Spicy chicken will challenge you at Southern in midtown St. Louis

The spiciness of fried chicken served at Southern in midtown St. Louis ranges from “original” to “cluckin hot.”

Owner Rick Lewis likes his “medium.”

“It’s really spicy, but not so spicy that it kills everything else you eat,” he said.

A sign at the front door denotes heat levels. Still, customers may be surprised.

“We warn them as best we can,” said Rick. “It’s going to be very spicy. We try to find out what you consider spicy food and go from there.”

Chicken is seasoned with different kinds of pepper — red, black and white, garlic and spices.

“It gets dredged in our secret dredging spice, a blend of habanero and cayenne.”

The mild, a step up from original on the spice meter, is more popular than original. General Tso’s is sweet and spicy.

“What I like to tell everybody, it all falls under hot chicken.”

Rick, 33, worked in five restaurants before opening Southern last June 24. The 65-seat fast-casual spot is next door to Pappy’s Smokehouse. Rick is partners with Pappy’s co-owner Mike Emerson.

“I’ve been friends with them for a while,” he said. “They are trying to help me along so I don’t make any bad choices.”

Customers step up to a counter, alongside a display case, study a chalkboard menu and place their orders. Besides hot chicken plates, the restaurant serves sandwiches, hot fish plates and snacks such as deviled eggs ($6), fried green tomatoes ($5.50) and chopped salad ($7.50). There is a daily dessert special ($4.50), such as banana pudding, bread pudding or salted caramel brownies from Pint-Size Bakery. Meals come on metal trays.

“It looks better than a fry basket,” said Rick. “It’s easy to clean up, and good for the environment, in a sense.”

He cooked a lot of chicken and ate a lot of chicken on his way to opening a restaurant.

“We went down to Nashville, Memphis, Arkansas and ate a bunch of chicken and fish. We stopped at every little shop along the way.”

The decor is he collected along the way, including painted metal chickens and metal gates and fences hanging from the ceiling. Families stop to pose in front of a larger-than-life metal chicken near the restaurant entrance.

“We like to call it hillbilly chic.”

The restaurant has concrete floors. Sepia-tone photos of his family decorate reclaimed wood walls. Giant red letters attached to a corrugated wall spell “EAT.”

How did he choose the name Southern? “It’s short and sweet and to the point. It almost got named ‘The Gospel Bird.’”

On a recent weekday afternoon, Cheryl Swift, of St. Louis, sat at a high-top table with Jim Ebeling.

Already a regular, Cheryl finished a tray of fried fish.

“This is the best catfish in town, hands down,” said Cheryl, a music and food blogger (duchess of rock n roll.com)

“She’s not someone you want to stand in line with,” said Jim Eberling, her lunch partner, celebrating his birthday with chicken tenders, medium hot. “She says, ‘I want that. I want that.”

What makes the catfish so good?

“It’s Missouri farm-raised domestic catfish,” said Rick. “It’s a sustainable fish product and it’s actual catfish. We soak it with Busch beer, St. Louis’ finest, and add a secret rub. It’s served with comeback sauce, a mix of sweet chile sauce and mayo, that’s popular in Mississippi. We make the chile sauce here.

“A lot of stuff we serve is kind of riffs on southern food, comfort food. People grew up with fried bologna with eggs. We try to take it to the next level. Fried green tomatoes are popular.”

The fried green tomatoes, dredged in cornmeal, are served with buttermilk lime dressing.

Southern jazzes up its fried bologna sandwich ($11) with pimento cheese and a sunnyside-up egg, then serves it on a pretzel roll. The bologna is made inhouse.

Rick, who has a thick brown beard and a friendly demeanor, liked cooking when he was a kid.

“Mom was always cooking. She kind of showed me the first ways of cooking eggs. They were the first thing I learned to cook.”

That eventually led him to his career.

“I was working construction for my dad and I wanted to move out of my folks’ house. They said, ‘You need to go out and get a job.’

He had barbecued for friends but didn’t work in a restaurant setting until he started at Dulany’s Grille & Pub in south St. Louis County.

“It was pretty natural for me. I like hard work. It keeps you busy.”

So far, the restaurant business has been good to Rick.

“I’m married to Elisa. I met her at Monarch, the third restaurant I worked at.”

They cooked together at Quincy Street Bistro, a south St. Louis bar and grill.

Comfort food is his specialty.

“It’s kind of what I made a name for myself with,” he said.

He was cooking at Quincy in 2014 when he was nominated by The James Beard Foundation for a Rising Star award that goes to a chef 30 or younger who “displays an impressive talent and who is likely to have a significant impact on the industry in years to come.”

“In the chef world, to be nominated is a super big deal,” he said. “I didn’t win, but it was an honor to be nominated.”

Rick likes the excitement of the restaurant business and the satisfaction of cooking something customers enjoy.

“I’m a hands-on owner. That’s the only kind of owner to be,” he said. “Why would you spend a ton of money and time to not be here? ... People go out, work hard and choose to spend money on a soul-satisfying good meal. People say, ‘This fried chicken takes me back to my grandmother. This fried bologna sandwich takes me back to my childhood. It’s a transcending experience. That’s what’s awesome about comfort food or barbecue for that matter.

“If you feed people well, and take care of them good, they come back and bring their friends.”

This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 5:37 AM with the headline "Spicy chicken will challenge you at Southern in midtown St. Louis."