Dinner begins at Home Grown in Reynoldstown next month.
Wyld Bird, a restaurant-within-a-restaurant owned by Brad Syfan and Chef Tony Seichrist of Wyld Dock Bar in Savannah, will open for dinner inside the Memorial Drive diner in mid-February.
Home Grown co-owner Kevin Clark hinted at adding dinner service to the lineup last August when he and business partner Lisa Spooner purchased the restaurant’s property. While Home Grown will operate as usual, serving breakfast and lunch daily, Wyld Bird will take over for dinner Wednesday through Sunday, serving what Syfan describes as “Miami-inspired” chicken.
“Tony grew up in Miami and there is a fast-food restaurant in South Florida called Pollo Tropical that serves Cuban pollo asado. He grew up eating that in Miami and has been tinkering with a version of his own,” Syfan explained. “He’d always wanted to do something with that idea, and this just fit.”
Syfan has known Clark and Spooner for years. Before moving to Savannah in 2015 to open Wyld Dock Bar, Syfan and Seichrist worked together at Iberian Pig in Decatur and were part of the Atlanta restaurant community. With their Savannah operation running smoothly, Syfan eventually returned to Atlanta, traveling back and forth between the cities. With Wyld Dock Bar running at full tilt, the pair began toying with the idea of opening a dinner spot in Savannah.
In the off-season, Syfan and Seichrist host a Japanese food and sushi pop-up at Wyld Dock Bar. They shopped for spaces to open it as a restaurant in Savannah, but nothing quite fit the bill. Syfan admits, not everyone in Savannah got what they were trying to do with the pop-up.
Then, Seichrist suggested reaching out to Clark in Atlanta.
Related Story: Home Grown owners purchase the Memorial Drive restaurant building
With Atlanta’s thriving pop-up scene, a restaurant-within-a restaurant isn’t viewed as a foreign concept. On Sunday and Monday nights, Ok Yaki in East Atlanta becomes Laotian restaurant So So Fed. Monday evenings sees Baraka transform Midtown coffee and wine bar Larakin into an omakase counter. Every quarter, wine bar and jazz club The Prez takes over the dining room at Madeira Park. 7th House in Adair Park hosts weekly pop-ups in the kitchen. Its chef’s tasting sibling, Bovino After Dark, resides within the bar and lounge at Hop City Beer & Wine in West End.
“I called Kevin and was just like, ‘Hey, what if we opened a dinner spot in your restaurant?’ And Kevin was like, ‘Let’s do it,’” Syfan said. “It turns out, Kevin had been wanting to do something like this for a long time. We thought about doing the Japanese thing here, but high-end sushi didn’t mesh with the vibe at Home Grown.”
They settled on pollo asado (bone-in chicken cooked over charcoal) and Wyld Bird to keep in line with Home Grown’s comfort food menu and affordability. Home Grown’s most famous and sought-after dish also happens to center around poultry: the comfy chicken biscuit.
Expect a tight menu of half and whole bird pollo asado plates with sides of rice and beans and plantain chips, along with skin-on airline chicken breasts sliced up for sandwiches, bowls, and salads. Seichrist plans to offer braised pork cheek dishes and appetizers like griddled Chihuahua cheese tortilla strips Syfan likens to “a Cuban version of cheesy bread” served with dipping sauces.
The bar will feature a handful of beers and wines by the glass. Cocktails will lean fruit forward, light and bright, and easy to drink (think a margarita, a paloma, and a coconut oil-washed mezcal cocktail made with pineapple oleo syrup.)
With Seichrist running day-to-day operations at Wyld Dock Bar in Savannah, Syfan will handle daily operations at Wyld Bird in Atlanta. They hired a kitchen manager to oversee food at Wyld Bird, along with a few other restaurant staff members. Syfan and Seichrist also gave Clark and Spooner’s employees the opportunity to pick up shifts at Wyld Bird in the evening if they wanted the extra work.
Syfan and Seichrist are waiting on the final paperwork to be filed and the mayor to sign off on Wyld Bird’s liquor license before opening the doors for dinner.
“Wyld Bird and Home Grown is a great synergy. It all works so well together. Kevin and Lisa are just so great to work with and good people, so this partnership has been easy because we trust each other,” Syfan said.
“Kevin has always sort of tinkered with the idea of opening a second Home Grown,” Syfan said of the future. “If Wyld Bird fits well here, maybe we’ll do exactly this at another location in Atlanta that’s Home Grown and Wyld Bird.”
Wyld Bird at Home Grown, 968 Memorial Dr., Reynoldstown. Opening for dinner in mid-February, Wednesday through Sunday at 5:30 p.m.