Grandmothers’ influence created recipe for career and success
The West Coast kid spent his summers in Meridian living with his grandparents and hanging at the country club. Those summers were replete with his grandmother Frances Emerson’s Southern Sunday dinners and Derek Emerson took it all in. His other grandmother Jane’s influence was her Wales heritage and Emerson got a big helping of that classic fare, including the preparation. Put that in a bowl big enough to hold it all and mix in a student who didn’t like to sit still in a classroom and Chef Derek Emerson was created. The original owner of Walker’s Drive In in Fondren, also owns and operates the new Sacred Ground Barbeque in Pocahontas, CAET Seafood and Local 463 both in Ridgeland and will soon be slinging tacos and more as he continues to create high-end dining and is now, he’s leaning into meals without utensils for all who enter his eateries.
“One of my grandmothers was from England, and the other one was from Mississippi. Two completely different styles of cooking, obviously,” explained Emerson. “My grandparents in Meridian always did the Sunday dinner. My grandmother would make four meats and ten vegetables and lay them out, and then they’d eat it as people did back then, throughout the week. They’d come home every day for lunch and then they’d go back to work. I spent the first 15 years of my life all summer doing that.”
And while back in California, he was under the “tutelage” of his mom’s mom, getting indoctrinated in all culinary things Great Britain.
“She would whole roast a leg of lamb and things like that, a completely different style of the food, but it was really important to my family, both families, so I got lucky that way.”
One of his favorites to this day is homemade peach ice cream in an old-fashioned churner. Just the sound of it takes him back and flings a craving.
“I’d help her make the custard, and she did it with the eggs and the custard, like the traditional old school ice cream, and we had fresh peaches that we’d blanch and peel. We went through that whole process with her when I was probably eight years old,” recalled Emerson. “Every summer we’d come and I’d just hear that ice cream churner. It was that yellow-y color that everybody had in the ‘70s. That was the color of the motor on top. It was such a memory, like that sound, it’s amazing. I still hear it and my mouth waters.”
Emerson “graduated” from his grandmothers’ kitchens and pursued college for a semester but sitting still in a Hinds Community College classroom wasn’t in his life’s cookbook. He took a job at a Subway but when a friend back in southern California had decided to try culinary school, Emerson thought it was a good idea as well. He hung up his Subway apron and headed north to Tennessee for a six-month training program at the Memphis Culinary Institute. It was non-stop cooking and eating.
“We cooked every day. I did pastries on Mondays. We’d cook all day and then eat everything at five o’clock, so we’d all sit down and have dinner at five to see how it was and then critique things we could have done differently. It was fun,” said Emerson.
Once he graduated, he was ready to work the culinary scene and bounced from Jackson to Atlanta and back gaining more knowledge and skills.
“I worked for a guy named John L. here in Jackson for a little while, and Brick Oven Café and BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar in Jackson. Then I left for Atlanta for about five years and worked for Nava, Buckhead Bread Company, and the Blueridge Grill and became an Executive Sous Chef at Dick & Harry’s. I decided to come back to Jackson in 1999 and opened up Schimmel’s as the Executive Chef,” he said.
That decision led him to meet his wife, Jennifer and their recipe for life began there and has continued with restaurants of their own and three daughters. And it helped that her car was paid off.
“She was always front of the house and I’ve always been back of the house, but the opportunity came to us to buy Walker’s in 2001, and so we did, and the guy who we bought it from financed it for us,” explained Emerson. “And she owned her car outright, so we got a title loan on her car to make payroll the first time. And haven’t missed a payroll since.”
And that included a fire in 2005 that shut down the venue for nearly four months, oh, and Hurricane Katrina. The duo put together some fundraising dinners to pay their staff and the rest of their bills until it reopened. Their inauspicious beginning was also part of another national tragedy.
“We actually closed our deal on 9-11-2001 when we bought Walker’s,” he said. “We’ve had some real challenges here and there over the years, but we’ve always put our heads down and just tried to work hard.”
The Emersons have sold Walker’s Drive In after a two-decade-plus run but still are focused on providing hungry folks with plenty of options in the Jackson area. The restaurant duo currently own Local 463, CAET Seafood and Sacred Ground BBQ and are adding a trio of culinary delights. Masa Mesa, Little Effie’s and Emerson Provisions. The latter being a store that will be filled with Emerson creations he uses in his restaurants.
“We’re opening up a bar in the old cultivation space at the district called Little Effie. Effie was my general manager at Walker’s for 20 years. And she came with us when we sold Walker’s. We’re putting a restaurant in her name and she’ll run that,” he said. “And right next door to that, we’re calling it Emerson Provisions, which is just going to be a shop that you can get things that I like in restaurants. I’m going to be making my red wine sauce. I’m going to be making compound butters, I’m going to be doing like fresh pastas that you can come and buy. We’re going to do some gluten-free items for my daughter and wife who are gluten-free. It will be a little bottega for the area. Just some nice prime meats and some fun items.”
Emerson’s reputation among chefs is one as highly regarded. Award Winning Chef David Crews who teaches at the Mississippi Delta Community College Culinary School in Greenville and hosts the ever popular Delta Supper Club is one of the chef’s biggest fans.
“Derek truly is the best chef in Mississippi and maybe the south,” said Crews.
