at the new restaurant, Felicia says. “We’ve got a wedding booked in October. We’ve got rehearsal dinners coming up, graduation dinners, business dinners.”
Her new menu includes her low country and Creole classics, but will evolve into more bistro-type fare. “We’ve even purchased a pasta machine. We’re going to include homemade pastas in the future.”
The current menu features favorites from her old location, including the Sunday Sugo, a dish described on the menu as “Rich Red Gravy featuring Home Place Pastures Beef & Pork, Parmesan Risotto.”
“This is an opening menu. These are signature items people have not had in three years,” Felicia says.
Over the next several months, Felicia will introduce new dishes, including a chilled seafood platter, steak frites, and West Indies crab salad, which is a dish Clay’s mother is known for. It includes fresh lump crabmeat, olive oil, vinegar, salt, black pepper, Vidalia onions, and hot sauce, and you eat it with saltine crackers.
She also will include a library of different recipes she collected over 23 years “that will rotate seasonally.”
In the next couple of weeks, they will introduce a “small bites menu,” featuring some of Felicia’s classics like her deviled eggs, which already are on the main menu, and her short rib grilled cheese, a country loaf filled with braised short ribs and white cheddar cheese, topped with béchamel sauce and “baked until golden and bubbly.”
Then there’s Flo’s, which is slated to open in time for the holidays. The space on the north side will feature seating for 32 and will include their old “Friday lunch favorites,” including gumbo, chicken enchiladas, po’boys, and grilled cheeses. People also can get grab-and-go meals for the week at Flo’s. “Flo is my nickname in New Orleans [where she worked for chef Emeril Lagasse for eight years]. And Flo’s is the product line that’s our pickled jalapeños, our tomato jam, and our green tomato chow chow.”
Felicia never stopped cooking after her old restaurant closed. “We were catering and doing private events the whole three years.”
When the old Spindini spot became available, Clay and their business partners urged her to open the restaurant there. It was a perfect fit for Felicia Suzanne’s and Flo’s. “They didn’t have to twist my arm too much,” she says. “This is in my blood. This is what I’m supposed to do.”