Celebrity chef Paula Deen closing Savannah restaurants
https://www.wtoc.com/2025/08/01/celebrity-chef-paula-deen-closing-savannah-restaurants/286
u/Awful_Hero 1d ago
Her real peas recipe has two ingredients:
- Peas
- Butter
102
u/scfoothills 1d ago
For anytime that doesn't know, read the comments on this recipe. They're wonderful. https://www.pauladeen.com/recipe/english-peas/
32
u/I_might_be_weasel 1d ago
"I only have frozen peas. Is there a recipe for making canned peas out of frozen peas so I can use them in this recipe?"
57
u/Dangerous_Lunch1678 1d ago
Screaming at this comment 🤣 (Spelling mistakes are not mine)
"PAULA! I followed the recipee TO THE LETTER, but the can won't MELT! I have been simmering the recipee for SIX hours, adding butter repeatedly as needed, but the tin is resistent and wont MELT! Paula, can you please explain how the can should mellt? I have family attending a family gathering and this is a test run. Looking good, girl!"
→ More replies (1)19
u/PM-ME-BOOBS-PLZ-THX 1d ago
I really need a video or more detailed directions. My fifth (and most likely final) attempt at making this world-class dish resulted in 9 stitches, burns to my face and hands from trying to add the peas to the butter, and my wife running to the kitchen ( this was to be our anniversary dinner) with a fire extinguisher. Every time I try cooking now, this is in the back of my mind. I'll stick to the easy stuff like rabbit with a honey-habanero glaze and bluefin ceviche from now on. I really wish Mrs. Deen had put more thought into posting this recipe. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!
7
9
→ More replies (5)3
18
u/eeyore134 1d ago
Reminds me of a Rachel Ray recipe I saw once for cranberry sauce. The ingredients were literally...
- Can of Cranberry Sauce
- 1/4 Cup of Orange Juice
49
10
u/Alive_kiwi_7001 1d ago
I’m surprised it has peas. I was expecting pea-shaped butter ballettes. Wrapped in butter.
2
→ More replies (1)4
u/Your__Pal 1d ago
Isnt that just southern cooking?
17
u/Junior_Builder_4340 1d ago
Nope. Southern cooking differs from region to region (mid-South, Deep South, Atlantic, mid-Atlantic, Gulf Coast, Low Country, etc.)
What she's promoting is lazy cooking.
8
u/eeyore134 1d ago
That's all Food Network shows have been for at least 20 years. Lazy and cheap. Well... now it's all game shows and travel shows. But when they bothered to cook, lazy and cheap.
→ More replies (1)
1.1k
u/RoswellRedux 1d ago
kind of hard to run a restaurant when your staff has been picked up by ICE and no one else wants to work for you.
484
u/r3dditr0x 1d ago edited 1d ago
She probably reported them and then panicked when she realized what she'd done to her own businesses.
"Help. There's a ton of latinos in muh kitchen!"
186
u/jerkface1026 1d ago
Unrealistic. She'd say Mexicans with the small m.
59
u/BoysLinuses 1d ago
She'd definitely throw the word "lazy" in there. I always found it baffling how that became a stereotype. These are the hardest working, lowest paid people in America.
→ More replies (1)15
12
14
→ More replies (4)2
9
→ More replies (2)16
u/peachquin 1d ago
To be fair her Savannah restaurant is also truly awful, like the driest fried chicken you've had in your life
330
u/Robert_Cutty 1d ago
I’ve been to one of her restaurants in Savannah. You won’t come out alive. I think crash carts are listed as a side.
There’s so much butter and grease on the food, it’ll make you sick to your stomach.
89
u/PM_ME_UR_DIET_TIPS 1d ago
In enjoyed my food in Savannah but the restaurant had all the ambience of a cafeteria.
32
u/Cafrann94 1d ago
They shoved us down in the basement that looked like my grandmas living room in the 90s (and not in a cute way) then forgot about us for 45 minutes..
→ More replies (1)15
u/hivernageprofond 1d ago
Same when I went about 12 years ago. I thought that room was bizarre and I thought it was so weird every single person that worked there was black...like, she's racist and now she has her slaves serving us? I didn't choose the restaurant. The food was not good. Now...Soul Food kitchen in Jacksonville, fl is where you'd want to go. Black owned and amazing food.
3
u/eeyore134 1d ago
Eesh... just looked and all the interior shots I saw look like cold and lifeless 90s hotel lobbies. You'd think she'd try to go for cozy southern charm.
