CAROLINA BEACH — Longtime Carolina Beach residents have brought some southern soul food to Pleasure Island.
Soul Flavor Kitchen and Bar, on Lake Park Boulevard, will be serving up year-round helpings of comfort food.
“Some of the food is soul-southern inspired,” said co-owner, Mimi Mowery. “In my opinion soul flavor is like flavor for your soul.”
Mowery said she has attended hundreds of concerts and who describes herself as a “total music head.” Soulful music has infiltrated her restaurant, with a nearly 15-foot guitar decoration and plenty of old school records framing the walls of the cozy business.
Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Otis Redding can be heard throughout Soul Flavor on any given day.
Mowery’s husband, Chris Newton, co-owns the restaurant with her. Together, the two have fused their restaurant and service industry backgrounds to form the Soul Food.
Newton has helped open over 18 restaurants in his many years of experience. This time, the restaurant he has opened is just between him and Mowery.
“We didn’t do any marketing, but we’ve been pretty steady,” Newton said. “There’s just people in here all day. It’s been nice, mellow”
The triple-decker fried green tomato stack, “nana Maria’s paella” and the Pleasure Island flounder are already becoming local favorites, Newton said.
“We tried to have a really balanced the menu also was to have options for vegans and vegans, gluten-free people,” Newton said. “Everything is adaptable or there for someone that’s got dietary restrictions.”
Specialty cocktails, carefully selected wine lists, and all North and South Carolina beer were a priority for the couple when creating drink options.
“We kind of felt that the island was kind of calling for really good quality, reasonable prices, as locally sourced as possible, environmentally-friendly and conscientious,” Mowery said.
Soul Flavor is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 716 North Lake Park Blvd. No. 3.
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Johanna Ferebee can be reached at [email protected] or @j__ferebee on Twitter
