Chef John Currence has been making Oxford food famous for years. The New Orleans native created the City Grocery Restaurant Group, which includes City Grocery, Boure, Snackbar and Big Bad Breakfast and provides great environments and food for both university students and Oxford residents.
“I always enjoy going to these restaurants,” said Anna Suggs, junior public policy leadership major. “The food is always excellent and the service is even better — which is rare to come by these days.”
The quality food and atmosphere that make City Grocery Restaurant Group’s restaurants local favorites are also important to frequent Oxford visitors and have been highly acclaimed by publishers such as The New York Times, USA Today and Southern Living.
Currence has received awards such as the Mississippi Restaurant Association’s Restaurateur of the Year and Chef of the Year in 1998, the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef South and the Southern Foodways Alliance Guardian of Tradition Award in 2008. He has also won the Great American Seafood Cookoff in 2008 and the Charleston Food and Wine Festival’s Iron Chef Challenge in 2009.
Now, Currence has taken on a new project in the form of Lamar Lounge. A very different set-up from Currence’s other restaurants, Lamar Lounge is a barbecue-vending townie bar.
More important than the new type of restaurant or the exciting new menu options, however, is that Chef Currence will be using this restaurant to give back to the Oxford community.
“A not-for-profit restaurant,” Currence called the project. “We will identify a new Oxford children’s charity each year to receive the profits we make.”
The first Oxford charity that will benefit from this amazing philanthropic idea is Good Food for Oxford Schools. This program works to improve menu options in Oxford schools, while educating students and their parents about food.
Currence hopes this new type of restaurant will reach a new demographic.
“I want this to be a place for everyone in town,” he said. “A place where people can feel good about what they’re eating and how they’re spending money.”
Currence is also excited about the creative opportunities a project like this provides.
“We will be the only place in the whole state to cook whole hog barbecue,” Currence said. “And one of the few in state who cook almost exclusively with wood.”
University of Mississippi students are also interested in Lamar Lounge.
“I think it’s awesome that they’re buying Lamar Lounge,” said Sam Brasher, junior mechanical engineering major. “It’s tough work owning a restaurant, and considering this is the owner’s fifth one, they must be doing something right. It really shows how the Oxford community supports local business.”
“I am excited for the new Lamar Lounge,” Suggs said. “You can’t go wrong with good food and good service for a great cause.”
