Daniella Coffey gave up nearly everything to keep her father’s soul food restaurant open just a few years ago.
She and her husband sold their house. They emptied his 401(k) account. And it still wasn’t enough to pay off more than $600,000 in inherited debt.
“We were still $25,000 short,” Coffey said. If they didn’t come up with the money, they would lose the business to the bank. When she checked the numbers two days before the deadline, she thought there was a mistake. “There was $35,000 in my account.”
Coffey had applied for a grant, but it had been denied. A representative told her they didn’t know what happened. Somehow the application was reviewed again and approved.
St. Rest #2 Country Kitchen in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side, one of the oldest Black-owned soul food restaurants in Chicago, had been saved — a legacy nearly lost.
The legendary Edna’s, Gladys’ Luncheonette and Army & Lou’s are all gone. To celebrate soul food, former Ebony magazine food editor Charla Draper, who once ran the iconic test kitchen, created National Soul Food Month in 2001. The event is celebrated annually in June.
But in 2021, Coffey, the new St. Rest chef and owner, was still grieving the loss of her father, the Rev. Larry Hopkins, who had died just months earlier.
You’ve probably passed by the restaurant a million times. It’s right next door to a Garrett Popcorn Shop (the location with a drive-thru). And they’re up the street from Harold’s Chicken on 87th Street (#55, widely considered one of the best locations).
They’re only open three days a week now. Regulars line up before opening at lunch. And sometimes there’s still a line throughout the day, especially on Sundays after church.
“It’s like being at grandma’s house,” Coffey said. “You’re gonna get great food. You’re gonna get this amazing sense of love and family and enjoyment. You feel like you’re just at a place of peace.”
But like any grandma’s house, mind your language.
“We’re known for our cornbread dressing,” the chef said. “Some people call it stuffing, but we don’t allow you to call it stuffing at the restaurant. That’s like a big no-no.”
Why?
“Because it’s cornbread dressing.”
Do note that the cornbread dressing is only available on Sundays. It comes from a family recipe that began in Indianola, Mississippi.
“My father was the baby of 18 children,” Coffey said. “So he would see his mom cook a lot.”
She was a great cook, the chef said. But when her father first moved to Chicago, his calling wasn’t with restaurants.
“He came out of a church called St. Rest,” Coffey said. “And that was really St. Rest #1.”
Hopkins then named his own church St. Rest #2 Missionary Baptist Church.
“His very first restaurant was on the West Side of Chicago, on Laramie and Madison, and it was called St. Rest Dining Room,” Coffey said. “That was opened in ‘73.”
Coffey said her father and her mother, Sophia Hopkins, opened the restaurant together, “but it was my dad’s vision because my mom was really a stay-at-home mom.”
Her father owned multiple restaurants at one time, Coffey said. He also had a couple of hot dog stands, she added, all on the West Side. She doesn’t know their names. One was open before she was born, but her brothers would tell her about it. And the other, she was still too young to really remember.
“It was on Fifth Avenue and right off of Cicero,” Coffey said.
Down the street from St. Rest Dining Room, her father also owned a restaurant called Southern Cafe. Next door, there was Daniella’s Fish Market, named after her.
“Where you could get live catfish,” the chef said. “He had three or four businesses on that same block.”
Her father opened St. Rest #2 Country Kitchen in 1983.
“When he first opened, it was breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she said. “Where the cafeteria bar is right now, it used to be the grill.”
They would prepare breakfast right in front of you on a flat-top griddle there.
Hopkins left St. Rest Dining Room for Coffey’s sisters to run, but closed it soon after.
He ran St. Rest #2 Country Kitchen for 37 years, through the early part of the pandemic, until he asked his daughter to take over.
“In December of 2020, my father came to me and my husband saying, ‘I’m tired, just ready to retire. I’ve given it all that I have.’ COVID had done a number, to be honest,” Coffey said. “I was like, ‘Dad, listen, this is a lot of work.’ Because I grew up in the business. I saw the toll that it had taken. The restaurant industry is no joke.”
