Tag: Hen House Wine Bar

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Opinion The Last Word

Memphis is My Boyfriend: A Flocking Good Time

Patricia Lockhart (Photo: Patricia Lockhart, Betsy Spring)

Have you ever been to a restaurant and were just sitting there minding your own business? No? Well, me neither! I stay ear-hustling1 to everyone around me.

One night, a friend and I were celebrating everything, and at the same time absolutely nothing, at the Hen House Wine Bar on S. Mendenhall. Although we made reservations, we found the bar to be much more inviting. I promise this had nothing to do with the barmen Matt and Patrick, but … if you know, you know. The way they shake the cocktails is mesmerizing.

I decided to start the night off with the cocktail, Hound Dog Unleashed. It is made with Blue Note Bourbon whiskey, which is crafted right here in Memphis. When you start a night with anything made by Memphis, you know you have to sip and savor. And that’s exactly what I did. I nursed this cocktail for most of the night. Trying to chug it would have left me thinking my lemon-pepper-steppers were blue suede shoes walking on the cobblestones Downtown. My friend started her night off with a gorgeous glass of red wine. And if you’re into wine, this is the place to be. (Duh?! It has “Wine Bar” in the name.) They even offer wine flights! The next time I go, which will be soon, I’m going to get one of those to un-share2.

What started out as a date with Memphis ended in a salacious affair with Brussels sprouts. (Photo: Patricia Lockhart, Betsy Spring)

For our appetizer, we both decided to go with the Brussels sprouts. You know, we gotta get our greens in because veggies are important. These greens were fried on Mount Olympus by the personal head chef of Zeus and drizzled with sweet hot honey nectar of the forbidden fruit. (Lifts hands in praise!) These are the best Brussels sprouts I have ever had. I don’t know how something can be crispy and succulent at the same time, but the chef did that! We also had the Brie with poached pears, honey, and sourdough bread. Needless to say, we sent back a happy plate3. Yum!

Because we weren’t sure if we were in love with the sprouts or if it was just an infatuation, we thought it would be best to try them again. Trust me, nothing is worse than falling head over heels for something only to realize that the love was fleeting and circumstantial. But alas, they did not disappoint. It is safe to say that I will begin a mildly unhealthy situation-ship, or obsession, with Hen House’s Brussels sprouts.

Via ear-hustling, I discovered that the ladies next to us ordered the poutine. It’s a bowl of fries, topped with braised beef and cheese curds in a red wine and mushroom gravy. In my attempt not to eye-hustle as well as ear-hustle, I just stared out of my peripheral. These ladies were eating this dish with a gusto and audible moaning. Yes, audible moaning. So you know this was good, good!

When our food arrived, I noticed the people at the table behind me to the left do the look, point, and whisper. I said to myself, “Yeah, I know you want this. But it’s mine, allllllll mine.” I ordered the local beef cut with puréed cauliflower. Bless the whole cow who sacrificed themselves so I could eat such a divine piece of meat. The meat was so tender and flavorful. I had inner battles whether to eat the meat by itself or use it to sop up some of the puréed cauliflower. Which was equally delicious and soul-watering4. I wish I could give you more information about the fried chicken sandwich my friend ordered, but I was so caught up in my own heavenly experience, I couldn’t ear-hustle properly.

After a great meal, my friend and I retired to our cars to witness a truly hilarious end to our date with Memphis. Instead of reversing out of their parking spot, some of our fellow diners decided to drive forward. Over the shrubbery, over the sidewalk, and straight onto Mendenhall. But they didn’t drive away. Instead they circled back to the very same parking lot that they took an illegal exit from.

Gotta love Memphis, mane!

1 ear-hustling (v.): listening and being nosy to every conversation around you.

2 un-share (v.): the intention of sharing with someone, but deciding against it.

3 happy plate (adj.): a plate that is happy because all the food has been consumed off of it.

4 soul-watering (adj.): something that is good to all your senses and your soul!

Patricia Lockhart is a native Memphian who loves to read, write, cook, and eat. Her days are filled with laughter with her four kids and charming husband. By day, she’s a school librarian and a writer, but by night … she’s alseep. @realworkwife @memphisismyboyfriend

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Chris Mosby is an Artist When it Comes to Desserts

CREDIT: Michaela Dockery

Chris Mosby made his first cheesecake when he was 14.

It was for his mother. And it was a disaster. “I overcooked it so bad,” Mosby says. “The milk solids and fat had separated. It split and cracked on the top. It was just terrible.”

His mom just said, “Thank you,” Mosby says. She didn’t eat it. “Thank you, Jesus. I think she’d be sick if she did.”

