From seafood to soul food, SC chef isn’t afraid to mix it up in the kitchen

A school assignment years ago got Lowcountry chef Sean Mendes thinking about having his own restaurant.

“I remember in the seventh grade ... I was in the gifted program ... and we did a project,” Mendes said. “Create your own restaurant. I still have the portfolio. The name of the restaurant was Waves. It was going to be an underwater restaurant where the fish would swim around you. I had the seafood menu and the floor plan laid out and what the servers would wear. ”

Today, Mendes is the chef and owner of Roadside Seafood and Blues Cajun Kitchen restaurants on James Island – and one of the four 2017 South Carolina Chef Ambassadors.

Being named chef ambassador “didn’t hit me until I was in Columbia meeting all of the other chefs. I have friends for life,” Mendes said. “We can kick ideas off each other. Soaking it all in, doing that first event together (Charleston Wine + Food), I feel a part of it and I don’t ever want not be a part of it. ... It is a great honor.”

Born in Guam to U.S. Air Force parents, Mendes’ love of food – and seafood in particular – was influenced by his Portuguese-American father from Rhode Island and African-American mother from coastal South Carolina.

He learned the Gullah/Geechee flavor profiles and traditions from his mom’s mom, who he figures is the most important person in his culinary journey.

“I’d never had candied sweet potatoes like hers,” Mendes said. Now that she’s in her 80s, “I’m the keeper of the secrets.” He prepares his grandmother’s dressing and candied sweet potatoes for family Thanksgiving dinners.

From his dad’s mother, “straight off the boat from Portugal,” Mendes gets his Portuguese, Spanish and Italian influences, love of hearty stews, and the idea that food is comfort.

Mendes attributes this mix of influences for the laying the groundwork for what he does today.

“All of those influences just made me hunger for what I’m doing ... and I’ve been throwing things together my whole life. A pinch of that there.”

He started his career as a dishwasher in a friend’s restaurant before moving to the position of line cook. One day he was asked to take over the kitchen when the main cook didn’t show and “that was the beginning of the whole restaurant persona ... the late nights and the crazy, busy shifts and all that,” Mendes said.

Over the years, Mendes has worked at other restaurants – including the Charleston Place Hotel with renowned chef Louis Osteen – and started his own cheesecake business. He said his most educational experience, the one that has helped him the most in his career, was when he was hired by Outback Steakhouse in the late 1990s.

“Outback, at the time, was a pretty big deal,” he said. “I had read (about) their structure, how they took care of the employees and how they were one of the few chain restaurants that prepped 100 percent of their items. They were opening a place in Mt. Pleasant, I needed a job.

“They actually had a three-day interview process. First time I had heard of that. You had to come back. They wanted to make sure they had dedicated people coming in to work,” he said. Hired as a saute cook, Mendes worked his way to general manager over the next 10 years.

In 2008, he partnered with others and opened his first restaurant, Grindz Burgers & Brew in West Ashley. Initially, the restaurant got good reviews, but six months in, Mendes took a buyout and the partnership dissolved.

From 2008-12 Mendes worked as caterer, a personal chef, and did some carpentry work – just about anything to provide for his family. In 2012, his stepfather asked him about getting back into the restaurant business and offered to invest money in a venture.

“We were sitting around watching Food Network,” Mendes said, “and my stepbrother said, ‘what about a food truck?’ ”

Mendes’ wife went online and found a trailer. After two months of planning, Roadside Seafood hit the streets with a menu featuring old-school fried seafood and tacos.

“The first day we made $80 and we were ecstatic,” he said. His food truck business took off, Mendes joined food truck federation in Charleston and began landing bigger and bigger jobs throughout the Lowcountry – including one for “American Idol” on Hilton Head Island.

The Roadside Seafood food truck became so popular, Mendes and his family started looking for a brick and mortar place to start a restaurant. He got lucky when a location became available just 10 minutes from his home on James Island.

Since opening in 2014, Mendes expanded the basic Roadside Seafood menu to include classic she-crab soup, a Caesar salad featuring fried oysters and seasonal Black Tip shark nuggets as well as the fried seafood sandwiches and baskets.

In 2016, he handed over the day to day operations of the seafood restaurant to his brother to start Blues Cajun Kitchen, right next door.

With the new restaurant, Mendes didn’t want to copy his earlier venture into burgers – he wanted to refine it. He admitted that when he first started out with Grindz, there were some over-the-top burger combinations. “There was one with refried beans, like a whole seven layer dip on a burger. It was ridiculous.

“When we first opened (at Blues), I had a burger with foie gras – because I love it – with champagne onions, brie, mushrooms with the seared foie gras on top. It was pricey ($18) but I loved it, and the people who ate it loved it. But I’m also a realist and to have that much inventory in foie gras for one item on the menu didn’t make that much sense financially.”

The quintessential hamburger for Mendes “is the perfect food: bun, light mayo, American cheese and the burger.” Still, he likes changing things up and combining flavors.

“When you get blue cheese from Clemson, which I think is the best blue cheese ever, and put it on a burger, it’s bound to be good. Fresh lettuce, fresh tomatoes sliced and cut fresh every day, not packaged or shredded lettuce. Try to keep it local, that’s important.

“Fields Farm puts up a stand everyday in the church parking lot (just down the road) and I pass by there coming in and I stop by and buy green tomatoes and collards and whatever he’s got that I can play with here (at the restaurants),” Mendes said. “I just source the best ingredients ... and I have a knack of putting things together.”

Pulled pork on a burger with bacon, smoked cheddar on onion rings? Yes, he’s done that.

Mushroom and swiss? Yes, but with truffle mayo – not lettuce and tomato.

“If you look at the toppings, The Southern Gentleman burger is just green tomato, bacon and pimento cheese because the bread and the toppings all work together without overpowering any one item – pickles, lettuce, onions and tomato are optional, if it’s for me.”

Mendes is putting some ideas together for a scratch-made soul food place just down the block from his two restaurants. Gilly’s Soul Food. It will be named after his grandfather.

“Most of the iconic soul food restaurants are in Charleston, North Charleston,” he said. “We don’t have one on James Island, which is a shame.”

The soul food restaurant that Mendes is envisioning will be at take on the classic meat-and-three menu with 12 selections of proteins, sides, and breads, all made from scratch. “We’re gonna have smothered turkey wings, fried chicken livers, meatloaf, country-style ribs, stewed chicken, okra soup, and cabbage and collards ... you name it.”

He plans to open Gilly’s in May.

Mendes says he’s done all of this for his family, “for my kids and their kids and their kids, to have as a legacy, something to hold on to. My youngest (of three) will probably be the one to follow me. She’s already, at 8, doing little cooking shows on her YouTube thing, baking cookies and all that.”

This story was originally published April 18, 2017 at 12:34 PM with the headline "From seafood to soul food, SC chef isn’t afraid to mix it up in the kitchen."