Jeremiah Matthews, Southwood Kitchen and southbar, Daphne

Southwood Kitchen is one of the top restaurants along the Eastern Shore, and Chef/Owner Jeremiah Matthews has some new concepts in store. Imagine my surprise when I sat down with Jeremiah and he told me he was friends with my late nephew. I always enjoy meeting people who knew De, or Ben as he was known to his friends. 

We were off to a good start, and Jeremiah, a busy man, is generous with his time. He’s lived in a lot of places but he calls the Scenic 98 Coastal area home. “This is the longest time I’ve spent in one place,” he says. He was born in Augusta, Maine, and moved to Fairhope when he was 7. He moved again in the 8th grade to the Destin area and came back to Fairhope after graduating from high school.

In 1994, my nephew and he, and another friend, Brett, worked together “for a minute” at a local restaurant in Fairhope called Rupert’s at 9 N. Church Street. There must have been something to their collective experience because all three became close friends and ended up working in the restaurant industry. Jeremiah then went to work for Ruby Tuesdays for three years.

Jeremiah also worked as a boat rigger, a landscaper, and in construction. “I didn’t particularly like any of those jobs, so my dad suggested I go to culinary school. I ended up at Paul Smith College in Paul Smith, New York, near Saranac, New York in the Adirondack mountains. The college was its own little town with less than a thousand kids. It was focused half on hospitality and half on forestry.”

At the end of his studies, he did a 6-month External Degree program in France, working in two 3-star Michelin Restaurants, including L'Arpege in Paris, still considered one of the top fifty restaurants in the world. “In 1998, the chef/owner took all meat off the menu and still retained his 3-star rating. I would consider Alain Passard one of the top 10 to 15 chefs in the world.” (By the way, meat is back on the menu and it’s still rated 3-Star, meaning it is exceptional and worth a special  trip. Here’s the full list.)

With a culinary degree in hand, he became the sous-chef at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans. After a bit, he returned to the Eastern Shore and ran the kitchen at the Fairhope Pub (now Bone and Barrel) for two years. In 2002, he moved to The Colony Grill (now Tamara’s) with a small percentage of ownership in hand.

In 2005, he was recruited to be a chef at the Riverview Plaza in Mobile, with plans to become the Executive Chef at the Battle House, which was being renovated. As construction delays took their toll, Jeremiah moved to Naman’s Catering to run the Naman’s Midtown Market for Alec Naman. 

“He is a fantastic guy but the restaurant closed down during the recession, and I decided to move to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.” He tells me he worked  with The Spotted Horse Dude Ranch on the Hoback River, owned and operated for over 50 years by Sam Blount, from Alabama., “Half the staff was from Birmingham.”

“I was a backcountry cook. During the summer, I would take 6 to 8 guests for overnight camping trips and cook them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the Fall, we would transition to hunting groups. It was National Forest land, so no vehicles were allowed. I loved it and still go back to visit occasionally.” He was there from 2009 until 2012 and then returned to Fairhope.

Upon his homecoming, Jeremiah was asked by his lifelong friend, Mike Frances, to be a judge at the Oyster Cook-Off at The Hangout in Gulf Shores. He met a buddy who introduced him to Steve and Angie Coltharp, who owned Jesse’s in Magnolia Springs. Jeremiah was hired as a consultant to help resurrect the restaurant. 

A few years later, with Jesse’s firmly established as one of the top restaurants in the area, Harry Johnson, reached out to Jeremiah to discuss his taking over Rosie’s Grill in Daphne. “Harry put me in business for myself. I left Jesse’s on July 3, 2017, and opened Southwood Kitchen on August 25, 2017. "We busted it to get it open in a short period of time.”

Jeremiah tells me that Southwood has operated in the black from day one. “The pandemic times were thin, but the community support was awesome. We did just what every restaurant did, we switched gears to takeout meals that traveled well, and our customers purchased tons of gift cards to keep us going. After the restrictions were lifted, business came back bigger and stronger than ever. People were great!”

