Gems of the Queen City: 300 East

Editor’s note: As new restaurants open every day in Charlotte, it’s easy to forget about the old standbys, the places that have grown up alongside the Queen City. We think they’ll always be there for us, but so many favorites have closed along the way. This makes it even more important to support the ones we love. Our Gems of the Queen City series highlights the places that you have frequented for years, reminding us why they have stood the test of time.

The restaurant sits in an old Victorian on East Boulevard that pastry chef Laney Jahkel-Parrish swears is haunted. To ensure a calm work environment, every morning around 6 a.m., as she arrives to perform her prep duties, Jahkel-Parrish gives a respectful hello to the friendly Dilworth neighborhood ghost.

On this warm day in September, she walks down the stairs, gets her brownies in the oven ahead of schedule, looks at her prep list and dances.

While her pastry chef is busy boogying, chef-owner Ashley Bivens Boyd is halfway through her first shift as mother to her 9- and 12-year-olds. After getting them off to school, she joins her morning crew in the kitchen.

Boyd grew up in the restaurant, “annoying staff,” she said.

The building originally housed The White Horse restaurant, which Boyd’s mother, Catherine Coulter, moved down the street after purchasing from its owners in 1985, when Boyd was a little girl. A few years later, Coulter shut down the restaurant and reconcepted it as 300 East. And for the most part, that’s where things at 300 East have remained — content and unchanged.

Staff longevity

Breaking form, Jahkel-Parrish is the new kid on the block in this 30+ year kitchen. Many of the staff have worked for the company for more than a decade — some, two. Kris Schmidt has been working in the kitchen in a supervisory role for 19 years. Adelfo, dishwasher and prep cook, has been there 20 years. Kitchen manager Darrin Gray has worked there for 21 years; Anna Stevenson, a cook, 20 years. While Coulter remains active, general manager/partner Mike Poplin handles day-to-day operations.

Regulars show up in dining room at 300 East sometimes three or four times a week. However, oftentimes that dedication translates into a fixed sense about menu expectations. So, Boyd has approached change with caution since taking over the kitchen.

“We have so many customer favorites that have so many points of origin,” Boyd said.

Carryover favorites from The White Horse, along with years of reconcepting and daily specials, have provided an eclectic hodgepodge of popular items, difficult to form into a cohesive menu, according to Boyd.

Creativity is in no short supply with Boyd. But people like consistency. Change is tough for a restaurant that’s made diners happy with classic menu items since 1986. From sweet potato ravioli with gorgonzola cream and walnuts to French onion soup to a roasted half chicken, mashed ‘taters, and seasonal vegetables, it’s that familiarity — that reassurance — that brings back customers for their favorites, time and time again. One dish, The Usual, has remained on the menu, through a few variations, since The White Horse concept.

But finding Jahkel-Parrish to run the pastry side of the kitchen has been liberating for Boyd, who for years treated the dessert program at 300 East as another one of her children. Even when she’s flinging plates out of the kitchen on a busy Saturday night, Boyd’s first role is mother to her two kids. Some afternoons, they do homework to the sounds of pans clanging on the other side of a swinging kitchen door. However, Boyd is always mindful of their needs.

“I spent a lot of hours here. I try to keep in mind how bored I would get.”

Boyd says she doesn’t force them to be there for lengths at a time. She credits her husband for supporting her in this family business as she balances motherhood and running a restaurant, which tend to demand diametric hours.

Changing with the seasons

Now running the savory side of the menu, Boyd is focused on change. Boyd and Jahkel-Parrish’s ultimate goal is to create a truly seasonal kitchen.

“We have a lot of farmer relationships,” Boyd said.

Weekly trips to the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market are supplemented by deliveries from purveyors and companies like Freshlist.

“My approach is cautious,” Boyd said.

Boyd describes her process. “With each menu change, I look at our menu. We have a lot of core items where we have to get that product in no matter the season. I try and see if there’s a core item we can tweak and use more local.”

One of Boyd’s first targets was the crabcakes. For years, the garnish was a corn salsa.

Boyd asked, “Why are we using corn all year long?”

“We switched it to a collard slaw,” Boyd said. Corn was ordered frozen. Fresh collard greens are generally available in the South year-round.

Some dishes are untouchable. At least, the concept is untouchable. Roasted chicken may have a slightly different brine. A recipe may be tweaked. A local vegetable may be sourced as a substitute.

For some dishes, Boyd need only look to their own history. To realign it with its original form, Boyd mentioned wanting to dig up the old recipe for her mom’s French Onion Soup. Longevity, it seems, is also a warm blanket.

Boyd is still pushing her regulars to try new things. A recent special with Berkshire pork cheeks wasn’t the easiest sell to her customers, and so the pork chop will remain.

Success is steady.

On a recent evening, rather than use a boneless, skinless chicken breast for a special, Boyd incorporated a skin-on thigh, braised with North Carolina grapes, shallots and herbs, served over ricotta grits.

The reaction from a table of her regulars?

“They adored it,” Boyd said.

Boyd echoes the approach she takes toward her desserts with her savory dishes. Sweet is balanced with salty. Crunchy elements provide contrast to silky components. The essence of fruits and vegetables is understood and wielded as flavor pedagogy, showing us in new ways the true nature of nature’s bounties.

It’s the unwavering fortitude of its regulars, dependables like Schmidt and the rest of the kitchen staff of eight who have been there a combined 120 years, that puts this restaurant among the Gems of the Queen City. Newcomers like Jahkel-Parrish shine a light on just how progressive this old favorite truly is. An artist by trade, Boyd is an introspective old soul. Her calm and creativity are both contagious.

“We have such different energies. “I’m so over the top. She’s so much more subdued, and I love that about her,” Jahkel-Parrish said of Boyd.

“We work so well together.”

Progress and change are inevitable. But so are expectations in the dining room. Nevertheless, in the kitchen at 300 East, through ghouls and the typical pressures of a restaurant, cast against the backdrop of a male-dominated industry, playful antics and signs of a happy workplace persist.

300 East

300 East Blvd.

Instagram: @300east

This story was originally published October 25, 2019 at 8:47 AM.