Walk in to 915 Vine Street and look down the hall and you will see a man in a white suit painted onto the back wall of the restaurant.
The man is Nathan Jolley's grandfather, Burnell Sutton, and also the name of the new restaurant opening on Monday in the old Mayberry location. Jolley, the former executive chef of Teller's in Hyde Park started renovating the restaurant the day after Mayberry moved out. With the help of
Higher Level Art, the space is cleaned, decorated and ready for customers.
Burnell's, a modern cafe and diner, will be open for lunch Monday through Friday and dinner Thursday through Saturday. The menu consists mainly of sandwiches and salads like the Challah Cuban, roasted pork loin, with cottage ham on grilled challah bread and the Tooner Salad, lemon chive tuna salad with greens, tomato and croustade.
Jolley will feature specials with locally sourced ingredients for dinner and Burnell's will have the same BYOB policy as Mayberry.
"We'll do smaller plates and pre-fixe meals for dinner," Jolley says. "We want to give people good food in a casual atmosphere."
Jolley has been dreaming of opening his own restaurant for years, even before he had the job as executive chef at Teller's. After a few years of jobs at Sysco and Stepping Stones where he didn't have free reign in the kitchen, Jolley wanted to be able to be creative in the kitchen again. He talked with Josh Campbell of Mayberry, and knew he could open up the place quickly and not lose passer-by traffic. He had to make the decision quickly so someone else didn't take the space.
"He was taking some of the larger equipment but left a lot of the necessities to open a restaurant," Jolley says. "I walked in the door and only needed to purchase a few things to open up."
By Evan Wallis
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