Meet PCG Member – Jamie Barnes: Elevating Fries and the Charlotte Culinary Community
Jamie Barnes and his business partner, Greg Williams, introduced What the Fries food truck concept to Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race in the spring of 2015. They made the top 10, but not the final cut for the show.
They were crushed, but decided the idea was too good to let it go.
“All the preparation we did and the menu planning, we didn’t want to let it go to waste, said Jamie. So we decided to try to just keep it going. It was going to require us being broke for a while, but we just stuck with it. We got a lot of help from family.”
What the Fries is a family business. Jamie’s wife, Alicia Barnes, markets the truck and works with event planning. His daughter Lily and son Levi, too young to work, sit in the front seat to watch, and Greg Williams’ sister Kayla Williams works the window. They’re best known for the Steak & Shrimp Hibachi Fries with housemade “Yumm Yumm Sauce”, Lobster Mac & Cheese Fries, and Steak & Cheese Fries with Boursin cheese sauce.
Jamie is one of PCG’s inaugural professional members. He joined in 2015 because he wanted to support local farms. Jamie’s goal is to purchase 70% of his ingredients from local producers. He is a regular at Charlotte Regional Farmers Market, as well as Davidson Farmers Market.
“I think that’s what’s helping our truck stand out,” he explains. “We have to work a little bit harder, but it’s pushing us to do a little better with the product we use.”
His involvement in PCG events has expanded Jamie’s circle of chefs and farmers. He brought his food truck to Carved, a PCG pumpkin carving event at Free Range Brewing (Certified PCG Business Member) that ran from 2013 through 2017. Jamie was part of the Soul Food Sessions team who provided the lunch at the 2019 PCG Food & Beverage Symposium.
“PCG helped me step out of the box. It can’t help but push you when you see all of the creative things everyone is doing.”
For the second year, Jamie participated in PCG’s Farm to Fork Picnic at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden on October 6.
This year he and PCG Pro Member Dan Kypena worked together. Dan owns Middle Ground Farm in Monroe. Jamie prepared Fall Vegetable Panzanella Salad with roasted purple yams, apples, carrots, onions and an apple butter vinaigrette. He used hydroponically grown Bibb lettuce from Dan’s farm.
“It was an absolute delight working with Jamie Barnes,” Dan says. “I had not collaborated with and didn’t know Jamie prior to being paired for this event. In order to get to know each other a little better, we invited Jamie and his family over about a month prior to the event to come see our farm. Jamie came with his wife and two children, and we had a great time getting to know each other while we toured the farm.
“We have had some struggles with our outdoor fall veggies due to the record heat lately so what we had available for Jamie to work with required some modification. Like a true chef, Jamie just rolled with it and created an incredible salad that was enjoyed by many.”
PCG Professional Member (and Board Member) Greg Collier met Jamie at PCG’s Back Porch Brunch in 2015. Greg co-owns Uptown Yolk (a certified PCG Business Member) in the 7th Street Public Market and soon to open, Leah & Louise in Camp North End. Greg and Jamie knew one another through social media but hadn’t met in person yet.
Together with Michael Bowling, Jamie Turner, and Greg Williams, they formed Soul Food Sessions – a group to acknowledge and support people of color in the culinary arts, restaurant & hospitality industries, and beverage services.
The original idea was a popup.
“It was supposed to be one dinner,” he says, “It ended up being a better response than we all imagined. We did a second dinner, and then we said, ‘let’s keep this as a collective.’”
So much more that Coca Cola sponsored a four-city tour to Charleston, Charlotte, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
The name, Soul Food Sessions, is meant to throw off guests. The group of chefs want their dishes to be unexpected.
“We want to flip your idea of what soul food is,” Jamie adds. “And everyone in the group has a completely different idea, a different take on what soul food is to them. We like to take things from our past and add our newer cooking techniques. It can be a new way to cook your grandmother’s stewed tomatoes. It’s still rooted in your heart; something from your past.”
Soul Food Sessions received a call from the James Beard Foundation. They invited the chefs to cook for its Regional Spotlight dinner at the Beard House. On September 13, the chefs, along with mixologist Justin Hazelton, headed to Manhattan to prepare a dinner for 65 James Beard Foundation members and other guests.
The Charlotte chefs had just one day in the Beard House kitchen to prepare a seven-course dinner. Each were responsible for a passed appetizer and a course. According to PCG Pro Member Chef Matthew Martin with Freshlist, they purchased corn, beans, okra, leeks, and carrots from Barbee Farms (PCG Pro Member Brent Barbee), Bush-N-Vine Farm, Dabhar Farms, and Small City Farms (PCG Pro Member Kim Shaw).
Jamie and his fellow chefs also asked for advice from Mark Jacksina, the executive sous chef at Southminster Retirement Community (Certified PCG Business Member) and Pro Member Chris Coleman with Goodyear House.
“There are other chefs in Charlotte we know who have been there,” Jamie explains. “We got tips from them: don’t try to go to New York and do every last item of prep. We flew up there with food already prepped. We didn’t have a full stressful day of prepping food.”
The menu represented Soul Food Sessions’ main theme – southern food with a modern influence. Jamie developed a vegetarian course: faro grain salad mixed with arugula, charred corn and okra, topped with smoked peaches and a sweet tea vinaigrette.
His appetizer was a play on peanut butter and jelly: toasted brioche from Dukes Bread (Certified PCG Business Member) with pecan butter and pork belly marmalade.
“Obviously the Beard House dinner is huge so there is a bit of added pressure,” Greg says. “But he never cracks. We all have our moments, but Jamie’s the calm one.”
Jamie isn’t new to the food scene – he’s had many opportunities to perfect his craft and learn to handle stress. He moved to Charlotte from Newport News, Virginia to attend Johnson & Wales University. He received an associate degree in Culinary Arts in 2006.
He worked in several restaurants in various positions in Charlotte – Sonoma Kitchen, Arpa, Ilios Noche and Ballantyne Country Club. He’s participated in Serving the Culture and What the Fries won the Food Truck Battle in uptown Charlotte in 2017 and the People’s Choice Award in Charlotte’s Food Fight in 2018. The truck is also on Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat in 2018.
What’s next for Jamie? He hopes to expand to a small café. He’d have room for more fryers and use the truck for special events.
Profile written by Vanessa Infanzon
What the Fries