Now pastry chef at Hen House Wine Bar, Mosby, 26, a native Memphian, began cooking simple dishes when he was 8. “My mom helped at first. And once I started getting stuff down, I started branching out and doing other stuff.

Michaela Dockery

Chris Mosby

“To me, cooking is pure creation. You take whatever and make it into anything. There’s no defining lines. I’m the type of guy who wants to rewrite the book on reinventing the wheel. So if I can find a different way to do something, I’m going to do it ’cause it’s just fun.”

Mosby also enjoyed art — until he saw the piece he entered in a high school show. “The teacher made adjustments to my work. I didn’t like this.”

He was livid. “I was thinking, ‘This could never happen in a kitchen.’ ‘Cause the worst thing to do with a dish when it’s done is for someone else to put some hot sauce on it or something.”

Mosby decided to focus on cooking. He went to work at Rafferty’s, where he rose from host to server to bartender to cook. He got a shot at making desserts after he moved to Old Venice Pizza Co. (now Venice Kitchen). “One of the owners was saying how he didn’t like the desserts they were getting, so I was like, ‘Hey. If you’re not happy with the desserts, I could come in and make something. If you like it, I could come in on Sunday and put it on the buffet.’

“So I did cinnamon rolls. And they went bananas: ‘This is the best cinnamon roll we ever had. We’ll do this on Sunday.'”

They then let him make whatever buffet desserts he wanted to make.”I went crazy,” Mosby says. “I made donuts, scones, Danishes. After a couple of months, I ended up doing cheesecakes.”

He also worked at Firebirds Wood Fired Grill in Bartlett. The restaurant, which is part of a chain, had its own mini cheesecakes, but Mosby added his touch. “Normally, you’d just put it on a plate, put some whipped cream and a mint leaf on it, and send it out. I thought that was boring.”

Mosby began decorating the cheesecake plates. “I’d get different sauces and fruits and do all kinds of different designs. I wasn’t making the cheesecake, but I was doing stuff other people can’t.”

He began working at Hen House in January, but not as the pastry chef. That changed after executive chef Matthew Schweitzer asked him to embellish one of their desserts. “We had a strawberry cake. He said, ‘Hey. I need a strawberry compote on this cake. Can you do it for me?'” Mosby took sugar, lemon juice, and strawberries and cooked them until the strawberries broke down. It passed the test.

But Mosby came full circle with his desserts when Schweitzer asked him to make a cheesecake for Hen House co-owner Michaela Dockery’s upcoming birthday. “It was funny,” he says. “I had literally just perfected my cheesecake for Mother’s Day. I made cheesecake for my mom.”

He made his “most basic cheesecake” for Dockery. “The original recipe. Just cream cheese with a little bit of lemon juice and lemon zest as acid to make it fresh. The crust is nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Spiced.” Dockery loved it. Hen House now offers Mosby’s chocolate cheesecake on the menu.

But getting back to Mosby’s mom. How did she like that cheesecake he made her for Mother’s Day — more than 10 years after he made that first cheesecake for her?

“She said it was great.”

Hen House Wine Bar is at 679 S. Mendenhall; (901) 499-5436.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Hen House Wine Bar Set to Open this Month in East Memphis

CREDIT: Courtesy Hen House Wine Bar

Michaela Dockery wants you to feel at home at Hen House Wine Bar, a new restaurant slated to open at the end of January at 679 South Mendenhall Road.

And she means literally at home.

The 2,700-square-foot restaurant, which she owns with her husband, Dr. Dee Dockery, is “an extension of our living room,” Michaela says. “We love to host. We love to cook for our friends and family. I love to wine them, put drinks in their hands. And this is an extension of what we do at home.

Courtesy Hen House Wine Bar

Dee and Michaela Dockery

“It’s an experience more than anything. You’re walking in a place where you’re going to be well taken care of, wined and dined. You feel that intimate experience where you are the focus when you walk in. The space is upscale, but we wanted a relaxed environment. And that’s what you’re getting. You’re getting top food and drinks, but you’re getting them in a relaxed environment.”

The restaurant is furnished with couches, comfortable chairs, and low coffee tables.

Describing the Bubble Room, a special room for before- or after-dinner drinks or special occasions, Michaela says, “When I walk into that room it feels like I am in my own ‘girl cave.’ It’s just really moody.”

Instead of “stock the bar,” Michaela asked guests to “stock the wall” in the Bubble Room. “Friends and family have been bringing prints to put on that wall.”

The Bubble Room backs up to the wine cellar, so that wall, which is glass, is dubbed the Sparkling Wall, because guests can see the labels on the champagne bottles.

