King Cake Pop-Up is an overview of the downtown restaurant to come to South MS

Robert St. John shoots for August for the opening of the Downtowner restaurant in Gulfport and gave the community a first overview of a King Cake pop-up on Friday.

He will open the city center at the corner of the 14th street and the United States 49 in what was the pharmacy and the Lunch of Triplet-Day. He plans to keep the appearance of the distinctive outdoor while cutting an interior wall to create a larger dining room and a kitchen, plus a private dining room

A van filled with 150 King cakes in flavors like Blueberry – Saint -Jean – The lemon of strawberries and the Pacan praline were emptied and sold in about 30 minutes on Friday morning.

St. John has just started making King cakes in his Loblolly bakery in Hattiesburg a year ago. He developed his recipe after the first visit to the bakeries in New Orleans and brought back 32 cakes to try.

King Cake of Dong Phuong Bakery was the gold stallion and what people told him was the one to beat. “After eating 32, it was certainly the case,” he said.

This gave him a starting point for his cake and once he developed the recipe he wanted, they had trouble keeping the cakes in stock at the Hattiesburg bakery.

So they decided to take royal cakes on the road so that more people can enjoy them. He put Gulfport on this list and another pop-up is scheduled for two weeks on February 21 at 10 a.m.

Make a community restaurant

On the coast, St. John crossed his new restaurant, revealing his plans.

For a long time, he wanted to open a restaurant on the Mississippi coast, where St. John said he had spent a lot of time when he grew up.

“I looked at this place for a few years,” he said.

“We explode this wall,” he said during the tour, “and there are two spaces next to it. These will be additional restaurants, and there will also be a small private restoration space.

Golfport flair in time

“It will seem that it has been here since 1948,” said St. John. “It will be the most restaurant on the Gulf of Gulfport coast, Mississippi. It will be the local place. You will feel local. You will be surrounded by images of the coast and all horizons. »»

This post-war atmosphere will be transported by the decor and the menu.

“Everything will be nostalgia for Gulfport,” said Ryan Goldin, owner of the building.

“This is a dream come true,” he said, to make the building restored and this restaurant in Gulfport, all from a distance on foot from the Mississippi aquarium, Jones Park and Amtrak station.

With the addition of the two small shops, the city center with 4,500 square feet and 60 to 160 people will accommodate 150 to 160 people.

On the menu

The downtown menu will be similar to the St. John’s Midtowner restaurant in Hattiesburg, he said.

With a breakfast menu, “we will have a kind of take-away section for people who just want coffee and a breakfast sandwich or pastries,” he said. “We will bring bakery bakery products, daily or at least three times a week.”

Lunch will be meat and three sides, he said.

For his Coast restaurant, he plans to dinner on Friday and Saturday evening to start, with “Old Line Coast Seafood” as a stuffed fold and an Almandine trout.

“No one is doing this anymore,” he said.

Feed the Mississippi and the Coast

St. John has 420 employees in its Mississippi restaurants and bakeries and the Gulfport restaurant will add 50 others, he said.

Paige Brennan, the new director, sold King cakes and was looking for a house on Friday.

St. John already feeds people in the south of Mississippi and through the state with the additional table initiative.

“An additional table kills it these days,” he said.

Last year, the organization donated more than 6 million pounds of food in 63 agencies, he said, about seven of them on the Gulf Coast.