Any origin story that starts with a fried chicken sandwich is bound to become the stuff of legend.
“I’ve always wanted to do a really good fried chicken sandwich,” said Jon Massey whose new restaurant, Goody’s, is a literal scone’s throw across East 32nd from his wildly popular Bull Street Taco. “I thought people would line up, out the door and around the block.”
Since that initial intention, though, a few fantastic edible fowls had entered the nearby dining marketspace, so Massey did not “want to go straight fried chicken” in his and his wife’s new eatery.
As a result, the bird is just part of the word at Goody’s, the present and future’s play on a retro corner daytime diner that “very quietly” opened on March 28.
“I want you to come every day,” said Massey, and the finite but fetching menu makes that a definite possibility.
LITERALLY CORNERING THE MARKET
After Bull Street Taco opened in 2016, Jon and Sharon Massey saw the restaurant storefront up the block every day for seven years as it transitioned from Natural Selections Cafe to Bocci Italian Bistro. When the latter closed up shop, it was not long before the property owners reached out to the Masseys.
“We started paying rent in November,” Jon Massey recalled and then laughed, acknowledging the thirteen months between that first check and serving the first customers at Goody’s.
“It’s because I love this space so much,” he said of the decision to sign on the dotted line. “It’s such a great spot near Starland, in Thomas Square, and it’s got all these windows and all this natural light coming in.”
“When we came into the place, on that first day, I opened all the curtains up and turned on some music and said, ‘Wow, this place is going to be great,’” Massey added.
Exactly what Bocci did not take advantage of is immediately evident when you enter Goody’s: light. No more blue curtains covering up adjacent runs of wide picture windows whose transoms allow even more outside to come in.
Altogether, the small-but-big interior is bright and airy in a wholly reconfigured dining space. Five bar seats at a window counter give out onto Bull Street. Four round two-tops line the back-wall banquette, and in the middle sits a raw wood booth around a square table for at least six.
On Bull are three bistro two-tops plus another on East 32nd next to the Good-to-Go window.
Soothing and warm inside, the color palette matches the menu palate in biscuit cream, chocolate brown, and bacon brick red. The place looks like a syrupy plate of french toast, thanks to the design of Sharon Massey, Brent Allen, and Liz Demos.
“READY TO GO” (EXCEPT FOR EVERYTHING)
“It was a ‘turnkey restaurant’,” said Massey and laughed about all the work that had to be done to transform the former trattoria into a cozy casual grill.
“We were in the middle of Bull Street Taco’s expansion,” he said of the plan to do both projects simultaneously, but we all know what Robert Burns wrote about such schemes.
Demo began in October of 2023, but there was no desire or demand to rush the renovation.
“It was ready to go for the most part. The place just needed a lot of work.”
From top to bottom, the kitchen is brand-new, including the hood system, which also goes for the electrical and lighting. The main wall dividing the new counter from the redone kitchen has a pass-through, and a decorative rounded wall boasts a neon Goody’s logo: the letter G acting as the top layer of a melty sandwich, the design of Chase Turberville, who has handled the resto’s branding and marketing with Sophie Tompkins (Mod Bird Creative).
All changes considered, five months ain’t bad for how good Goody’s turned out.
GOODY’S AS GOLD
Though Massey’s love for the property came at first sight, the concept of this second restaurant was not immediate.
“We seventy-five percent knew what we wanted,” he said, “but we just didn’t have that last twenty-five percent, so it took some time.”
“Bull Street Taco is running so smoothly right now with the staff that we have, so we wanted to take the opportunity to do a breakfast and lunch spot,” Massey added.
The menu, able to be displayed on one LED, is as appropriately compact as the eatery itself. All items are of Massey’s making, though he was quick to credit general manager Ryan Calascione for his input throughout the year-plus conceptualization of Goody’s.
“Basically, he’s been cleaning the kitchen once a week for about a year,” Massey said with a smile returned by his right-hand man, who came to Bull Street Taco nearly three years ago, having been with Maple Street Biscuit Company. That expertise has been Goody’s gain.
“He came to us with a lot of experience,” said Massey, “and the biscuit, honestly, it’s killer. It’s done right.”
White Lily flour, butter, buttermilk, both baking powder and baking soda come together in circle-cut fluffy friends. In keeping with Massey’s original inspiration, the Goldenboy ($8.95) has been a top-seller so far: fried chicken on a scratch-made biscuit.
“We sell a ton of them, and everybody seems to like them,” said Massey, who also noted the popularity of the Breakfast Burrito ($13.95), which he thinks is due to Goody’s Bull Street Taco culinary lineage, and the Morty Melt ($12.95).
“We’re going to do three proteins really really well, and we’re going to do two breads really really well,” he added. “We use Mitla for the flour tortilla, and we use Auspicious for our brioche.”
“We can only screw it up from there,” Massey joked.
CORNER TO CORNER
Though Goody’s is up and running and shares four overlapping hours with Bull Street Taco, Massey is not really running back and forth between the two restos as much as he had imagined.
“I thought that I was going to be in here, hands-on in the kitchen,” he said, “but I’m so proud of what Ryan’s been able to do, and the people that we’ve hired have been absolutely fantastic.”
He was quick to credit his entire crew, Blake, Holiday, Jamie, and Joseph in the kitchen and Beth and Philly, front of house, and only two weeks in, operations are running better than Massey could have hoped.
“I was worried about the amount of business that we would have at first, but we’ve been moving the line so easily,” said a happy Massey. “I’m proud of these guys. They did great.”
The restauration routine, if you will, around Savannah in recent years has been the expansion of successful brands: FARM Hospitality Group, Gaslight Group, Live Oak Restaurant Group, Rhino Hospitality Group, Southern Cross Hospitality, Treylor Park Restaurants, and a few others that own multiple discrete dining destinations.
That being the case, the Masseys foresee that Bull Street Taco and Goody’s will be good enough for their little corners of the world.
“I want to do breakfast and lunch,” Jon Massey said soberly. “There’s less pressure on you with breakfast. You can experiment. You can play around and have fun with stuff. That’s what I like about it.”
“And I’m a morning person,” he added before coining perhaps the most apt credo.
“Two kids, two restaurants.”
Goody’s (1526 Bull Street) is open Monday through Saturday (7 a.m. to 3 p.m.), serving breakfast until 11 a.m. and lunch until close.
