'America's Next Great Restaurant'-Winning Chain Soul Daddy Closes All But One Location

Looks like Soul Daddy will not be celebrating Father's Day this year. Eater reports that two of its three locations, in New York and Los Angeles, closed yesterday after being open just a month. The "healthy soul food" chain was founded by America’s Next Great Restaurant-winner Jamawn Woods. Some of the investment money for the chain supposedly came from the show's judges—Chipotle founder Steve Ells, and chefs Lorena Garcia, Curtis Stone and Bobby Flay. The restaurant’s PR team stated that the owners want to “focus on developing the best restaurant” they can at the one remaining Soul Daddy, on the third floor of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Early feedback for Soul Daddy on Yelp and Chowhound has been decidedly mixed. Some complain that the restaurant’s concept is derivative of Chipotle; one review called it “just gross.” Soul Daddy is Wood’s first restaurant. Before winning the NBC reality show, he was the chef-owner of W3’s, a small catering company in Detroit.

Comments

[jalawa03]

09:19 AM on 06/22/2011

I agree with RDBest. This was tantamount to a get rich scheme. A pyramid. Give me 100 dollars and get the next person to put in 100 dollars on the LA spot, and then another person give 100 on the NY store, and then another...I suppose he bit off more than he could chew.

[knifebeard]

11:58 AM on 06/21/2011

Oh, if only Steve Ells wasn't involved in this show the contestants could have been more true to their ideas. Instead they all tried to make Steve happy. All he talked about was Chipotle and how all these concepts should be more like.....Chipotle. Oh, and if I forgot to mention, Steve Ells founded Chipotle. Then again he may have already mentioned that.

[baxtron]

02:36 PM on 06/20/2011

Just had the Vegetarian Plate. Wild Rice salad was ok. Cooked Sweet Potatoes edible. Baked Kale was very spicy and very good. cheese grits were cheesish and ok. corn waffle is on the small side for a buck. I did not try any of the meat flavored product because I am no BBQ expert. I had burnt ends at KC BBQ fest in 2000 and thought they were grossly overrated. The retaurant is in a row with 40 other restaurants at the MOA, so good luck. The 3 Panda Express' might get more traffic because they are in the Food Court and not in the hallway. Might need to move next to the Sabarros to get more exposure.

[Myshkin57]

06:27 PM on 06/16/2011

One month... what a commitment!

[Bor Zoi]

05:36 PM on 06/16/2011

If I were to ask 100,000 people who knew anything about food and food culture, "Where would you put a soul food restaurant?", I don't think New York, LA or Minneapolis would even be on the radar. Just because its a big city, doesn't mean there's a big base for the product.

Soul food is just a stone's throw from Southern cooking (= meat and three) and barbecue. Simple demography would state that there would be a larger soul food potential in areas where Southern and BBQ were prevalent. Therefore, how do you open a soul food restaurant and not think Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis or Raleigh as one of three location options? Not three of three: one of three.

I hope this set-back has not dimmed this young man's enthusiasm, but realistically, those city choices were pretty stupid.

[cyoohoos]

06:12 AM on 06/17/2011

Yes they were. and I said it before he won, how can you effectively manage building a business that has 1 store in NY, 1 in LA and 1 in Minneaopolis? One person cannot effectively manage business that are that disparate in location. And when you're trying to build a brand you need to micromanage its infancy.

[RDBest]

10:42 AM on 06/16/2011

Who's surprised that this "get rich quick" scheme didn't work? It takes time to develop a concept and learn how to implement it. Who could possibly manage three new restaurants, hundreds of miles apart, based on an untried and unrefined concept?

[Jennifer Hagan]

02:29 AM on 06/17/2011

it isn't untried. It has been done plenty of times and you even have soul food restaurant chains that are doing well and have been. A unrefined concept? A lot of Emeril Lagasse's food IS soul food. He takes recipes that the Black community has been using for years and serves it in his restaurants. It apparently is working.

[cyoohoos]

06:16 AM on 06/17/2011

This wasn't tried. Most restaurants start with one location and build from there. Especially fast food. There are widely successful fast food restaurants who haven't ventured out of the South East, for example. I think he has a good idea, I just think he should have taken the money instead of the locations and started one really good restaurant and built up from there. Hopefully he can continue to make this work. Especially since I saw an interview where he quit his job for this opportunity.

Emeril had huge corporate power behind his nationwide expansion (can you say Universal Studios) and he wasn't selling fast food. Dinners costing 30 and up can hire chefs and decent management staff, instead of teenagers.

[RDBest]

07:59 AM on 06/17/2011

Sorry, I didn't mean that soul food was unrefined or an untried concept. I meant that Woods particluar model for Soul Daddy had not been tried and refined. This would have been true for any winner of the show. It takes a lot of trial and error to make a successful restaurant; you need to get a prototype right before opening a chain. BTW, it was the show, not Mr. Woods, that made the poor decision to open three restaurants at once, hundreds of miles apart.

