THAT’S BUSINESS

A reason to celebrate popping up in Helena

Every town of any size has a main street, whether it goes by that name or not.

Helena-West Helena’s major thoroughfare is Cherry Street.

Tales of Cherry Street have been woeful in recent years. Now they are a bit more hopeful.

Here’s one sign. There will be a restaurant for a day on Cherry come May 10, featuring Shane Henderson, executive chef for the Ben E. Keith Co. in North Little Rock, and Jason Godwin, executive chef at the Acxiom headquarters in Little Rock.

It’ll be called “Interstate Grocery, a Pop-Up Kitchen,” in honor of the first sponsor for the long-running King Biscuit Time radio show broadcast from downtown.

If that sounds down-home, it should. But the menu in this case is uptown, and will be offered on the street-level retail space below Matt Inman’s new 2,200-square-foot condominium on Cherry Street.

What is this all about?

Helena, which of course, merged with West Helena - giving the city a hyphenated, a rhythmic sound, like the blues itself - is trying to make a comeback after a downward spiral for decades.

Tourism has the potential to pull the town out of its funk.

The King Biscuit Blues Festival, which is held every October and draws tens of thousands, brings its own food, but that goes away for the rest of the year. The Mississippi River port city needs downtown restaurants and other amenities of hospitality year-round, developers feel.

That’s the view of those who are behind the culinary evening, proceeds, at $30 a head and a cash bar, from which will go toward the town’s revitalization.

Two cocktails have been designed for the evening by Chris Ferri of Memphis (still the go-to big city for many in the lower Delta), using Four Roses Bourbon, a whiskey with a long Southern history, sometimes for the down-and-outers, but the Lawrenceburg, Ky., distillery has made a comeback, Ferri says.

Is there a parallel between the whiskey and what the town wants to achieve? “That’s an excellent parallel,” Ferri says. “They’re doing some fantastic bourbon right now.”

Julia Malinowski, director of the Helena Advertising and Promotion Commission, said in a news release: “We know that chefs and restaurateurs see our area as a risky investment, so we’re trying to prove that we have the local food culture to support something different [from] the traditional soul food and [barbecue] joints.”

Henderson, who visited with economic developers in the town last fall, said Thursday that “it’ll definitely be contemporary Southern, Delta food.”

Malinowski wrote that “if this pop-up is successful, it will develop into a series of events with other chefs from the region.”

Sammy Elardo says he is getting Biscuit Row ready for that.

“I’m about 75 to 80 percent done over there,” meaning a one-block stretch on Phillips Street off Cherry, said Elardo, a longtime merchant.

Here’s the four-course menu for the May 10 soiree. Appetizers: “duck bacon” - cured duck breast with an ancho chile powder sorghum reduction, or smoked catfish with heirloom tomato cucumber relish; Salad: “revival salad,” with molasses vinaigrette; Main course: grillades and grits - roasted heart of rib-eye served on stone-ground grits; or slow-fried chicken thighs, dirty rice dumpling and mixed braised greens. Desserts will be Magnolia Pie, buttermilk pie with blackberry thyme sauce, or strawberry shortcake.

More information is available at tinyurl.com/keveywc.

If you have a tip, call Jack Weatherly at (501) 378-3518 or email him at

[email protected]

Business, Pages 73 on 03/30/2014

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