Last March, Tyler Williams opened The Besties’ Table on South Shelby Street in the former site of Open Kitchen Restaurant (and before that, Jailbird). The bright yellow building next to the railroad tracks bustles inside with diners brunching on chicken and waffles, French toast flights, and other sweet and savory dishes—a dream come true for the chef who says he grew up on The Food Network and used to play a game called Top Chef during indoor recess at school. Here, Williams shares how he arrived at this spot.
When did you first learn that you were a good cook?
I’ve been cooking my entire life—since I was six. But it was more for family and friends to experience. I’ve never been to culinary school. I just know how to make good food, and I liked to cook for them.
What motivated you to turn that talent into a career?
Right out of college, I got my first corporate job. My degree is in tourism and hospitality, but I started working in manufacturing. My title was talent coordinator. We would go to college and university campuses and basically let them know about our manufacturing and logistics programs. In May of 2020, I lost my job due to Covid. One of my friends was like, “You know, you should really supplement your income. You should cook for people.” So that’s what I started doing.
What did that look like during a pandemic?
I was working out of my mom’s kitchen, which I didn’t know at the time is highly illegal. I did not know that, and so I did that for about a year.
How many customers were you serving?
One time we did a fish and chicken meal, and we had a line wrapped around the block, like it was chaos. There were 96 customers, but not 96 people getting one thing. That was the naiveness in my life at that time. It was one person ordering five meals for their whole family. I remember that day. My mom’s friends who purchased food saw that we were so backed up, they got out of their cars and helped us run food. It took us four hours to push everyone through, and we had already been up cooking all day.
Where did you go from there?
I got accepted into Melon Kitchens [food entrepreneur accelerator and ghost kitchen inside The AMP at 16 Tech]. I applied to be in the program, and they accepted me. I was there for four years. So that’s where I was able to scale my business. I went from a 300-square-foot kitchen in my mom’s house to being in more than 5,000 square feet. I was there until around Christmas time last year.
What drew you to your current location?
I’ve always wanted a restaurant no bigger than 2,000 square feet, because I wanted to kind of play off of the intimacy of the restaurant. I went and toured the space and definitely fell in love with it.
What is the significance of the yellow exterior?
When I was in seventh grade, I wrote out like a restaurant concept that I wanted. It was a brunch concept, and I wanted the building to be yellow. That color just represents brunch and early morning—like sunshine, right? It’s also noticeable, because you can’t miss a yellow building.
How did you develop your menu?
I wanted to do something that was familiar, but also different. So, we do biscuits and gravy, but our gravy has turkey sausage instead of pork sausage. Not everyone eats pork. I don’t eat pork, but I still wanted to feature biscuits and gravy. A lot of the recipes are mine, of course. We have whole wings. We sell about 350 to 400 chicken wings a day. I make all of my wing sauces. Pretty much 95 percent of the things that we serve are scratch-made. And we make them daily.
What kind of experience do you hope diners have at The Besties’ Table?
People come in on the weekdays and have brunch and breakfast. It gives like very “local diner” during the week. On the weekend, we were trying to figure out our systems with the wait time for the food in the kitchen. Because we were taking like 45 minutes with tickets, which is very long in the restaurant business. I wanted people to have a great experience. So while they’re waiting for their food, let’s have a DJ, and they can kind of have a good time and vibe out. That took on a life of its own. Now, every Saturday and Sunday, we have a DJ, and it’s a completely different vibe.
Any plans for expansion?
It was a no-brainer for me to want to open a chicken and fish place, because we sell so much chicken, it’s ridiculous. My plan is to open it next year. I think we’re going to call it Besties’ Crispy and Co. Everything will be branded with “Besties.” I want to eventually franchise all the businesses, and you will know it’s a Besties’ building, because every building will be yellow.