Courtesy Hen House Wine Bar

On another wall hangs a floral design by Anna Katherine Colomb of TCB Co. “I told her I love rainbows. I love muted colors. I love all-natural, organic outdoor materials. So she created this stunning kind of muted rainbow of dried flowers and leaves and branches on that wall.”

Michaela and Dee enlarged the kitchen to accommodate the growing menu. “I basically know everybody at Home Depot by now.”

The restaurant, manned by executive chef Matthew Schweizer, will serve a full menu. “When we first decided to do this, we were only going to have cheese boards, charcuterie, dessert, things like that.”

Now, she says, “Me being from California and my husband, Dee, growing up here, I wanted to marry the two backgrounds. So we have a lot of a Southern California type of vibe with our food and kind of elevated Southern. And it’s really married beautifully.”

Friends and family have raved about their shrimp and grits. “I’ve eaten shrimp and grits in about every spot in New Orleans and nothing has topped what Matt has done. I dream about it.”

Their signature Hen House chicken sandwich is another favorite. “It’s a really nice-sized piece of brined chicken served on brioche.”

Schweizer’s white sauce tops the chicken. “It’s a pretty big meal in itself and it’s absolutely delicious.”

The wine cellar will include Flocking Fabulous rosé, sauvignon blanc, and a red blend. Michaela collaborated on the wines with a California winemaker.

Bartender Tony Nguyen created a variety of cocktails, including the Hound Dog, a bourbon drink he describes as “a boozy whiskey-forward cocktail that is slightly nutty with orange and soft caramel notes.”

Nguyen created a special cocktail as a surprise for Dee, who is an interventional spine physician at Campbell Clinic. Nguyen describes the drink as “an Amaro-forward cocktail with slight apple notes and a little salinity on the palate and faint licorice notes that dance with bright lemon aromas on the nose.”

The drink, Coach Rex, was named after Dee’s dad, the late Memphis State University football coach Rex Dockery.

Hen House Wine Bar was slated to open in October, but the date had to be pushed back because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Michaela can’t wait for food and drink lovers to roost at Hen House Wine Bar. “I feel like a zombie, but it’s good. That means we’re working hard.”

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Hen House Wine Bar Slated To Open In October in East Memphis



Chairs for Hen House Wine Bar, which is slated to open at the end of October in East Memphis, are now filling up the Dockery house.

They have 40 chairs in the house and more on the patio and in the garage, says Michaela Dockery, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Dr. Dee Dockery. “We look like a bunch of hoarders right now,” she says.

And, she says, “I’m just going to park in the driveway now. Hopefully, our floors will be finished in the next week or two. Things are going much faster now.”

The 2,700-square-foot restaurant is at 679 South Mendenhall Road “across the street from Gibson’s Donuts and Half Shell. Boyle Investments renovated the entire block, so it is all white brick, blue stone patios.”

Michaela, who moved to Memphis with her family as a child, originally is from California, one of eight children in a “huge Italian Catholic family.”

She met her husband, an interventional spine physician at Campbell Clinic, in Memphis. “We travel a good amount and we love food. We love wine. We always try to find really cool spots and we always do. I said, ‘Gosh, if we could only bring something like that to Memphis.’ We talked about it for so long. Finally, last summer, he came to Santa Barbara with me. He said, ‘I totally get you now.’ Just the way life there is so laid back. Everything is centered around wine, food, family. He really saw how that brings people together.”

Dr. Dee and Michaela Dockery

They decided to open their own restaurant in Memphis. “Why don’t we just do a really cool elevated wine bar that’s not pretentious? Something really fun Memphis doesn’t have. Find a great chef. Give an experience. My language of love is serving and I love cooking for friends, hosting parties.”

The restaurant would be “kind of an extension of my living room.”

She wanted to create a warm, friendly feeling so people would say, “I’m not going to see my bartender at the Hen House, I’m going to see my friend ‘Tony’ at the bar.

“The vibe of the whole place is, once again, togetherness. There are plenty of sit-down places in Memphis, but you don’t have a lot of places where you can enjoy a really great meal and great drinks, but in a lounge environment.”

Hen House will be furnished with “couches and really comfortable chairs, low coffee tables. Just to kind of give the feel that you’re in the living room and you’re enjoying small plates and passable items. I really wanted to create something different where you’re comfortable and you’ll stay longer. You feel like you’re at someone’s house, their living room, instead of out.”

As for the food, Michaela says she wanted to “marry Southern California to elevated Southern. I wanted to have some great California feel. Al fresco items. Tacos. Buffalo cauliflower. Fresh seafood.”

