Southern California Alumni Chapter Southern Food Page
Please send us an email if you know of a restaurant in Southern California that serves Southern food and we'll include it in our directory. (No national chains, please.) LINKS TO OTHER SOCAL SOUTHERN FOOD RESOURCES AUNT KIZZY'S BACK PORCH BIG JIM'S OLD SOUTH BAR-B-Q BURRELL'S BAR-B-QUE JOHNNY REBS MEMPHIS AT THE SANTORA MILLIE’S COUNTRY KITCHEN M&M SOUL FOOD RAGIN' CAJUN CAFE REIGN ROSCOE'S HOUSE OF CHICKEN & WAFFLES RUTH'S PLACE
Click here for Southern food in Northern California, courtesy of the Northern California Chapter of the Alabama Alumni Association.
Soul of America list of Los Angeles area restaurants serving soul food.
PriceTool.com listing of Los Angeles Southern/Soul restaurants.
Address: 4325 Glencoe Avenue, Marina Del Rey, CA
Phone: (310) 578-1005
Website: http://www.seeing-stars.com/Dine2/AuntKizzys.shtml
Description: Of the upscale Southern/Soul Food restaurants in Los Angeles, Georgia on Melrose may have the glitz, but Aunt Kizzy's Back Porch has the food. Aunt Kizzy's is located in an outdoor shopping center in Marina Del Rey, tucked into an obscure corner between a Vons supermarket and a music store - you have to look hard to find it.
Aunt Kizzy's does standing-room-only business, drawing stars such as Magic Johnson and Arsenio Hall down to the Marina to try some of the greatest home-style cooking in L.A. Hundreds of framed B&W photos of Hollywood stars line the restaurant's walls (Willie Nelson, Eddie Murphy, Stevie Wonder...). Lakers' guard Kobe Bryant likes to come here on Fridays, as does A.C. Green and many other NBA stars. Actress Debbie Allen ("Fame") prefers Sundays (she loves their biscuits.) Director John Singleton is also a fan.
The tables have red-checkered tablecloths. The old-fashioned, home-style food includes entrees such as smothered pork chops, short ribs, chicken & dumplings, meatloaf, jambalaya and chicken-fried steak. Sides dishes include a very good potato salad, macaroni & cheese, black-eyed peas, collard greens, candied yams, and corn bread dressing. Big meals for big appetites. Desserts feature peach cobbler, a "Sock-It-To-Me " cake, sweet potato pie, and a great coconut-pineapple cake. Wash it all down with their "award-winning lemonade."
Because it's such a tiny restaurant, their little tables are much too close together, and the lines of people waiting to get in can get long indeed during their busy hours. So come early for dinner (not for lunch, when they offer an awkward cafeteria-style arrangement). You can expect to pay about $35 for dinner for two - far less for lunch. Dress is nice-casual to semi-dressy.
Getting there: to reach Aunt Kizzy's, from the Marina Del Rey Freeway west, go to Mindanao Way and turn right (north), then turn left (west) into the Villa Marina shopping center. Aunt Kizzy's is tucked away in a corner between a Von's supermarket and a Wherehouse store. You'll have to search for it.
Address: 190 North Coast Highway 101, Encinitas, CA
Phone: 760-635-1166
Website: http://www.bigjimsbar-b-q.com/
Description: This is barbecue Alabama-style. Big Jim's is spreading the gospel of Alabama barbecue to the West Coast, with his ribs, sandwiches and chicken, along with tons of other Southern favorites like fried catfish and hotlinks. Sides include sweet potato french fries, coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans, and other yummy dishes straight from your Granny's picnic menu. Best of all, Big Jim is an alumnus of the University of Alabama, and has what might be the the best place West of the Rockies to watch Crimson Tide football. Drop by on a 'Bama gameday for free boiled peanuts and $2 "Roll Tide Ales" (the house brew).
Address: 305 N. Hesperian, Santa Ana, CA
Phone: (714) 547-7441
Website: N/A
Description: After a stab at building an OC barbecue empire, onetime Stax drummer Fred Burrell is back minding the fires at his original ultrafunky Santa Ana shack, serving up the greatest, messiest platters of cue this side of the Mississippi. Since 1981, his ribs, hand-stuffed hot links, pork tips, dirty rice, baked beans, collard greens and sweet potato pie have brought a mouthful of soul to a county greatly in need of it. You can't go wrong with anything here. The chicken's fine and the pork ribs are a messy delight, but real meat heads go for the beef brisket or pork tips 'n' ends. Plan your day around when his sweet-potato pie comes out of the oven.
Address: 2940 E. Chapman Ave., Orange, CA
Phone: (714) 633-3369
Website: N/A
Description: Other locations in Long Beach, (562) 423-7327, and Bellflower, (562) 866-6455.
When I spotted the new Johnny Rebs’ Southern Roadhouse in Orange, I laid rubber to get inside and glory in the exquisite Southern food. Fans of the Roadhouse will delight in the fact that they no longer have to drive to Long Beach or Bellflower to get Yankee Cheese Grits and Yankee Spuds. The former, fluffy and light and oozing with cheddar, give the much-maligned grits a good name. The latter—all golden crisp nuggets rife with avocado, tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms and onions, cheese, and sour cream—is a meal in itself. But if you can handle it, try the fat, juicy link of Cajun sausage as big as a Ball Park Frank and the melt-in-your-mouth biscuits and gravy.
