Plantation Café & Deli BREAKFAST with the Family
BY BARRY KAUFMAN
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PHOTOS BY ROB KAUFMAN
In the restaurant business, you have to pay your dues. Washing dishes, cutting veggies, taking out garbage, scrubbing bathrooms… these are the wages of success. There are no shortcuts. To look at the Neeley family is to see the proof of that. Hard work, paying dues and never taking shortcuts pay off. It’s how this one family has amassed a portfolio of restaurants across the Southeast, including Plantation Café & Deli’s three locations, Callahan’s and Savannah’s Original Pancake House. Before he opened his first island restaurant, Vic Neeley had already paid 27 years’ worth of dues working his way up through the ranks at Waffle House. By the time he stepped away from the company, he was a vice president. Having a dad in the boardroom didn’t stop Vic’s son Darrell from paying dues; he started out washing dishes just like everyone else. When Vic ventured out from Waffle House on his own and Darrell finally got his shot at running the kitchen at Callahan’s, it was nothing that was given. Make no mistake, it was earned. That’s not to say it didn’t have its perks. “I was 19, living in Winston-Salem, and my dad said, ‘Want to go live by the beach and run a kitchen?’ I mean, who’s going to say no?” said Darrell. “I was able to have a lot of freedom, but it was also pretty daunting because I had a lot of responsibility at that age. I didn’t go to college. I went to the school of Callahan’s.” He would pay his dues in the kitchen at Callahan’s before taking the reins at the iconic restaurant the family had purchased, Plantation Café & Deli.
COMFORT FOOD
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Plantation Café & Deli empire is the way each restaurant represents subtle variations on a theme. That theme, of course, is good oldfashioned Southern style comfort food. Warm, buttery stacks of fluffy pancakes. Tender yet crispy bacon that seems to melt in the mouth. Sizzling sausage, fresh from the skillet and redolent with subtle spices. And we haven’t even gotten to the lunch menu yet, with its mouth-watering soups, salads and sandwiches that tantalize with their inspired spins on deli classics. It’s fare that simply tastes
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