The Commercial Appeal - Go Memphis
A look at Felicia Suzanne’s outdoor courtyard
It had been way too long since I had Felicia Suzanne’s Oysters of Love. Chef Felicia Willett makes the most delicious fried oyster dish I have ever eaten. Plump oysters are fried until crispy and served in a New Orleans-style barbecue sauce over a bed of creamy grits. How the oysters come out still crispy while in that sauce is a mystery to me.
I am excited to report that Felicia Suzanne’s oysters are just as perfect as they have always been.
The last time I dined at Felicia Suzanne’s was probably in January, before the pandemic closed down Memphis. In May, Willett chose to keep her dining room closed and focus only on takeout during the pandemic, that is until a few weeks ago when she decided to open her outdoor courtyard for seating on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. The dining room remains closed, but you can now enjoy the Southerndriven, New Orleans-inspired menu with the same impeccable service Felicia Suzanne’s is known for — just outdoors.
Felicia Suzanne’s has one of my favorite outdoor dining areas in town. The courtyard is tucked between two buildings and has no car traffic passing by since the restaurant happens to be on the pedestrian-only part of South Main Street. It feels like you have stepped into a hidden New Orleans courtyard oasis. The courtyard has various levels, a fountain centerpiece, lovely landscaping and twinkle lights. There is even a treehouse-inspired bar at the far end that is a fun place to enjoy a pre- or postdinner drink with friends in non-pandemic times.
My daughter and I enjoyed a lovely supper, which included the aforementioned oysters, at Felicia Suzanne’s courtyard on a recent Saturday night.
I expected it to be very hot, but I was surprised at how pleasant it was on the courtyard. Because the courtyard is located in between several tall buildings, most of the space is shaded. Willett said the restaurant intentionally seats earlydining guests in the areas that are shaded first.
Like many restaurants across Memphis, Felicia Suzanne’s has added frozen craft cocktails to the menu. This is a trend I personally am a fan of as we opt for outdoor dining versus AC. That night, I had the frozen Cosmo made with Tito’s vodka. It was a tart and refreshing drink. Willett also had a frozen rose and a frozen Manhattan that night.
The menu is available only on your phone; QR codes are on the table. All staff had on masks and gloves. Tables were well spaced apart. And, not COVid-19-safety related but more about summer in Memphis, a large carafe of ice water was on our table at all times.
For starters, we split the Oysters of Love ($12) and the BLFGT Salad ($14). Like the oysters, I always order that salad when I go to Felicia Suzanne’s. Fried green tomatoes are topped with pimento cheese, crispy bacon and locally
Felicia Suzanne’s BLFGT SALAD with fried green tomatoes, pimento cheese and bacon.
grown lettuce. The salad sits atop a bed of Creole remoulade sauce. It may not be a “healthy” salad, but it sure is delicious.
I had the Creole Lake’s Catfish ($16). This dish features a fork-tender piece of Mississippi Delta catfish from Lake’s Catfish. The fish is lightly blackened and served over Hoppin’ John with low country rice, black-eyed peas and ham. Willett garnished the dish with a spoonful of her Flo’s Chow Chow. Each bite is packed with just the right kick of flavor.
My daughter ordered the Salmon ($24). This perfectly cooked piece of fish came over a bed of Charred Sweet Corn Etouffee. The savory and sweet corn etouffee made the dish. There is nothing better than a dish made with sweet summer corn in my book.
While the new menu is a bit smaller than Felicia Suzanne’s traditional dinner menu, most of the customer favorites are there. Dishes like Chicken Enchiladas, Sunday Sugo and Filet of Beef Tenderloin are just a few longtime menu items that are available on the courtyard.
We ended our meal with build-yourown ice cream sandwiches. Chocolate cookies came with a bowl of ice cream and hot fudge sauce for us to build our own treats. It was a fun ending to the meal.
In addition to courtyard dining, Felicia Suzanne’s is still offering takeout, which includes fun themes like the weekly Fried Chicken Fridays and Shrimp Boils on Saturdays.
Jennifer Chandler is the Food & Dining reporter at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at jennifer.chandler@commercialappeal.com, and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @cookwjennifer.
It all started one afternoon with a pack of cookies.
Franklin’s Scott Sava was playing with his children more than a decade ago when he decided to use Animal Crackers as more than a snack.
“I came up with the idea you become a giraffe or a lion, or whatever it is you ate, and we played around the rest of the day like that,” Sava said. “Maybe a few weeks later, I started writing a children’s graphic novel.”
After some tinkering and getting the idea in front of the right pair of eyes, Sava and his wife, Donna, restructured the story as a script for a movie named after the pack of cookies. Netflix premiered the children’s animated flick “Animal Crackers” on July 24.
“It will be seen by potentially 200 million people in 100 something languages,” Donna Sava said. “It’s very exciting and it’s bittersweet for us because of all the stuff we’ve went through to get here, and we still have the scars but it’s exciting to see it. We are trying to stay positive.”
After distribution issues and the 2008 Rrecession, seeing the work come to fruition became a labor of love.
Saving a circus
A-list actors from “The Lord of the Rings,” “The Office” and “Girl on the Train” came together to make the voices of the movie come to life.
Directed by Tony Bancroft (“Mulan”), he and Sava created a magical box of animal crackers at the core of the movie. Only there’s a catch.
The box must be used to save a failing circus from an evil family member, Horatio P. Huntington played by Ian Mckellen. Like Sava’s game, when characters eat an animal out of the box, they become that creature, as the trailer shows one character evolving into a small gerbil and landing on his smartphone.
With that, Owen — voiced by John Krasinski — and Zoe — played by Emily Blunt — face challenges in bringing back the animals to the circus and making the experience magical to audience members.
“Animal Crackers” was created by the Sava family and Tony Bancroft. It’s now airing on Netflix.
Raven-symoné, Danny Devito and Sylvester Stallone voice other characters in the movie as the circus finds its path forward.
What it took to create
Getting to this month’s release date was anything but easy for the Sava family.
At one point, the family was working several jobs and trying to fight out of debt from a contract that left them without payment during the height of the Great Recession.
Their house was close to foreclosure and their car had been repossessed.
But as luck would have it, an overseas investor saw their pitch and believed in it.
“You go from food stamps to a million dollars in your bank account,” Donna Sava said. “It was crazy to think we could do that. We were crawling out of the hole. We were paying off all the debt, but then we had the opportunity to do something people only dream about doing.”
In total, the movie filmed on an $11 million budget, and the couple imagined it would go directly to DVD. But three different distributor deals fell through, leaving the movie in purgatory.
The Savas and Bancroft recollected the rights to the movie after the failed contracts.
Then in 2019, Netflix came calling. “It was a relief, and we worked so hard and put our heart and soul into this,” Sava said. “We thought make it would be hard with investors and turned out the distribution was the biggest part. Now, we are already hoping for a sequel.”