Before opening Rebs’ for her homesick Southern husband, owner Cheryl Carter, who’s from Indiana, spent months traveling through his native North Carolina, Georgia and all points south in order to learn the Gospel of Southern Cooking. She worked alongside the masters of Southern barbecue for nothing but a few nips of white lightning and all the local knowledge she could muster. She named Rebs’ after an old comic strip—not for its content, but for its Southern ring.
With the trashy pink-plastic flamingos out front and a stuffed-catfish wall trophy the size of a walrus, you almost expect Granny Clampett to be in the kitchen cooking up a wash pot full of swamp-cabbage stew and possum shank. They serve nothing of the kind. What they do serve are the forgotten fixin’s of the rural South—stuff you rarely see in the land of Chinese chicken salads and penne Gorgonzola. Rebs’ could make it as a roadside stand serving nothing but the fried green tomatoes: thick slices of tangy, firm fruit, coated in cornmeal and lightly fried, and sprinkled with succulent bits of chopped bacon. If you’re any kind of Southerner, you’ll follow this up with the North Carolina pork sandwich. Tender, ultralean juicy pork is hacked into bits of mouthwatering goodness glistening with tangy barbecue sauce, topped with creamy Southern slaw, and swaddled in a soft bun.
A Southern eatery wouldn’t be the same without catfish, and Rebs’ knows how to fry it. Coated in cornmeal and greaseless, it is delicious in tartar sauce. And the side orders—smoky black-eyed peas and crispy sweet-potato fries—rival the entrées.
It’s not just the food that’s fabulous; the service is amazing, too, like something you’d find at a cheerful diner in Flea Hop, Alabama. No snobs, no actors, just down-home folks happy to be there and more than willing to get you anything you need. On my first visit, three servers came by within the first three minutes to make sure we had drinks coming.
So far, the restaurants have maintained their folksy roots, but with this spanking-new third location, the question lingers: Is Johnny Rebs’ destined to become Johnny Rockets? "It scares me, too, to be quite honest," mused Carter. "I don’t know how we do this and keep the flavor of the business that we have so far. That’s our challenge."
Address: 201 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, CA
Phone: (714) 564-1064
Website: http://memphiscafe.com/santora.htm
Address: S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim CA, 92802
Phone: 714-535-6892
Website: http://millies.com/
Description: When you have had enough of overpriced Disneyland park food, head to Millie's located right at the main gate. Millie's will cure any homesick Southern appetite and for a low price. This upscale-chain coffee shop is as homey as a calico apron, and it serves immense portions of good ol' boy food. When you've got a hankering for fried chicken with mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, pot roast and deep-dish pies, you could do a lot worse than Millie's. Desserts are a specialty: pies, cinnamon rolls and cookies. It's a great place for kids and seniors---a campy bit of ex-urban America, at pre-inflation prices.
Inglewood Address: 3300 W Manchester Blvd. at 11th Ave., Inglewood, CA
Inglewood Phone: 310-673-5031
Pasadena Address: 755 E Washington Blvd., Pasadena, CA
Pasadena Phone: 626-794-0059
South L.A. Address: 3552 W Martin Luther King Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
South L.A. Phone: 323-299-1302
Website: N/A
Description: L.A. Soul Food institution, with three locations in the L.A. area. Recently opened Las Vegas location to high acclaim. From hot links to liver & onions to oxtails delivered in a friendly setting; don't forget the Mississippi burgers and baby-back ribs.
Address: 422 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach, CA
Phone: (714) 476-8284
Website: http://www.ragincajun.com/
Description: The Ragin Cajun Cafe in Hermosa Beach is the home of authentic Cajun dining in Southern California. Since its founding, we at the Ragin Cajun Cafe have focused on friendly service combined with the best Cajun dining experience to be found outside of Bayou country.
Address: 180 N. Robertson Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Phone: 310-273-4463
Description: Owned by Keyshawn Johnson. Very upscale & pretty expensive, but great food.
Hollywood Address: 1514 N Gower Street at Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA
Hollywood Phone: 323-466-7453
Midtown Address: 5006 W Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
Midtown Phone: 323-934-4405
Pasadena Address: 830 N. Lake Ave. between Orange grove and Washington, Pasadena, CA
Pasadena Phone: 323-934-4405
Website: http://roscoeschickenandwaffles.com/
Description: Many a Hollywood exec gets busy with chicken and waffles; the biscuits are special too; you’ll be shoulder to shoulder with new friends at this very small, authentic Soul food restaurant.
Address: 1236 W. Civic Center Dr., Santa Ana, CA
Phone: (714) 953-9454
Website: N/A
Description: Ruth Davenport learned to cook as a girl in Alabama, and, boy, does it show. This is real Southern cooking, stripped of any restaurant gloss. Davenport works alone in her storefront Santa Ana place, preparing each meal personally, just as if you were invited to her house. Everything she cooks—from oxtails and chitlins to fried chicken—has down-home soul. The mashed potatoes are buttery and the hush puppies so greasy and delicious that you'll gobble up six before you realize you're stuffed. Nothing here is healthy, but that's not the point. Another plus is Ruth herself, who's one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet.