If you are scrambling to figure out a Sunday supper — or really, any lunch or dinner — meet Nana Morrison’s, a family-owned and operated soul food restaurant that provides an array of offerings that taste like the kind of home cooking that can only be achieved with decades of experience and countless hours in the kitchen.
It’s not called “Nana’s” for nothing. Nana Morrison was a real person, the grandmother of co-founder Kiana Morrison, who was inspired to create a restaurant that serves the food her grandmother and mother made.
“It’s the core pillars of soul food: fried chicken, baked chicken, collard greens, mac and cheese, yams, cabbage, pinto beans, mashed potatoes and gravy,” says Jonathan Flynn, general manager of the restaurant.
Located off Harrison Avenue in The Arboretum at Weston marketplace, Nana Morrison’s Soul Food opened in May — the fourth of the Charlotte-based company’s five current locations.
Come lunch or supper time, the hardest part is figuring out what to order. A large plate yields two meat choices and two sides plus cornbread or a roll; a small pairs one meat with two sides, and there’s a veggie plate option as well. But good luck trying to cull the many offerings down: There are 10 meats, 17 sides, and 10 desserts to choose from, and that’s not including daily specials (Tuesday’s bourbon chicken and Thursday’s turkey wings are especially popular).
Gravy-smothered turkey wings and barbecue ribs complement generous servings of yams, collard greens, mac and cheese, and green beans.
It was the curry chicken — available in dark or white — that called to me, along with yams, collards, and cornbread. Succulent and with the perfect amount of spice, the chicken fell off the bone with the slightest provocation. The yams were perfect for sopping up leftover curry sauce — the balance of savory spice and caramelized sweet potato so satisfying it was only beat by a more common sopping activity: dipping my cornbread into the pot likker of the collard greens. The greens’ liquid was so flavorful, I found myself tilting around the container the food is served in, trying to get at every last ounce.
The first Nana Morrison’s opened in 2011 in Charlotte, and from the onset, the founder’s children were part of the family business. The four Morrison siblings were all involved from a young age, doing everything from working the line to learning how to run the back of the house. Today, all four work for the business, with the three eldest managing individual locations. Looking to expand to a new location, the family liked the proximity of Cary to both Durham and Raleigh — plus, they couldn’t find a good soul food outlet in Cary.
“I can’t tell you how many times people come in and they say, thank you for being here. We need it!” says Jonathan, who came to the company after managing a local barbecue restaurant. “We’ve had so many people thank us for being here — and it’s not even just the Cary area. We’ve had people come all the way from Rolesville, Youngsville. … We even had a guy this past weekend come up from Greensboro.”
Word of mouth is spreading, especially on social media, about Nana Morrison’s Cary location. And while there’s no doubt about it — the food is the draw — patrons are getting more than just a great plate of food when they visit. Though the term soul food only came into existence in the 1960s, the cuisine it describes has a long history and influence on American culture and beyond. The legacy of the African diaspora and how it shaped the foundation of American cooking has been well documented by historians, and recently celebrated in the fantastic Netflix docuseries High on the Hog. The dishes at Nana Morrison’s — featuring staples like greens, okra, rice — are part of a rich and vibrant culinary tradition that reaches from precolonial Africa through today.
“We are very big on spreading a positive Black influence and educating other demographics that might not have had (soul food) before, but we’re also in the South, and a lot of what we cook most people over a certain age have had in some shape or form,” says Jonathan.
Kindergarten graduate Derrick Joyner eyeballs the fried chicken on the serving line at Nana Morrison’s.
History lives on and evolves as our understandings and perspectives do. Cary is a growing, diverse community, emblematic of the multicultural nature of the New South, and so it’s especially exciting to have a location of Nana Morrison’s here to serve as a repository, if you will, of soul food. Representation is important — and so is the kind of joy you feel when you find a place that serves a coconut cake or peach cobbler like ones you used to eat at church picnics, or bite into a piece of fried chicken that reminds you of your grandma’s, back when she used to dress the bird herself for Sunday dinner. Nana Morrison’s Soul Food offers different experiences for different folks, and that’s a major benefit of diversity: variety.
For Jonathan, interacting with the dynamic community around the restaurant is key: “We want to become a pillar of this community … to be involved with nonprofit organizations and work with different schools in the area. We want to truly be ingrained.”
“When a mom or dad is running around, taking the kids to practice, we want them to think of us. Or it’s been a long day, and I need some comfort food — you can come here for good food. We want to be that restaurant people think of when they have anything from a last-minute event to a family reunion,” says Jonathan.
So what does he order at Nana Morrison’s when he needs some comfort food?
“My go-to is the bourbon chicken, which is served only on Tuesdays, with mac and cheese and curry rice — it gets me every time,” says Jonathan.
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