I can only assume that Day One of journalism school features a lesson on objectivity.
Good thing I never went to journalism school because you can throw that dictum out the back door on this article.
I love Geneva and Kenny Wade.
We met nearly five years ago to the day when I wrote about the grand opening of Geneva's Famous Chicken and Cornbread Co., and from the first moment she and I sat down in their fifth and most recent restaurant, she was the aunt I never had.
Since then, my wife and I have enjoyed meals at Geneva’s more often than at any other eatery in Savannah, and Geneva and Kenny have become our dear friends.
This is the first place I recommend to friends for the flat-out best food in town. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, bite for bite, this is the place to eat, and those who know know.
At this point, if you don’t know, you don’t know, and shame on you for assuming that this is some fast-food chicken outfit across the parking lot from a Target. Farthest from it, Geneva’s is non-chain scratch-made everything at its finest.
Lucky for all of us, the Wades are set to reopen their Victory Square establishment this week, following a three-month closure that allowed them to undergo an enormous expansion.
As a matter of fact, stop reading right now. Go. Eat.
DOUBLE FEATURE
“We actually started working on this idea and this expansion about two years ago,” Geneva Wade said two weeks before the immaculately renovated restaurant restarted daily operations.
“It was really easy for us to decide to expand here, rather than going somewhere else,” she explained.
“We like the shopping center. It’s a pretty busy shopping center, but with us being here, it’s even busier,” Wade said with a sweet smile. “And it’s been really good to us.”
She credited Brixmor, the property management company that owns Victory Square, for its help “moving some tenants around to accommodate what we were trying to do.”
Under the GC direction of David Gilpin, who also oversaw the 2019 build-out of this property, construction began on the Cricket side back on Oct. 12, and the Wades turned off the restaurant burners on Christmas Eve.
Waiting out Cricket’s lease so that they could expand ‘southward’ into Suite 103 made much more sense than taking over the already vacant former Big Frog Custom T-Shirts franchise. Moving in the other direction, if you will, would have necessitated tearing out and rebuilding an existing kitchen, instead of the new floor plan that features a brilliant and beautiful kitchen-in-the-middle.
“We wrapped it around and mirrored what we had,” Wade said of the redesigned space. “We basically have a double kitchen.”
That is only half of this times-two endeavor.
Old walls were opened up, and new ones were built to create another small prep area. Three additional fryers are in the expanded kitchen layout plus four more burners, a second convection oven, and a steam-jacketed kettle in which all types of soups, stews, and vegetables will be made.
Perhaps the biggest boon is the walk-in cooler and freezer which both Wades called “a huge plus” and which relieve a pair of stand-ups from carrying the entire cooling load.
“In those two double stand-ups, we had to put everything,” Geneva Wade said, elongating and emphasizing the last word.
Effectively, everything in the interior, both for the paying public and for the working Wades and their staff, has been doubled.
“We have all the equipment we need to serve the public,” she continued. “There’s not a reason why we should be out of anything because we have the equipment to put it out now. We really do.”
COUNTRY CHIC
For frequenters of the ‘old’ Geneva's Famous Chicken and Cornbread Co., that first visit to this ‘new’ iteration will feel familiar even if you think you might need to have your eyes checked.
In many ways, this has been the classic renovation story in which the waiting was the hardest part, until alterations slowly began to take physical shape day by day.
“The most fun has been seeing the whole thing come together,” Geneva Wade said, looking around at all that has changed. “When we first got in here, of course, we couldn’t see the picture, but then all of a sudden, something amazing happened, and things started to look beautiful.”
“As more and more stuff started going up, we were like, ‘Oh wow!’”
The pistachio green is gone, and what was country-porch cute is sleeker and more modern but is still just as homespun Southern.
“They’re just extraordinary,” Geneva Wade said of Colby Thompson and Hayes Young, who designed the interior and executed every decor element from the artwork to the bespoke woodwork that seamlessly masks several appliance pieces.
Wade met Young during her 2010 to 2019 “hiatus” from cooking, during which time he was her manager at Helzberg Diamonds.
“When I left Helzberg, we were connected, and we stayed really close,” Wade said of her “computer guru” who handled IT, web presence, registers, and menu boards for the first incarnation of Geneva's Famous Chicken and Cornbread Co. and has done the same for the resto’s reboot.
With husband Thompson, a radiographer by day, conjuring the aesthetic, the couple has been “fully encompassed in everything this time, from the design of the restaurant to the design of the menu,” per Young.
“They are the interior of this space,” said a deeply appreciative Wade.
On the original side, the red leather banquettes remain with free-floating four-seater tables set along a long wall freshened up in dove gray and box-framed off-white trim. Long mirrors and CNC-cut wordart alternates with shelves of spices and home-cooking knickknackery.
The new half seats another two-dozen diners at round charcoal gray tables and a high-top for eight at the back. Floating on black pipe supports, reclaimed wood shelves display what was in the kitchen cupboards of all of our moms and aunts, at least those who really knew how to cook.