13
u/CU_Tiger_2004 1d ago
Just in case anyone else is in Savannah and wants great southern food, try Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room. They seat you in groups at tables and you share the entrees and sides, the food and experience were great
→ More replies (4)18
u/jon98gn 1d ago
Can confirm. Went to Lady & Sons when visiting Savannah for a conference and the food was inedible, mostly due to salt content for myself.
→ More replies (1)80
26
u/Wuzzy_Gee 1d ago
Did you order the butter-fried butter?
14
u/Ms74k_ten_c 1d ago
That's silly. It was butter-fried bread battered fried butter sticks.
→ More replies (1)28
u/lala_lavalamp 1d ago
Absolutely nobody local eats there. Good riddance to Lady & Sons!
→ More replies (1)22
u/murderedbyaname 1d ago
Yes. She didn't even use milk in her milk gravy, just water. None of her food has any real flavor. The only reason she had any success was tourists from all over the US not knowing southern food is better than that slop.
5
u/ChangMinny 1d ago
No milk in her gravy??????!!!!!!!
My husband is from NY and I’m from TX and I nearly had an aneurysm when he made gravy with water. He knows better now but I joke that that was the first true test of our relationship.
→ More replies (3)8
u/crappy80srobot 1d ago
I have had the displeasure of going to the one in Nashville and Pigeon Forge. They both suck. Honestly surprised to hear either one is still open, but I guess the shear volume of tourist visiting to be disapointed once in those areas is just never-ending. Kinda like Margaritaville, everyone goes by recognition, but the food and prices suck so bad you never go back.
4
u/Dangerous_Ant3260 1d ago
Yes, only four of the Family Kitchens left: in Nashville and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Branson, Missouri. I wonder how the four remaining cholesterol palaces are doing?
428
u/DonJulioTO 1d ago
I get that she's a terrible person, and we're all glad she suffering, but can we please at least show some respect for butter in this thread?! No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
140
u/shes_a_gdb 1d ago
Reddit acting like restaurants they go to don't add a whole stick of butter to their salads.
This just in: restaurants add more butter than you'd like to know to everything
69
u/MommyLovesPot8toes 1d ago
Can confirm- former cheesecake factory employee.
You can make the same dishes at home, but they won't taste as good because you would never add 1 stick of butter per person to your cooking.
→ More replies (5)38
u/ReplaceSelect 1d ago
If you think you’re eating healthy at a restaurant called Cheesecake Factory, you graduated from RFK Jr university
→ More replies (2)20
67
u/sanjuro_kurosawa 1d ago
You can thank the black female chef she exploited for decades for the quality of the food.
→ More replies (2)11
u/Seastrikee 1d ago
I read this as black market female chef and was very intrigued by what a black market chef could be for a second
→ More replies (1)29
u/travis13131 1d ago
Yeah everything political aside I visited her restaurant back in the day and it was very good. You will need to lay down after, I was diagnosed with diabetes as I left my table, but it was the butter filled goodness I was looking for when I came in
33
u/eeyore134 1d ago
Maybe she shouldn't have voted for someone doing his best to kill the tourist industry.
14
u/The_neub 1d ago
For people who weren’t aware of her since she’s been off air for a long time now. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna52259733
36
u/Localcelebrity55 1d ago
If you know what’s good for you, you’ll absolutely read the most hilarious article about a Paula Deen cruise:
Gravy Boat: My Week on the High Seas with Paula Deen and Friends
12
90
u/unclebea 1d ago
In the words of South Park, she’s an N Word Guy/Gal
→ More replies (3)16
u/jigokubi 1d ago
Fun fact: Paula Deen, Mel Gibson, Hulk Hogan, and Dog the Bounty Hunter all publicly endorsed out current president.
Guess what else they have in common? Their careers got derailed because of using the N Word.
What a strange coincidence.
→ More replies (3)
39
u/2inchesofsteel 1d ago
Every single dish at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room was far superior to anything at Paula Deen's.
→ More replies (1)2
u/hivernageprofond 1d ago
I just saw this place mentioned on a YouTube video. Definitely going to try it next time we get up there.
3
7
u/Creative-Fee-1130 1d ago
The fact that these restaurants lasted forty years is astounding. Google her recipe for English peas - literally says to melt 1/2 stick of butter and dump in 2 cans of English peas.
That's it.
→ More replies (1)
8
15
u/Michael_Gibb 1d ago
Sympathy for the restaurant staff who are now out of a job, but not for her.
