When Kenny Barnes decided to open Shemp & Petey’s Bistro, he knew he wanted it to have a comforting, small-town feel for anyone who walked through the door.
“When you come in to eat, I want you to act like you’re at home,” said Barnes. “You don’t rush at home to eat. You sit down, relax and enjoy your meal. I don’t care how long you’re here. We want you to relax and have a good time.”
Barnes got what he calls the “entrepreneurial bug” from working for his father’s paint and body business in Lincoln County where he grew up.
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Big business ideas came and went, proved costly and taught him lessons about how to conduct business and how money flows. When the idea of opening a restaurant occurred to him, he started studying what kind of places were already around as well what was a little harder to find.
“My wife and I started talking and we looked at different restaurants in this area,” said Barnes. “The ones that were sticking out to us were not so much the mom-and-pop shops. There weren’t that many of those in that area, and if there were any, they were few and far between.”
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Making customers feel especially welcome and the food distinctive yet familiar is paramount to Barnes’ business model. The soup, salad and sandwich shop in Evans boasts a menu of entrees mostly homemade. The design of the restaurant has toned down colors. There is always music playing in the background from Barnes’ playlist, which he said is so vast that one is not likely to hear the same song twice.
“I thought, being from this place, everyone’s looking for a hometown flavor,” said Barnes. “We do not do pork products here, we don’t fry foods, we even decided to go with no potato chips. And that wasn’t even a healthy option so much as everybody’s doing that.”
The first step to creating the affable atmosphere at Shemp & Petey’s Bistro was coming up with the name. While Barnes said he would like to have had a more elaborate backstory behind the shop’s moniker, he admits the real story is much simpler.
“I used to work for University Hospital, had kind of a downtime because I worked nights,” he said. “So, I got on the internet, started looking at stories about the Three Stooges and read a story about Shemp Howard. So, I started looking at google images, and came across a photo of Howard and Petey the Dog from Little Rascals. I soon as I saw that, I said ‘That’s it.’”
Then, there is Barnes’ approach to preparing food. He wants every bite to be an experience. The two most popular entrees, he says, are the beefy grilled cheese made with grilled onions, pepper and gouda; and the chicken Philly. made with grilled chicken, provolone, onions, peppers and mushrooms.
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“We don’t have any condiments on it, so when you bite into it, you taste the bread, the hot beef, the onions, the bell peppers, cheese,” said Barnes. “You taste all that, we make sure nothing’s overcooked, everything still has more bite to it. To me that enhances the flavor to it.”
Barnes applied insights from what was done well and applied creativity turned toward his goals in making Shemp & Petey’s Bistro distinguished.
“Pretty much what we did was we looked at other sandwiches trying to get ideas from them we still see what this sandwich has,” said Kameron, Barnes’ daughter. “How can we twist it up or maybe add on to the sandwich to make it stand out from the rest.”
One of those twists is that Barnes prepares sandwiches with hummus instead of mayonnaise.
“We looked at different flavored hummuses,” said Barnes. “We wanted to make sure it was a good combination between the hummus the bread, the cheese and the meat.”
After the name and the food preparation, another ingredient to making Shemp & Petey’s Bistro one of a kind is the attitude towards how customers spend their time.
“I made it clear to everybody who works here, leave them alone,” said Barnes. “Just go by there and check on them and let them enjoy the time they’re here. I feel like that’s very important this day and age because we’re so used to rushing. We’re not going to rush you out of here. Come on in and relax. That’s the hometown advantage we have.”
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Shemp & Petey’s Bistro opened in June and is striving to make its mark in Evans. Barnes implements marketing specials that reflect the restaurant’s friendly brand, like the birthday club, in which customers celebrating a birthday receive their age’s percentage off their meal.
Barnes is sure to note that the road that got him and his family to this point is not easy, but worth it.
“I tell my kids you can daydream all you want to, but daydreaming stops when you pick up a pen and put it to a piece of paper and say I want to do this, I like this,” said Barnes. “Once you start doing that, your vision starts becoming a little bit clearer.”
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He emphasizes that aspiring entrepreneurs should avoid naysayers, implement a plan and maintain focus to achieve their dreams. And even once they get there, the work doesn’t stop.
“Starting a business goes beyond fulfilling your dream. You actually start understanding that “I’ve got a huge responsibility now, I’m employing people, I’m giving these people service now.’ For me it’s fun! A lot of people get scared by it, but I’ve been enjoying it,” he said.
Shemp & Petey’s Bistro is on 4534 Washington Rd. in Evans. It’s open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KCBHospitalityLLC/.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter with The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
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