Funky Grits' chef Jordan Carlson (left) and owner Jared Brewington
Obscure but suddenly important question: Anyone remember a south Minneapolis restaurant called the Rib Cage?
It was on one corner of 38th and Nicollet, and the question is suddenly important because Jared Brewington is about to open a south Minneapolis spot called Funky Grits, and his dad ran the Rib Cage. This means we are about to get a few things the south side does not currently have: namely, grits and a hoppin' John burger served in a spot with deep south-side African-American family roots.
Jared Brewington is a local rarity, the 5th generation of an unbroken family line to have grown up in South Minneapolis, and this restaurant is a mid-career change for him, after success as a business consultant. "My dad loved the Rib Cage," Brewington told me, "Especially the entrepreneurial freedom of it. That entrepreneurial spirit is embedded in me. I always remember, my dad said 'fortunately and unfortunately, you’re a black man in the United States of America, if you can work for yourself, you should work for yourself – you’ll run into fewer institutional obstacles and will find a clearer path to success.'" Before turning his sights on restaurants Brewington developed a specialty in forensic valuations and helping owners sell their businesses. After getting to know the details of so many small businesses he couldn't resist the call of trying his hand at one himself. Well, now we're almost there!
Funky Grits' restaurant owner Jared Brewington with his daughter Josephine
The place will be counter service and quick-serve, located on the southeast corner of 38th and Chicago (not terrifically far from his dad's old restaurant) and will specialize in grits bowls made with heirloom Anson Mills grits. Imagine an "Acadian" bowl with cheddar grits and sustainable Gulf shrimp, or a vegan "Mariachi" bowl with black beans, roast vegetables, and avocado. There will also be salads, sandwiches including a burger with a boudin-chuck blend and a vegetarian Hoppin' John burger with a vegan aioli, as well as $7 kid meals like a peanut-butter and honey sandwich favored by Brewington's little girl Josephine, who was helping her dad at the pop-up event where I ran into the Funky Grits crew.
The menu was designed almost entirely by chef Jordan Carlson, who has been cooking for the last three years at Northeast's scratch-comfort-food destination The Sample Room. He told me that with so much of the food here being based on grits, the menu is largely gluten free.
I tried a bit of the restaurant's grits and shrimp bowl, and loved the good corny, slightly al dente texture of the grits, as well as Carlson's way of cooking the shrimp, just past translucent and nowhere near rubbery. The spot will serve wine and beer, but only from Bauhaus Brew Labs and Santa Maria's sustainable River Bench winery, two companies Brewington loves, "I want everything in Funky Grits to be something I'm passionate about." As part of that, he has also long been a board member for Compatible Technology International, a group that provides hand-powered farming equipment like threshers and grain mills to African families. "We’re going to have an opportunity for customers to round up their bills and donate to CTI every day," Brewington told me. "The volume of harvest can increase 75% with our systems, people don't know how much grain you lose with some of these traditional ways, threshing by throwing grain in the air, you end up with so much on the ground. Almost all the farmers we work with are women, and what I always hear is: Now I can farm more, and provide education for my daughter." Good food, good roots, and a good cause? Sounds, shall we say, good?
Welcome, Funky Grits! Target opening: March, or maybe sometime this spring.
805 E. 38th St., Mpls., 612.367.4978