Six years after opening Southwood Kitchen, Jeremiah opened southbar (it’s not capitalized), the old Record Bar, next door. “Southbar has been fantastic,” he says. “We don’t have to turn people away when we have a waitlist for a table. We stop serving lunch at 3:00 at Southwood and open southbar at 3:00, offering our appetizers and burgers until 5:00 when the full Southwood Kitchen menu is available. It’s made a huge difference and we have a great Happy Hour crowd.”

He tells me that southbar stays open until midnight and that it was designed as a place for clientele to have a place to relax and enjoy. “Lots of regulars, no children, and no reservations.” The interior was gutted and replaced with a shiplap interior wall from wood recovered from the old Fairhope High School gym. “Harry Johnson is the salvage king. He has a great eye for windows, doors, and shutters that add a nice finishing touch to our interiors.” 

In 2019, Jeremiah purchased the old Mexican restaurant building at Fly Creek in Fairhope. “We had to sit on it awhile after Covid, and then Hurricane Sally knocked all the windows out. It was in a terrible state of disrepair, so we had our work cut out for us. It took 9 months just to get windows manufactured.”

The new restaurant isn’t named yet but he hopes to have it open by the end of the year. “I felt like we could use an upscale Latin-themed restaurant in this area. It will consist of vibrant, fresh flavors using cilantro, lime juice, chilies, avocado, and perhaps with a nice classic mole sauce thrown in.”

What goes into creating a new restaurant concept, I ask? “The hardest part is visualizing the execution. Is it possible to put it all together? Can you balance the cooking of the dishes, get them to the table in a timely fashion, and does it make a nice presentation? You need to have a nice balance for it to work.” What about signature cocktails? “Drew Burroughs is our Bar Director. I think he is the best mixologist in the area.”

Jeremiah is also a partner in Ben’s Jr.’s Bar B Que in Fairhope. After it closed a few years ago, it sat empty. “Ben’s just kind of happened,” he says. “Will Fusaiotti, who owns Foosackley’s approached me to see if I would be interested in partnering. I said I would.” He hopes to have Ben’s opened by the end of the year as well. Any changes? “Ben’s will be Ben’s. Great BBQ without the fried seafood they used to serve.”

This leads us to a discussion about the growth of the area and staffing challenges. “I love the old county roads and pastures that I grew up with. The growth has definitely been good for business, but it’s almost impossible for servers and cooks to find affordable housing in the immediate area. It’s a problem, and that’s why you see so many new apartments being built. There is a labor pool shortage, half of our staff drive from Mobile every day.”

He tells me that many of his servers and cooks have been with him for at least five years, some 7 or 8 years. Jeremiah has three children, and his oldest, Noah, is a shift leader at Southwood Kitchen. “He worked with me as a young kid when I was at Jesse’s. I get to see him every day, and that’s special.” Katie, his youngest, is a student at Huntingdon College in Montgomery and works in the kitchen at Southwood when she is home. 

In June, Guy Fieri shot an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives at Southwood Kitchen. “It was a blast!” They couldn’t say anything about it until a couple of weeks ago. “Guy is a super nice guy.” After the filming, they all went to Panini Pete’s new place, The Waterfront in Daphne, and celebrated with Cowboy Mouth playing. The episode will air on The Food Network on Friday, October 27 at 8 PM. Be sure to tune in, it will be fun! 

About the Scenic 98 Coastal area, Jeremiah says, “We live in an area where people can afford to support local business. That means a lot. I love it here. I just hope we can maintain that small-town atmosphere that drew us all here in the first place.”

Jeremiah has earned his reputation as a gifted chef serving freshly made-from-scratch dishes sure to please the palate. We are excited to now have southbar in Daphne, and soon a new Latin option and great BBQ from Ben, Jr.’s in Fairhope. 

Thank you, Jeremiah. Now I’m hungry!