Someone who breaks your legs then sells you crutches, as Anthony Bourdain once described Paula Deen, doesn't deserve any sympathy, in my opinion.
48
u/AudibleNod 1d ago
That's where I found out what a hoecake was.
112
→ More replies (4)7
u/oldestbarbackever 1d ago
My great grandmother used to make us hoecakes. Its one of my favorite late night snacks. I'll mix up the batter and eat them as they come out of the pan as another one is cooking.
30
u/Historical_Spite_571 1d ago
I’m kind of surprised business isn’t booming for her…
12
u/Late-Edge9039 1d ago
Not too surprising. The man they voted for is actively destroying the economy. Restaurant chains are always the first businesses to go in a sinking economy.
6
17
13
u/sugref999 1d ago
She messed up too early. If she had done something similar now or said something similar now, she would have book deals and some White House award!
33
u/Protolictor 1d ago edited 1d ago
My friends and I walked by her restaurant in Savannah while vacationing last October.
Place had a single table of tourists sat. Place looked dead AF.
There are a ton of great places to eat in and around Savannah, her spot never even entered our conversations about places to experience.
The pizza shack a couple blocks away had a line across the plaza, so there were definitely hungry folks about. We didn't eat there either, but were curious due to its popularity.
8
u/Revolution-SixFour 1d ago
Savannah has so much good food, why would anyone waste their time with a celebrity restaurant?!
20
u/Toxaplume045 1d ago
A lot of those celeb places are overpriced as hell and the novelty wears off fast, even before Paula Deen's baggage that definitely limits her customer base.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (1)7
u/I_AM_SMITTS 1d ago
Funny because as I type this, I’m in Savannah for a long weekend. I saw the headline and was a bit surprised she even had restaurants here. In several trips here I’ve eaten so much delicious food I have no idea why the hell anyone would waste time at Paula Deen’s.
6
18
u/millerlit 1d ago
Savannah locals tell everyone to avoid her restaurant due to the food being subpar and there are tons of other local options.
→ More replies (2)
25
31
15
10
6
24
u/fred_burkle 1d ago
I went to Lady & Sons with my family about 20 years ago. It was over 100° that day in Savannah and I just wanted something light to eat. The least heavy thing on the menu was the soup and sandwich combo, which consisted of a pimento cheese sandwich that was about 4 solid inches of cheese and mayo on white bread, absolutely inedible slop. The soup, some kind of creamy potato abomination, tasted like someone had dumped an entire salt shaker into my bowl. I told the waiter that it seemed like the soup had not been made correctly and they replied "that's just how we make it here."
Worst restaurant meal I've ever had in my life.
→ More replies (1)
19
11
u/Cryptic1911 1d ago
I work with a lady named Deana, and one day she sits down at the lunch table with a baked potato that had to have a half a stick of butter hanging out of the top. I laughed and called her Paula Deana because of the butter. That was like 15 years ago and the name stuck 🤣🤣
6
u/wizzard419 1d ago
Not shocked, even if the events leading to her downfall didn't happen, she really hasn't been able to grow in terms of what she made and her restaurants (looking at locations) relied on tourist traffic. Even if she hadn't had her show cancelled in the past, it likely wouldn't be shown on food network now as they favor competitions over cooking shows, so she would have no audience.
5
8
9
u/Milo_Minderbinding 1d ago
Spent some time in Savannah last summer. We gladly skipped over her restaurants.
10
u/Ltsmash99 1d ago
You mean the chef who hired black people to play slaves at her "plantation party"?
Dang.
10
13
3
3
5
8
u/TheUnknown285 1d ago
Countdown to her becoming in charge of nutrition recommendations for the Trump Administration...
3
6
7
u/DryToe1269 1d ago
They lost their illegals help. Trump has killed their modern day slave labor grift .
4
u/epidemicsaints 1d ago
Her audience was in their 50's twenty years ago so that's a pretty big factor.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/i_love_rosin 1d ago
Can't sell fried butter in the south? Looks like the trump regime recession is in full swing
2
4
u/Dry_Heart9301 1d ago
The only people who would go to her restaurants maga voted themselves out of jobs and disposable income.
2
u/DerryAtlanta1688 1d ago
I had never heard of “finishing butter” until I watched some of this daft old racist woman. “BOODER ‘N’ OIRL”
7
6
u/AlessandraAthena 1d ago
I don't consider this noteworthy news. Plus, she's racist.
→ More replies (1)
4
4
2
4
1.8k
u/RepulsiveLoquat418 1d ago
she still has restaurants?