Join us Behind the Table with Supperland in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jamie Brown and her husband, Jeff Tonidandel opened Supperland in two church buildings that were built in North Carolina in 1948.
“It’s just a magnificent space. You walk in and it is awing.”
“There are lots of subtle touches that people may overlook. We hand-built all 40 tables here ourselves, and then we decided to design our own plate line,” says Jeff.
Their plate line is designed with flowers and a lot of birds and animals. Jamie and Jeff both mention that there isn’t really a piece of diningware that wasn’t thought through and purposefully designed.
“Supperland style cuisine is southern church potluck inspired steakhouse,” explains Savannah Foltz, the Head Pastry Chef at Supperland.
Southern church potluck-inspired steakhouse includes a lot of wood fire and smoke, but it can also include menu items such as ambrosia salad.
“A lot of what we do is like Blue Ridge Mountain, North Carolina, Appalachian style cuisines, which is my roots. So I go back and look at things like what my grandmother used to make and I try to spin off of it and elevate it and bring in that local stuff,” says Savannah.
“The banana pudding sundae that we have on the menu right now is a real crowd-pleaser. I can’t keep that one stocked enough,” she continues.
The Supperland staff explains that teamwork is one of the most important things in their restaurant. Their teamwork has to run through not only person to person but also as a whole operation. They need to have systems put in place that make each guest’s experience feel seamless and easy, but there is a lot of work that goes behind making sure that is done.
“With our suppliers, the biggest thing we need is communication. We look for new products daily and weekly, but we also have products that we’ve ordered for the last two years until now. Consistency in communication in products and pricing is really what helps, so we can still operate our business and know what’s going to happen on a daily basis,” explains Jon Rosenburg, General Manager.
“A lot of people open a restaurant because they want to make food and they want to put it out there for people, but if people don’t have a personal connection to that place in some way, it’s hard to grow off of that,” says Jamie.