[GraphicMatt]

10:41 AM on 06/16/2011

After one month! That's just POOR planning. You open one at a time, focus on getting it perfect, THEN you think about expanding.

[Freedom Rush]

09:22 AM on 06/17/2011

that's what I thought too. to open 3 stores at once was a recipe for disaster.

[baxtron]

10:37 AM on 06/16/2011

I was hoping the meatball guy would open a location at the MOA, so I could go there for lunch.

[justoverit333]

01:25 PM on 06/16/2011

yeah but the name of his restaurant - salsy ba lls was over the top. :/

[trx0x]

12:13 AM on 06/17/2011

the name was changed during the show to "Brooklyn Meatball Company."

[baxtron]

10:33 AM on 06/16/2011

if there's one area of the country to introduce "soul food" to, it's MN. Born and raised in MN. This place has very little chance. Chipotle is very close to this location. I will head down there today and try.

[justoverit333]

01:24 PM on 06/16/2011

Let us know what you think after you try it.

[baxtron]

09:47 AM on 06/17/2011

won't make it there before June 20th. hopefully, it won't be closed.

[draven646]

10:07 AM on 06/16/2011

Healthy food ain't very tasty - it's a frustrating contradiction.

I have a secret recipe for amazing Beer Batter - Deep fried Fish....but i make only once a month and ensure i run 4 miles before i eat it.....

What to do - I have to stay fit and healthy and yet i love food - especially the type that clogs arteries.

[cyoohoos]

06:19 AM on 06/17/2011

Actually it can be very tasty. Grilled chicken (none of that boneless skinless stuff), baked beans and collard greens (not the kind cooked in fat back) is rather healthy and very tasty.

I'm at the point where if my plate is monochrome (all shades of tan from being fried) , I'm less inclined to eat it.

[Roadrun]

10:02 AM on 06/16/2011

Soul food? Oh that's the story. Here I thought it was sole food, and maybe halibut too.

[westreal]

09:58 AM on 06/16/2011

Well, at least he's doing the smart thing and focusing on one restaurant. Three is a little too adventurous for a first time restauranteur. I hope he makes it.

But reading some of the comments it looks like the judges made him change his original idea, which might have been successful to this 'healthy soul food'. Not a good idea. And I agree with another poster that white people run from any restaurant that alludes to black people so changing the name from Soul Daddy to something more innocuous will probably help. Call it Creole Daddy or something.

[OrangeSalad]

09:51 AM on 06/16/2011

I watched the show and it was clear that the contestants were the food ideas people but they were not going to have much say in the actual fast food restaurant.

Soul Daddy's location in NYC was not very good - Front Street, closer to Peck Slip than the main drag, Fulton Street, at the South Street Pier. The lack of signage made it hard to find, even for people who work in the area and were looking for Soul Daddy. Woods did not pick the location.
People reported that the decor in NYC was very sparse, industrial, cold and didn't have much seating. That definitely wasn't Woods idea. He wanted purple and music themes and was told that had to be toned down.

Another complaint was the very small portions - Woods did not determine portion size.

A few reviewers that have eaten at Chipotle said that Soul Daddy's pulled pork tasted like a dish they had at Chipotle.

Other people complained that the meat, left under hot lights, was too dried out.

It is ANGR Holdings, LLC that manages the restaurant. Chipotle Mexican Grill, provides support for company operations and invested a total of $2.3 million in cash contributions

ANGR Holdings, LLC has also registered trademarks on several of the show's restaurant concepts names: Soul Daddy, Harvest Sol, Spice Coast, Grill'Billies, Sinners and Saints, Revolution Tacos, Chǎo, and The Sports Wrap.

[EmilyRose 85]

10:58 AM on 06/16/2011

Thanks for the very informative post. What a shame, it sounds like he had an original vision (while it's hard to say if it would have been successful) and it got watered down. I have to say the photos I've seen of Soul Daddy's look EXACTLY like Chipotle, right down to the menu format and layout.

[OrangeSalad]

05:07 AM on 06/17/2011

ITA. Our biggest hint should have been the fact that they opened Soul Daddy the day after the person won.

[logic63]

09:27 AM on 06/16/2011

He started out with a good idea and the "judges" talked him into changing a little at a time until they made a concept that would't work. Too bad because his original idea might have worked

[Terrible Towel]

09:29 AM on 06/16/2011

I agree. The original idea and put a location in Chicago too...or keep them in the Midwest to start vs spread out so far.

I blame the Chipotle guy.

[nanooknw]

10:31 AM on 06/16/2011

Sorry this happened. I blame this on the "judges."
How anyone can manage restaurants that are thousands of miles apart
is beyond me.

[baxtron]

10:34 AM on 06/16/2011

fanned for avatar.

[boomcat44]

09:12 AM on 06/16/2011

"Healthy" Soul Food?
As my ol' Pappy used to say;

"There's something wrong here......"