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Husband and wife, founders of The Lindsey Food Group, and Buttermilk and Honey owners Mike Lindsey and Kimberly Love-Lindsey
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Member of The Jackson Ward Collective, a hub for Black business owners that provides connections to services, programs, technical assistance and financial support, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the grand opening of Buttermilk and Honey on Tuesday, Sept. 7.
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Buttermilk and Honey is located in the West Broad Marketplace in Short Pump in the former B. Good space at 12246 W. Broad St.
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Pimento Cheese Bombs are breaded, fried and topped with pickled red onions and a honey drizzle.
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Fried green tomatoes topped with spicy ranch and chow chow
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Buttermilk and Honey offers dine-in and takeout service.
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Buttermilk and Honey will also be opening at the Hatch Local food hall in Manchester later this year.
“We always knew this would be our next concept; we always knew we would do a fried chicken concept,” says Kimberly Love-Lindsey, half of the duo behind Buttermilk and Honey.
Along with husband and chef Mike Lindsey, the tenacious team opened the fried chicken restaurant at 12246 W. Broad St. in Short Pump’s West Broad Marketplace on Tuesday.
Lindsey says he gets his lifelong love of fried chicken from his mother.
“Kim will tell you, my mom loves fried chicken,” the North Carolina native says with a laugh. “I’ll ask her, ‘Want anything on the way in?’ and she’ll reply, ‘Fried chicken.’ ”
Lindsey says he grew up eating fried chicken after church on Sunday, a familiar and comforting tradition that has always stuck with him.
Noticing a trend in recent years of fried chicken concepts popping up across the country, Lindsey says he thought to himself, “I know fried chicken, but what can I do to make sure it’s different?”
He hit the kitchen for some R&D, testing sweet tea and pickle brines along with house-made seasonings and rubs. At Buttermilk and Honey, every piece of chicken is tossed in the house seasoning, a recipe Lindsey — formerly a chef at at several EAT Restaurant Partners establishments — originally crafted at Red Salt Chophouse & Sushi that he describes as a “blend of herbs and sweetness.”
To help ensure consistency, he adds, Buttermilk and Honey gets its Nashville seasoning and flour packaged at a local facility in Colonial Heights, with plans for it to be sold as a retail item eventually.
“For us to execute that fried chicken like a five-star restaurant doesn’t take that much work, but attention to detail is key,” Lindsey says, noting that the birds receive a double toss in seasoning and an expertly timed removal from the fryer. “Give it that love, [and] the process is simple and easy.”
Buttermilk and Honey offers a variety of fried chicken sandwiches, from the heat-tinged Nashville to the Go-Go, adorned with Washington, D.C.’s famed mumbo sauce, and the Dirty Bird, drizzled with house-made hot sauce and topped with blue cheese crumbles, lettuce and tomato.
Other menu items include jumbo tenders served with spicy honey mustard, a riff on chicken and waffles where French toast replaces the chicken’s typical counterpart, crispy pimento cheese bombs, and fried green tomatoes with chow chow.
As in a true Southern household, dessert is not forgotten at Buttermilk and Honey. Thanks to a resident soft-serve machine, banana pudding, peach cobbler, caramel-fudge brownie and strawberry shortcake sundaes are available. Banana pudding cookies are also available from Richmond-based business The Sweetest Thing, a fellow member of local hub for Black-owned businesses The Jackson Ward Collective.
Inside the bright orange space, formerly a location of the salad chain B. Good, kiosks allow Buttermilk and Honey’s guests to order at their leisure. At each table, QR codes allow ordering by phone as well. Lindsey says the idea is to create a balance between seamless, quick interactions for guests on the go, while also offering chef-driven specialties and encouraging connections with customers.
“We want this to feel like Lillie Pearl — it’s fast casual, but we want it to feel the same and for G to know who you are,” Lindsey says, referring to one of his longtime right-hand chefs, who was on the opening team with him at Red Salt, Fatty Smokes, Wong’s Tacos and Lillie Pearl.
Within the past year, Lindsey and Love-Lindsey had their first child together; opened Lillie Pearl, their debut restaurant; took over ownership at neighboring Pop’s Market on Grace to save it from closure and were chosen as vendors at the forthcoming Hatch Local food hall, and now they've turned a pandemic pivot into a brick-and-mortar eatery.
“This was our backup plan,” Love-Lindsey says, noting that Buttermilk and Honey, which started as a pop-up, was a way for them to offer cheaper price points during the height of the pandemic than $28 entrees to go. “We knew we had to have a plan.”
Seasoned industry veterans, the power couple are coming into their own as restaurateurs and as husband and wife.
“The key is for me and Kim is to stay humble and keep grinding,” Lindsey says. “It’s been a blessing to say the least, our life this past year has been the most incredible [time in our] life that we’ve probably had.”
Buttermilk and Honey is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. for dine-in and takeout service.