“We’ve doubled our seating capacity, which for us is great because we often [saw] twenty people standing outside waiting to get in,” Geneva Wade said.
While waiting for your food, make sure to read the entire ‘How We Hatched’ wall, a creative chronicle of Miss Geneva’s culinary career and the Wades’ adventures in the food industry.
Above it all, black steel can lights drop from a ceiling that has been raised and painted black to match the trim and accent pieces throughout the restaurant.
Along the front windows, now fitted with dark roller shades, are benches for folks waiting to be seated, and on the other side, new patio furniture sets seat another sixteen al fresco under huge umbrellas.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked with a laugh, knowing it truly is.
EVEN MORE ON A MARVELOUS MENU
To go along with the expanded space is an even bigger menu, not that Miss Geneva and Co. need to make anything other than fried chicken and a few sides.
“We have lots of new goodies for the customers,” she said happily.
For starters, Southwestern Egg Rolls and the hand-breaded Fried Zucchini Basket have been added to the Quick Bites section.
What was a Saturday-only flounder fish fry is now an everyday offer of beer-battered cod in a fish-and-chip basket with coleslaw. Another seafood entrée is her Southern Fried Twin Lobster Tail, a Sunday special back in the day at the Wades’ Bee Road eatery and an occasional treat here at #102 Victory Square.
“It’s served with a sweet-chili sauce and a lobster sauce. They’re deep-fried with a light coat of buttermilk. They’re excellent,” she said.
Also resurrected from Geneva’s Home Plate is the Grilled Salmon Caesar, starring a fresh wild-caught four-ounce filet and a Parmesan frico.
Slow-roasted brisket will play the lead role in its own platter, served with two premium sides and a mini cornbread loaf, and chopped points will top the Loaded Potato Logs, Miss Geneva’s playful take on poutine.
As ever, that magical wet batter will be the exclusive dredge for chicken pieces and tenders while the shrimp and the cod have their own respective house-made pre-fry coatings.
“It is easier to think about it all in a bigger space,” Geneva Wade said of a menu that is ambitious and delicious. “The whole key is to make the chicken and cornbread something very unique and special for the public. Where can you go and have these wonderful dishes?”
She paused coyly before answering her own rhetorical, “Geneva’s.”
I chimed in with my own answer, “Nowhere but right here.”
TO-GO FLOW
By design, a major component of the expansion is a dedicated take-away area. No á la carte ordering can be done on the right side of the elongated front counter that Miss Geneva plans will be helmed by three to handle what will be a steady flow of varied customer needs.
“We have a lot of people who walk in and want their baked turkey wings, their baked chicken, whatever lunch specials we’ve got going on for that particular day,” she said, estimating that their breakdown over these last five years has been roughly 50-50 dine-in and take-out.
“The one thing I don’t want to do,” Wade added, “I don’t want us to get in the habit of people just standing up here waiting for food.”
To wit, Tuesday’s meatloaf and Wednesday’s pork chops, for example, will be immediately available on the right side, served from a specialized station for quick getaways, texts sent to patrons when their orders are up.
Doing you name it in the kitchen with Kenny Wade is son Mike, who at last check was helping his dad assemble staff lockers.
The Wades’ daughter Selestine Lavender, called Crystal by those in the family and those of us lucky enough to be close to the family, remains the family enterprise’s operations manager.
Throughout early March, her phone was hot with folks calling about openings, and she already has hired a dozen new employees, which doubled the restaurant’s staff totals before the roster was trimmed down prior to the temporary shutdown.
The ‘help wanted’ sign is still in the front window and on the website’s home page, and you can bet your bottom dollop of pecan butter that reinforcements will be needed.
“This time, when I open these doors, I want the place to flourish, and I want people to feel good about coming in and not having to wait so long,” said Geneva Wade.
Having, in actuality, doubled the size of everything, one wonders how much more fried chicken and cornbread and sweet yams and Mistake Cake she and her crew can make. Might the math work out to their being able to serve three times as many eager eaters?
“We can say ‘triple’ but I think, realistically, if we can just double, maybe two and half, would be great,” she said with another laugh. “Triple would be really great!”
“It’s scary, but you know, all my life, I’ve been a risk-taker,” Wade said. “I’ve had my share of ups and downs with these restaurants, but I haven’t given up. I just keep pushing because this is my thing. This is what I love. This is what I do, and I think that’s what got us right here today with this expansion.”
“The whole thing is being able to serve more people effectively.”
The Wades shared that, for the last two months, all day, everyday, loyal eaters have been driving by very slowly, peering through the windows, and peeking into a cracked doorway, each one wondering aloud, “When y’all going to open?”
Guilty as charged.
Geneva's Famous Chicken and Cornbread Co. (1909 East Victory Drive, Suites 102 and 103 in Victory Square) is open for dine-in and take-out Tuesday through Sunday (11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.).
