Fall ish, 2012. Definitely on a Sunday.

Southern did not start off with a bang. Not even a puff of air. When we opened our doors on a Tuesday night in September we did a resounding $600. This was on the heels of inviting all the fancy pants and friends/family to our grand opening party where half of Greenville showed up, lauded our concept and then went to fuck home to hibernate.

The whole week sputtered actually I think we peaked at $1k that Friday night. We were worried but not freaking out. We knew it would take some time but man we had high hopes on a honey moon and it was looking like Myrtle Beach on a Monday for us. We didn’t open up with brunch we wanted to master dinner before putting another shift on our backs but since dinner wasn’t busy enough to master we had to up that ante and quick.

I was a steakhouse guy. That was 90% of my pedigree. High volume, turn and burn, big ass proteins on plates, keeping the steaks elevated higher than the starches. I could push a lot of food out of a small kitchen. I was programmed to do so. Hell I still am.

Brunch however I didn’t know squat. Sure I can write a menu for it just like a lyricist can write a hit song but can’t play a lick on the guitar. In retrospect, now that it’s been 10 plus years I’ll admit that I faked it til I made it on several plateaus in that kitchen during the early days. I shot from the hip to stay hip. It was shoddy at first but once I absorbed it all I got better at it. When Southern peaked she was the southern belle of Greenville. Exactly what I intended her to be.

Back to brunch. We had some high expectations for our brunch experience. We had a giant stage for live entertainment, bottomless mimosas, wide open kitchen and a 28 foot line that was made for high volume. Southern had the perfect brunch atmosphere. If we hit the fucking bullseye for one thing with our team I would have to say it was brunch over time. I had a sharp chef that worked for me at the beginning of Southern’s birth. He helped we write out some recipes and had a big hand in helping me create the first brunch menu. It was part of his stage to show me his creativity. He had the makings of a good chef. Creative, high volume, hard worker and hustled. He also has a few afflictions that comes with chefs too. Unfortunately those came to a head 48 hours before our first brunch launch. We parted ways with my brunch chef literally while we were creating our first brunch prep list.

I had never poached an egg in my life. A few omelets here and there and the only waffle I had ever poured over a hot grid was in a hotel breakfast buffet.

My kitchen line without the help of a trio of sous from Breakwater was greener than a harbor during St. Patrick’s day. These weren’t bad guys. It’s just they had never seen battle before and they were about to walk onto the sands of Normandy. And I was standing at point.

Oh we blasted the shit out of social media. We were desperate for some volume. Bills were billin’. My brunch chef was supposed to spearhead the operation and now it was in my hands. I wasn’t that worried at the time considering the amount of volume we were averaging I set my sights on a good brunch day but I didn’t want to overachieve. Some brunch stock didn’t replicate for dinner and I didn’t want to throw shit out if we shit the bed all weekend. In my mind I was thinking “it’s fucking eggs, fried chicken, pancakes and waffles how hard can it be?” Whoops

10:55am

We used to open for brunch at 11 before we found out we could squeeze another $2k in if we opened at 10. I was setting up inside expo and going over a last minute pre shift to jazz up my staff and had one eye on the front door. I started to take notice of the large group of early arrivals at the front doors. The front of Southern was all windows. The blinds were see through just enough to observe the dozens of silhouettes slowly building up on the sidewalk. At that time I was excited.

Hella excited. We might finally get to experience some high volume. All a restaurant needs sometimes is a little momentum to get her off the ground to fly. This was our time to shine.

My strengths in the kitchen at that time were grill and inside expo. I used to grill over a hot box the size of a small Volkswagen at the steakhouse. No gas mind you it was all hickory wood. Just like cooking over a live campfire but for 400 covers of steaks, ribs and fish not hotdogs. We wouid burn through $2k of wood a month. If you can cook on this grill at high volume you can grill anywhere.

Inside expo was another beast. I always paid my inside expo the most on the line. A good expo will save you hundreds of dollars in comps on a busy weekend.

I put myself at inside expo. I had a good grill guy, Barry who would end up brunching with me up until my last days there.

11:15

The dining room was full. The front of house management was as green as my kitchen and we missed the discussion involving the importance of NOT seating the whole restaurant at one time. Wasn’t something we had to deal with up until now. We borrowed a lot of staff from my partner’s nightclub so some logistics mixed like oil and water when incorporating logistics to high volume seating rotation. To put it simply, we just put every ass in every seat as fast as we could.

The end result was predictable.

Kitchen did about as well as the first kids that stepped on that beach in Normandy. Truly like a scene out of Saving Private Ryan, I was Tom Hanks, shell shocked, ears ringing, covered in blood looking over at a soldier walking casually around, only stopping to pick up his lost arm.

Only it was my pantry cook, covering his ears while watching his ticket printer replicate a hundred CVS receipts. I always thought that kid had a little ‘tism in him.. Barry held his own the best he could and my egg guy was solid but we prepared for a decent brunch not a holy shit we are all gonna die brunch.

The lead expo (me) crashed and burned. Outside expo was my partner and he wasn’t holding up well either. There might’ve been a tater tot or two thrown as a high projectile at his head during the heat of the moment. Lead expo (me) would later apologize.

We had a four man line. Should’ve been six. I pulled my dishwasher out of the pit just to drop fries and tots behind me. Our ticket time standards were as such

10-12 minutes -perfection

13-16 minutes A-OK

17-20 – watch your back

20-25 – time to touch some tables

26-30 – I smell smoke

31-45 – kitchen is in the weeds, let’s regroup, touch tables twice, throw some snacks their way, keep the mimosas going

45- 60 – you’re just trying to keep the forest fire from spreading into the suburbs. Humanity must be preserved at all costs

Anything after that – the goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain

We were that plane.

We done crashed

1pm

The bleeding ended just a quickly as the inventory.

We 86’d eggs

Chicken (all of it)

Waffle batter

Biscuits

Bacon

Tots

Fries

Crab cakes

Well, that was the basis of our entire brunch menu. It all tied in together. We were suppose to live to see 3pm. We made it to 1pm. My partner and I looked at each other and both said “we might as well close down for the day. There’s nothing left to eat.”

We locked up. The kitchen staff looked rode hard and wet. We might’ve lost a couple of guys that day I can’t recall.

The front of the house were limping, crying and probably went home to refresh their resumes.

Customers were patient. They were also probably pickled from the 10 cases of champagne we went through before 86ing mimosas also. And bloody Mary’s.

We were all fucking bloody

We got knocked down but just like Chumbawamba or whoever the fuck they are we got back up again. Honest way of learning a lesson is getting your ass kicked and boy we did. The next week we did it all over again but this time we nailed it.

We got better

Then we got best. Maybe four or five times I lost count (not really I know exactly how many) but brunch became our mantra.

We were kings of the hill for quite some time. Man we’d have a line so long out the front door we had to start coffee service outside. Staff used to take pics of the lines of people going all the way down to Verizon. We’d go on a wait at 10am and still be on a wait when we locked the doors at 3pm

I miss that rush

Sometimes

I’m retired from that level. I did my service.

I will always smile when I think about that machine we built. She was a beauty Clark. A real class act.

I miss her

Sometimes