His first restaurant, Local 463, originally based in Madison, opened in 2010 and relocated to Ridgeland in 2016, occupying a totally renovated space. Chef Derek noted that Jennifer takes care of all the indoor décor and designing and he stays in the kitchen. CAET Seafood was originally in Fondren before moving and expanding in its Ridgeland location. Sacred Ground BBQ in Pocahontas is their newest dive into cuisine that “doesn’t require utensils.” The BBQ adventure began during one of his daughter’s hobbies.
“My daughter had been riding horses over in Texas. I’d been going over there and eating barbecue and going to these places. And I was like, ‘Man. We need this in Mississippi,’” explained Emerson.
Before that inspiration, he thought he was a bit burnt out in the kitchen. But smoking meat reignited his passion.
“When I started cooking barbecue, I realized how much I really enjoyed cooking again. It’s just something different. I’ve spent 30 years of my career in casual fine dining. And I just I wanted to do something different,” he said.
His BBQ research includes stops at some of the Michelin Star locations, like LeRoy and Lewis. He also went to Terry Black’s and “a lot of the other good ones that were the original.” I went to Kreuz Market and Taylor’s Smokehouse. I visited John Mueller’s Barbecue, where (James Beard Award Winner) Aaron Franklin (Franklin’s Barbecue) actually started. I made a lot of rounds and ended up in many different places and realized that what they were doing barbecue-wise was far superior to what we were doing barbecue-wise. So, I just set out to learn. Barbecue is probably the only cooking I’ve ever done that’s completely different. Everyone cooks it differently. Everyone has different times. It’s like the fine dining I cooked for so long was like, Escoffier said, this is how it is, and everybody just followed that. Well, there was no Escoffier for barbecue.”
He further explained, “You talk to different people and you watch videos and you do things and you watch other people, and everybody has a different time. People have different temperatures that they cook at. Some people start cold. Some people start hot. Obviously, Texas barbecue is huge but it’s like the wild west of barbecue. It’s very regional. Where Texas uses mostly post oak, we don’t have a ton of that here but we use red oak, hickory, and pecan as our woods. So, you get the regional flavors as well with it which I’ve always found super interesting.”
Emerson continues to educate himself and notes that cooking outside brings in an eclectic mix of elements that are uncontrollable, so there’s plenty of adapting and checking.
“When you’re cooking outside and you’re cooking with wood, every day’s different. Every piece of meat we put on and every piece of meat we pull off is checked by hand. I really enjoy the part of making it 100% the best I can,” he said.
When he’s hungry, along with the rest of his family, they enjoy Mexican, and anytime in New Orleans he’s looking for an off-the-beaten-path po-boy excursion.
“I’ve had some great meals in my life and I’ve had some of the best po’boys I’ve had in New Orleans have been in a little hole in the wall, like Domelisi’s, which is in someone’s garage,” he said.
Admittedly, Chef Derek likes food, especially those that are less fuss to eat.
“Honestly, I like food you can eat with your hands. I went to one of the barbecue places in Texas and the first sign on the door that says, ‘no forks allowed.’ I was like, I can get into this. That’s where we’re segwaying now.”
Masa Mesa will be “fork free” mostly.
“Again, going back to me liking to eat with my hands. But I think it’s not going to be a traditional taco place necessarily. It’s going to be more of a, what I would consider like a fun taco place. We’ll do some of the dishes I’ve done in the past at other restaurants. I do like a barbecue fried oyster. We would serve a barbecue fried oyster with brie cheese and an Asian slaw as a taco. Just stuff that I’ve done in fine dining that I can convert into homemade corn tortillas and flour tortillas from scratch. It’s going to be trying to do something a little different and fun that I enjoy,” he said. “Fun tacos and just a good fun atmosphere for people to hang out and have a good time,” he said.
Emerson’s hobbies are few and far between. Spending so much time in the kitchen and running the various eateries with his wife, while keeping up with their four daughters, keeps his calendar full.
“I’ve been in the restaurant business for 35 years. I have a boat that I’ve had for four years that has maybe 80 hours on it. I enjoy the challenges of making restaurants correct. The best I can make them anyway. There’s obviously people that can do a better job than I can. But I enjoy making people happy with food because it’s instant gratification. You can look out across the dining room and see if people are enjoying something or not right away. You cook, you send a meal out, and you look across the dining room and the people are eating it and enjoying it and talking and having a good time. You can see the expressions on their face that they’re enjoying that night. And it’s always been important to me to be able to look and see that.”
And speaking of his daughters, one is a partner in a couple of the restaurants, and one is at school in Kentucky and another is in medical school.
“You have to keep working. That’s what I told somebody when they asked, ‘Why don’t you retire? You sold Walker’s.’ I said, well, the lifestyle of which I’ve become accustomed doesn’t allow for retirement quite yet, and so in order for me to have the fun things and do the things I want to do, I have to work. And they resond, ‘Oh I guess that’s true.’ I’m very much just like everybody else.”
Emerson stays in the kitchen with an eye on the dining room but admires and credits how his wife Jennifer takes care of the rest.
“She deals with the accountant and does all the stuff that I don’t. Answering emails and all that unfun stuff. I told her she had a bad deal because I get to make people happy with the food, she just has to deal with the IRS, our accountants, and everything else now, but she also does all the private dining, she does all the interiors for all the restaurants, and exteriors. She’s definitely hands-on and she’s the best partner a man could have.”
Chef Derek Emerson makes it all a family tradition from his grandmothers’ kitchens to his own restaurants with his wife and daughters, creating incredible food for fun and pleasure and a life-long delectable career that’s nowhere near finished cooking.