A Legacy Not So Minnie
A Legacy Not So Minnie
Soul food wizard Fernay of Minnie Bell’s carries a century old legacy of resilience and rosemary fried chicken
By Na Hyun Kim
Fernay McPherson takes her cornbread seriously. To prove her point, her golden squares won the title of “Best Cornbread” in East Bay Express.
The owner of Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement in Emeryville’s Public Market and one of San Francisco’s Rising Star Chefs, she runs her acclaimed eatery with a no-nonsense attitude about food that bares its soul; staying true to the heritage that she and her cooking comes from. “My favorite dish is cornbread and greens. It’s a Southern staple. Over the years, I’ve made all different types of cornbreads and finally found the one that set me aside from all the others,” she says. “Because that was always my goal: to maintain Southern comfort food, but have a little something to separate [my version] from the rest.”
Soul is not just the main ingredient of her food, it’s the beating heart. As a kid, she grew up helping out in the family kitchen, helping her mom with tasks like grating cheese for the mac and cheese. Raised in a house always filled with food and people, she attributes these moments to her life path. “By the time I was 15 I would help with the huge family gatherings we would have,” she says. “That’s where my love of food came from… congregating, surrounded by food. Those were my favorite times.”
The Minnie Bell’s menu is a tribute to this communal energy and the women who influenced Fernay’s tastes from the start; the name of the restaurant itself is a toast to their impact on her career. “My mother migrated to the Bay Area in the 60’s from Texas, so I grew up eating Southern. My great aunt [Minnie} came here during the great migration in the 30’s,” she shares. “When they came here by train, my grandmother [Little Bell] packed fried chicken and pound cake. So fried chicken is near and dear to my heart because that is the food of my mom’s journey.” And yes, Fernay also makes some mean fried chicken, brined in rosemary and fried to crowd pleasing perfection.
When she was 9 years old, her aunt Minnie taught her how to bake her first cake and she didn’t stop making it for 2-3 months. And that commitment is obvious in the way she talks about the people who've been a part of the Minnie Bell’s story — their loyal customers and her team, especially.
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At the start of the pandemic, she acted quickly to look out for her staff, gathering them for a meeting where she informed them of the shelter-in-place order and urged them to apply for unemployment before they’re overrun with applications. She even set up a Go Fund Me for her staff to offer them some kind of compensation. And thanks to her swift decisions, she was able to send payments to her team. It soon became apparent that this wasn’t a simple hiccup, that they were in for the long haul. “I couldn't stay closed, there was no money coming in. So I said I’ll try to do pre-orders on the weekend and see how it goes. I called up a bunch of my staff and asked if they were willing to work and they were like, “Absolutely!” The first weekend was great, so we continued and people continued to support.”
Some of the staff didn’t come back, but those who did were excited to return to work. “One guy was like, ‘I’m just sitting at home.’ Other people had kids,” she says. “Some just needed to get out of the house!”
She’s open about what it’s been like to navigate the restaurant freeze as an owner. “It’s the not-knowing. The uncertainty. Because I see us dealing with this for the next 12-18 months. It’s about figuring out how to re-invent [the situation]. How do we bring in at least fifty or sixty percent of what we’ve been doing? Because right now we’re only at twenty-five percent.”
On the decrease in customer traffic, she says, “It’s all office buildings and the hospital around here, so our lunch time crowd is totally gone. And people who wander in have multiple vendors to choose from [in the market hall]. And that’s going to hurt somebody.”
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Though the work crowds are gone, she can count on her regulars who still come by, many of them newly minted locals who’ve made Minnie Bell’s a part of their routine. She adds, “Our new social media person is also amazing. She’s been driving people to our food and getting them to try it.”
Regarding the help she’s received during the pandemic, she can’t say enough. “We’ve gotten a lot of support from different people I’ve worked with over the years. La Cocina has been amazing. They do community food boxes and we were able to get money from selling our food through those. They also developed an Emergency Relief Fund for us, to take care of our personal needs. I have not been able to pay myself since COVID, so that fund has helped me to live, it’s been a godsend. I was worried about my team and how they were going to eat and live. I didn’t think about myself. I was worried about me last.”
Including the community around her, her cornbread mentor is a support system all on her own. “My Aunt Minnie is 87 and she lives here in the Bay on her own. She’s a blessing. I grew up eating her savory cornbread and she loves my sweet version. She’s very proud — to be able to be on this journey and to have her see it is amazing. We bring her food from here at least three to four times a month, and she always tells me I’m getting better and better.”
And what does she want you to know about Minnie Bell’s?
“When you think of Minnie Bell’s, you think of Fernay. But Fernay’s not doing it by herself. She has a team and this is a scary time for them. I’d love for people to come in and show them a little love. They’re risking their lives every day to provide fried chicken and cornbread.”
About Voices:
A new campaign run by Off Their Plate, Voices is a creative platform that seeks to amplify the untold narratives of restaurant professionals across America, shedding light on personal experiences that go beyond their day to day work.
In late May, we started interviewing owners and workers, listening to their challenges, fears, and outlooks on the future of the food service industry as their cities recover from COVID-19. Using
mediums such as portraits, short videos, testimonies, and interviews, we produce authentic and thoughtful content to highlight their diversity, talents, and cultures.
About Off Their Plate:
Off Their Plate (OTP) is a grassroots organization that started on March 15 in Boston by Natalie Guo. 100% volunteer run and operational in nine of the most COVID-impacted US cities, OTP set out to deliver nutritious meals to frontline healthcare professionals, while providing economic relief to local restaurants and their workers. Building an impactful, equity-focused and locally-minded model in less than eight weeks enabled us to become an organization that is nimble to the evolving impact of COVID-19 and assess where the most acute needs are. In early May, we decided to expand our mission and serve additional communities experiencing hunger within our nine cities while maintaining our goal to provide a reliable and sufficient economic lifeline to our restaurant partners as they navigate the coming months. As COVID-19’s impacts continue to unfold, OTP is committed to our communities, using our resources to take one thing “off their plate,” one meal at a time.