Southern-style food would include dishes such as shrimp and grits. And, she says, “I want to bring in some nostalgic dishes that make you feel comfortable and think about your grandparents. Bring in an incredible chicken and dumplings. On the menu you’re going to see a lot of that. 

“You’re going to find your vibe on the list no matter if you’re vegan, vegetarian, or gluten free. We have something for everybody. We’re going to have a very seasonal menu. It’s very important for me to give good quality ingredients and items.”

Matthew Schweitzer is executive chef. “I could tell he was a hard worker. He had worked for some incredible restaurants in Memphis, but more than that, he had a passion to create something on his own. It was extremely exciting to be able to give that to him and let him go crazy.

“He’s been developing the menu for the past several months and it’s been really exciting to see him get to do what he’s always wanted to do in his own space.”

It’s become “a family thing” with Schweitzer working on the menu in the Dockery kitchen with their children helping, Michaela says. “I knew he was hungry and had so much potential. He’s young. And he’ll end up being a highly respected executive chef. We’re lucky we were able to start him on that journey.”

Schweizer is happy with the “connection” between himself and the Dockerys. “It doesn’t happy very often in life,” he says.

As for creating dishes in the family kitchen and getting to know the family, Schweitzer says the Dockery residence is “like my second home.

Matthew Schweitzer at a menu development tasting at the Dockery home.

Michaela describes the Hen House wine list as “a unique selection of small batch wines. A boutique offering. I wanted to work with mainly smaller boutique wineries because I feel like they’re able to give so much love to their wine. And I want to bring in wines everyone wasn’t familiar with to kind of broaden everybody’s palette. We all get so used to our favorite wine and we see the same thing over and over.  And you also get the notion to have good wine you have to pay a high price. Boutique vineyards and wineries are able to give you an incredible wine experience at an inexpensive price because of the way they make everything.”

And, she says, “I collaborated with some wine makers last year to start learning about wine and I harvested with them and created the wine for this year with them. It got my feet wet. I thought, ‘This is what I want to keep doing. Yes, I love wine and being able to entertain at the Hen House, but I also want to make wine.’”

She “fell in love” with the wine-making process. “There’s so much that goes into wine, but more than anything, wine is, for me, togetherness. And it’s happy tears. It’s sad tears. It’s celebrations. It’s life. It’s death. Wine is a part of everything in so many people’s lives.

“I want to be able to sit with a group of customers and pour my wine. So, that is definitely a labor of love and a work in progress I hope to be able to present to Memphis sometime next year.”

MIchaela Dockery gets in step with the wine-making process in Caifornia.

The decor of Hen House will be very California dreamy. “When you walk in the front door, I want it to feel like you are in Santa Barbara. I want it to feel like you are someplace else. I’m bringing in a lot of my style that I know will reflect that as well as marrying in the Southern California. We’ve got a lot of white-textured walls. And we have a lot of arches. We have a lot of detail to finish. A lot of organic layering and colors. I love decorating and I love designing. It’s so much fun for me.”

Tara Engelberg of Tara Felice Interiors is her designer.

Hen House will include a private cellar. “Where folks will also be able to enjoy a private tasting or a romantic dinner.”

Michaela is especially excited about “The Bubble Room,” which she has kept secret until now. “When it came to going out for a girls’ or guys’ night, bachelorette party, or whatever, there was not a place that you could go that was not a full-blown restaurant. I wanted to be able to create that. We have a small, little space that fits about 30 to 45 people, but it’s a room of its own. The Bubble Room. You walk in and there’s all kinds of crazy decor. Black tile on the floor, pink flamingos top to bottom on walls, wallpaper. Just a really fun vibe. A total celebratory vibe.”

A good amount of The Bubble Room decor is “found items,” Michaela says. “My designer and I have worked since day one. We both love to treasure hunt. We’ve been tracking unique things for that room down to the vintage glassware. Everything is mismatched, very eclectic.

“I’m super excited about announcing that room. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun and we’re going to build a ton of memories in there.’

So, where did the name “Hen House” come from? “I was very sick for five years straight. I went through 15 surgeries. My husband, Dee, basically created my own lounge for me in our bedroom.”

The room became her “living quarters,” Michaela says. Her girlfriends helped transform the room. “They decorated. They put things up on the wall. They made a little bar area. They made me feel like everything was fun. We’d all get in my bed, have a glass of wine, talk, and hang out. It became this thing. Every time Dee came home there was always somebody there with me.”

Dee used to say, “Oh, the hens are here. The hens have gathered.”

When Michaela announced the name “Hen House” for the new restaurant, the marketing team was thrilled.