Meredith Gardner Clinton is excited about the rebirth of the old Puck Food Hall building at 409 South Main.
“I’m down here at 409 and right now we’re just kind of cleaning out the place,” Clinton says.
And, she says, “There’s going to be restaurant. I don’t know if they’ve come up with a name. I don’t know what concept they’re going to go with.”
They don’t have a target date for the opening of the restaurant, but they currently are catering for “private dinners or if you have a holiday party,” Clinton says. “Birthday parties, weddings, and baby showers.” They can cater basically any private event, “either here or off location.”
Clinton, former sous chef at Erling Jensen: The Restaurant, will be chef de cuisine at her new business, where she is a partner along with Jared Welch and Bill Ganus.
The building, formerly Puck Food Hall, will comprise one restaurant and the catering business, Clinton says. “I’m going to be supervising everything, but mostly the food end. I want everything to be done the way I want it done.”
As for the cuisine, Clinton says they’re “kind of waiting” to decide what that will be. But, she says, “I’m always going to lean towards Southern ‘cause that’s just the cuisine I was raised into and the cuisine I always go back into.”
The catering side is called Black Sheep Catering. “I think people in the restaurant business are all kind of black sheep,” she says.
In a restaurant, it’s “kind of this culture” to just be an outcast, Clinton says. “Because we don’t sleep in late. We’re not trying to get up to go to work 9 to 5 and go home and have dinner. I think it’s just a personality trait. You can go with the grain or go against it.”
Some people view “black sheep” as a “bad term,” but Clinton says, “We’re using it as a good term. Something more elegant.”
Clinton, who is from Haiti, Missouri, says her grandmother was her cooking influence. “I grew up in a small town where my dad had a gas station. I was around a lot of ‘fried chicken gas station stuff.’ I started working there when I was 12. Just cooking fried chicken and making biscuits, biscuits and gravy, and stuff like that.”
She moved to Memphis to attend L’ecole Culinaire culinary school. “And that’s how I met Jimmy Gentry and Ben Smith and all the other great chefs that were there. Rick Farmer. And Ben Smith offered me a job [at Tsunami].”
She moved back home before officially moving to Memphis in 2013. Her husband, Keith Clinton, is former chef de cuisine at Erling Jensen: The Restaurant. They have one child.
As for her new job, Clinton says, “I’m so excited. It’s going to be a lot to take on so I’m obviously nervous.”
But, she adds, “They say if you’re not nervous, your dreams aren’t big enough. So, I’m excited to do something new.”
To cater an event with Black Sheep Catering, call 901-402-4498.
