While I acknowledge my role as ‘food writer’ obliges a degree of objectivity, I refuse to dissemble my food fandom of Erica Davis Lowcountry.

As soon as the namesake and husband Dwight brought their bona fide catering brand to a brick-and-mortar space back in 2019, the restaurant became an instant classic, beloved by Thunderbolt and W&W Islands regulars and folks far and wide.

Nearly five full years after they resurrected the dilapidated former home of Charlie Teeple’s Seafood, I do not understand those who have not yet visited this stylish but unpretentious riverside eatery, still as clean and coastal chic as it was on its opening day.

C’mon, y’all. Honestly.

As of Labor Day, we all were given even more opportunities to eat the Davises’ Southern home cooking when they launched Sunday brunch service, expanding to five operational days each week.

“More and more people are starting to recognize it, but I’ve only posted it online,” Erica Davis said of the first month’s brunch business. “I was trying to have a soft opening before I really started to advertise it.”

Though my wife and I were, by design, the first in line this past Sunday and were seated by 10:02 a.m., within the hour, the interior was packed.

So much for a ‘soft’ opening.

Around the same time, the Davises moved their catering operations a half-mile down the road, a growth step that has given them room to differentiate the two arms of their esculent enterprise.

After all, what is their restaurant was not supposed to be so.

SEPARATE BUT EAT-QUAL

Plan A was never really to run a restaurant out of the vintage Victory Drive property. The new purpose of that old filling station was intended to be a catering operations hub and handsome, homey onsite event space.

“I feel like I explain that a lot,” Erica Davis said with a laugh.

When restoration efforts began, though, locals clamored and pleaded for the Davises to have actual hours of operation.

The rest(aurant), as they say, is happy history.

In February of 2023, the couple bought the former Cannarella Center, a few blocks west down Rowland Avenue, a strip mall that is right out of their family’s past.

“He had an Italian deli in that exact same unit that we now have,” Erica Davis shared, the ‘he’ being her great-uncle Tony (Anthony Cannerella) Mathews who used to home-make Italian sausages in the space where the Davises’ staff currently smokes sausages for their signature boils.

“That’s even more special,” she added.

Just like the album that sits on the front desk at the restaurant, the Davises plan to put together a photo timeline of 2215 Rowland Avenue, chronicling its conversion from Uncle Tony’s deli into their catering center.

The entire building in hand, they are in the process of renovating the individual units, the furthest east of which measures 1500 square feet and now houses their catering kitchen and offices.

“We’re definitely loving having the new kitchen up, and so does my staff,” Erica Davis said. “It’s quite nice to have it separate.”

For five years, both catering and restaurant food preparations were carried out in one kitchen, which was one reason that the dine-in days were Wednesday through Saturday only.

“That is one of the main reasons because we didn’t have, per se, a facility to break it apart from the restaurant,” explained the caterer-cum-restaurateur who began the brand back in 2002. “We were stepping on their toes for catering. Now, we have that separate.”

The first egg was cracked in the catering production facility about two months ago, just before brunch service began.

Their catering crew numbers upwards of 20, including some who come over from the restaurant to work the bigger events, and is growing thanks, in part, to being in a discrete culinary space where there cannot be too many cooks, if you will.

“Five years later, we’ve finally got our catering building,” Erica Davis said with another laugh, “and we’ll eventually have pickups there, too.”

“We got that open, started brunch, and are in the works to do the build-out [at the restaurant], hopefully by next spring,” she added.

You read that right: more expansion is “in the works,” so stay tuned.

SUNDAY BRUNCH IN THUNDERBOLT

Frankly, four days a week was not enough for Erica Davis Lowcountry’s loyal eaters, and for the last month-plus, devotee diners have giddily dived into the brunch dishes, the bulk of which are playful adaptations of the fare for which the restaurant is renowned.

“It was just the next step,” said Erica Davis. “We knew it was going to be brunch. We always wanted to have another day to serve our shrimp and grits and to make chicken salad.”

“We were always going in that direction,” she continued. “There are different things we’re going to constantly keep adding that we knew would be brunch-type foods.”

She shared that they “love going to New Orleans” and “brought a bit of that back” in some of the daytime dishes, all creative concoctions of the couple.

When I ducked inside to wash my hands, I noticed that every table had an order of beignets ($4.95), three bronze biscuit-sized ‘donuts’ under an avalanche of powdered sugar. Do not even consider depriving yourself of the add-on praline sauce ($2.95): you will wrest the plastic ramekin away from a loved one to lap up the last drops.

That same nutty sweet sauce stars in the french toast, topped with more pecans and cinnamon ($14.95).

“I love skillets,” said Erica Davis, “so we knew we wanted to have a Lowcountry skillet ($14.95) with the shrimp and the corn and the potatoes and the sausage all in it, kind of a twist on our Lowcountry boil.”

Our server, Taylor, said that they have sold out of this entrée every Sunday so far.

The eggs benedict can be crowned with fried green tomatoes ($14.95) or crab cakes ($19.95), either covered in pimento hollandaise, again featuring favorite items from the lunch and dinner menu but in decidedly EDL breakfast food.

Brunch also afforded the Davises’ kitchen to add fried chicken, as a three-piece bone-in platter alongside collards and mac ‘n’ cheese ($15.95) and a sandwich served with fries ($14.95). Both ways, the light flour breading is deliciously crispy without being heavily breaded or one bit greasy.

Perhaps the best twist on the familiar is the biscuits and brisket gravy starter ($8.95) – Briscuits and Gravy, yeah? – that swaps out salty sausage for shreds of tender brisket, making the traditional creamy gravy beefy and hearty, slathered over two homemade biscuits.

“Some days, we’ve had that rush at 11:30 or 12:30, and some days, it’s been later,” said Erica Davis. “That, to me, has been the interesting part, trying to figure it out. Every day has been different.”

Though these Sundays may be changeable for the Davises and their team, what endures for their guests is the delicious home-cooked Southern food, the cheerful and family-feel service, and the casual coastal ambience.

Enjoy brunch. Sit outside and let the fans and piped music drown out the Sunday traffic on Highway 80 as you sop up the dribs and drabs of gravy, hollandaise, and praline sauce.

Erica Davis Lowcountry (3209 East Victory Drive) is open Wednesday through Saturday (11 a.m. to 9 p.m.) and now Sunday (10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.): www.ericadavislowcountry.com

This article appears in Connect Savannah I July 2024.