Can a bite of chicken take you back in time? Customers at The Homestead restaurant, which reopened after a decade, certainly think so.
“The food brings me back to the 60s and 70s,” said Charles Lavender, who at Thursday’s grand opening took his first bite of Homestead fried chicken in over ten years. “It is absolutely the same.”
Lavender first went to the original Homestead on Beach Boulevard 50 years ago, where for the most part the owners stuck to the tried and true.
“Juicy chicken, cooked perfect and the biscuits are unbelievable,” Lavender said.
But that old-time taste seemed lost forever when the restaurant closed in the 2000s.
The home cooking living on only in childhood memories and the mind of chef Bo Johns. He knew the recipes by heart, and also knew he couldn't keep them to himself. It took some time but along with friends and business partners, Johns brought new life into the Homestead.
"We're real excited,” said Johns, co-owner. “It's been a long, long time since we've been here and a lot of people have been waiting on us."
He's not the only one excited for Thursday’s grand opening.
"I'm glad their back," Ralph Anderson said.
Families came for the chicken.
"It's delicious," Ashley Brown.
They also came for the biscuits and honey, and even the margaritas at the Copper Top Pub.
One thing you hear over and over, is this food tastes like home.
"It’s been wonderful,” Linda Davis said.
To some, home is family.
"Every Sunday after church we would always come so it brought back family memories,” Maria Gilliland said.
To others, home is their youth.
"We're back home,” Lavender said. “Back Homestead again, back to old days.”