She told her father it wasn’t what she wanted to do, but to give her time to think it through with her husband.
“And my dad made a statement that I’ll never ever forget,” Coffey said. “He said, ‘Baby girl, what you’re looking for way over yonder, it’s right here in your hands.’”
“So finally, in January, I gave him a ‘yes,’” she said.
In February 2021, she and her husband, John Coffey, took over.
“And in April, my dad closed his eyes, he took his last breath in my arms,” Daniella Coffey said. “The very next day after his funeral, we were in foreclosure court.”
Her husband, a retired Marine, asked, ‘What’s the mission?’
“I said, ‘Babe, it’s to keep the legacy going and to save this business by any means necessary.’”
So they did, and they’ve got the recipes.
“My dad added his twist,” the chef said. “And, of course, now I’ve added my twist to them as well. But they’re all originally from grandma for the most part.”
From homemade strawberry lemonade to smothered pork chops to slick greens. But it all starts with an unusual service style.
“We like to call it cafeteria style with a twist,” Coffey said. “Back in the day, when we used to go to grandma’s house or my aunt’s house, it was like a full spread.”
“When you come into the restaurant, you see the beautifully laid-out buffet line,” she said. “The meats are on one side, the sides are on the other, then you have a line of desserts.”
To be clear, someone still serves you, but it feels more familial. After you pay, your table is set and waiting with water and bottles of house-made vinegar and hot sauces. Your server will bring any beverages you’ve ordered.
“All while enjoying gospel music,” Coffey said. “We are a faith-based restaurant business so we play Christian gospel music.” Old school and new school.
“Everything is made fresh from scratch,” she added, including the strawberry lemonade. “Nothing is out of a can.”
The bestselling item is the smothered pork chops, tender and hearty, but it’s only available on Saturdays.
“The gravy is like liquid gold,” Coffey said.
Spoon that gold over a side of red beans and white rice, another Saturday special. A dinner, no matter when it’s ordered, includes meat, two sides and two mini muffins.
“We have little bite-sized corn muffins,” the chef said. Despite their Southern roots, the cornbread is Northern style, so it’s a little sweet.
But their most popular sides speak of the Black American South.
“Lima beans and black-eyed peas,” the chef said. “And four cheese mac and cheese, candied yams and fresh collard greens.”
“On Fridays, we have slick mustard greens,” she said. “My aunt used to make slick mustards, and I absolutely loved them.”
Angela Chatman, the chef’s niece and the restaurant’s general manager, suggested adding the slick mustard greens.
“I remember the first time we put them on the menu, people were coming back and ordering like seconds and thirds,” Coffey said.
The catfish filets and chicken wings are fried to order. The menu board notes that they will take 15 and 20 minutes to prepare, respectively. The filets are golden and crunchy on the outside with pristine white fish, while the wings are whole (drumettes, flats and tips!), but a bit small.
The hot and sweet peach cobbler is made in-house, as is the cool and creamy banana pudding, but the fan-favorite caramel cake is made by a baker exclusively for the restaurant.
“He’s been making our cakes for about 22 years now,” Coffey said.
His name?
“Mr. Hale,” she said laughing. “I’ve never called him by his first name.”
St. Rest #2 Country Kitchen may be a complicated name, but the family has been dedicated to it. First as a church, then as a restaurant. It’s their legacy and our future.
“My mom’s still here,” Coffey said. “She comes when she wants, we just take care of her, make sure she’s good.”
Chatman, the chef’s niece and restaurant’s general manager, will take over in the next few years.
So do they own the property now, where one of the oldest soul food restaurants in Chicago has stood since 1983?
“Clear and free,” said Coffey.
St. Rest #2 Country Kitchen
727 E. 87th St.
773-962-0700
sites.google.com/corporatejewels.com/st-rest2-country-kitchen
Open: Friday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Prices: $20 (smothered pork chops dinner), $19 (fried catfish filet dinner), $18 (fried chicken wings dinner), $4.99 (caramel cake), $3.50 (strawberry lemonade)
Noise: Conversation-friendly
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with restrooms on single level
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