Tupelo brings kicked-up Southern Comfort cuisine
“It’s gone very, very well,” restaurant owner Steve Frabitore said about it’s opening Tuesday, Oct. 7, at its new location, 126 Biddle Farms Blvd. in Town Center.
“Being around 25 years, we have a very strong sense of who we are, what we do and what food we bring, and I call us a ‘first bite restaurant,’” the owner said. “What that means to us is that everything that we do, the first bite of food has to be delicious, and that makes you want that second bite, third bite, fourth bite.
“And ultimately, we’ll turn you into a regular,” Frabitore said. “We’re focused on bringing a very high-quality, high-flavor, chef-inspired Southern comfort food to the community … we call it polished casual.
“We have some items that have been around for many, many years that were famous for, like our biscuits and jam, our very unique sweet and savory take on Southern-fried chicken, our fried green tomatoes,” he said. “And, we’re becoming very well-known for our excellent salmon and mahi as well.
“All are served with some traditional and wonderful Southern sides, like goat cheese grits, some really terrific braised green beans or roasted Brussels sprouts, all spiced up uniquely as our chefs can do it, ” Frabitore added.
Currently, there are two signature dishes to try: Tupelo Honey shrimp and grits (with shrimp from the American Gulf), a signature dish for 25 years, and its bone-in fried chicken.
He added the shrimp and grits are still beloved and a top seller while the fried chicken goes through an 18-hour brining process flavored with special secret spices and finishing it off with “bee dust.”
About his customers, “I think they should come here and feel at home,” Frabitore said. “One differentiator (of restaurants) is genuine hospitality, authentic hospitality.
“You can come here in your sweat pants, your medical scrubs, in a three-piece suit for a business lunch. You can come here for family, with your kids … but when you come here, you need to know (that) you’re completely and totally welcome,” he said.
“We get joy out of service. We see what we do as being noble. We have the opportunity to feed you delicious food and take a load off while you’re here.
“Southern hospitality is unlike any other hospitality,” Frabitore said. “We have sayings, like ‘Bless your heart.’
But, hospitality is critically important, and you want to go to a restaurant where you feel comfortable.”
“This (opening of a new restaurant) is kind of a natural for us because we’ve been downtown (Knoxville) for a decade basically in Market Square,” Frabitore said.
Tupelo Honey is open from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday; and from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.
“(The Farragut restaurant) is our 27th location. The largest concentration of our stores is in Tennessee.
“We like Tennessee, and Tennessee seems to like what we do,” he added. “It’s all a good match. We just keep doing more of them.”
Celebrating its 25th anniversary as a company, Frabitore said Tupelo Honey has been around since 2000. In that vein, he reflected on why he chose Farragut for its newly added location.
“We love Knoxville,” he said. “It’s an extremely strong store for us, and it’s withstood the test of time. There’s a good workforce … it’s a pro-business climate to make it easy to do business.
“And, when we looked for a second location, we looked for a community — kind of a live-work place center like you have here — that is growing but it’s growing intentionally, meaning good roads, good schools, good services,” Frabitore said. “And, Farragut is very much and idealic community where people would love to live not only for its natural beauty but for all of the opportunities that are here.
“And this (Biddle Farms) is a substantial development, as you can see, so not only do you have the grocery store, not only is the high school across the street, wonderful churches down the road, a huge number of apartments and townhomes going in, you have shopping here; you have multiple restaurants here; it’s a real destination center for the people of Farragut,” he said. “It’s a place to gather and shop and dine and play.
“This location really sparked our interest, not only because the building is three sides glass, which brings a lot of natural light and beauty into our restaurant, but we have a really killer patio.
“Dogs are welcome on the patio, too,” Frabitore added. “Dogs can get a water bowl, and we have menu items for dogs.”
