photograph by michael donahue
Becky Baker Crucifixio, general manager.
The smell of butter and the sultry sound of a saxophone waft through the air as guests fill their plates with oysters, shrimp, crawfish étouffée, bananas Foster, and other delicacies. Rows of white globe lights hang from the ceiling; white tablecloths are dotted with little vases of flowers. Some guests are seated at wrought-iron tables on the patio, nestled amid a fountain and hanging baskets of plants.
The setting resembles Bourbon Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter, but it’s actually Memphis’ Regalia Center, on Poplar Avenue. Welcome to Sunday brunch at Owen Brennan’s, the iconic Creole-Cajun restaurant that celebrates its 35th anniversary this year.
photograph by michael donahue
Live jazz at the popular Sunday brunch.
It’s a beloved place. “Memphis grew up in the restaurant,” says Lawson Bae, who, along with his sister, Becky Baker Crucifixio, and Austin Baker, operate the restaurant. “People came here for Mother’s Day and Easter. We had one family who had multiple family members who got engaged at the restaurant. That community is why we always have business.”
In addition to countless wedding receptions and other events, part of the 1993 movie, The Firm, was filmed at Owen Brennan’s.
But now it’s time for a makeover. “The reality is we know we have to step it up,” Bae says. “We have to freshen the interior. Refresh the menu. Just getting back to the basics. We need to deliver great food and great service.”
According to their blog, their father, Jim Baker, was approached by journalist/TV producer Burt Wolf, who was a chef at The Peabody at the time, to do a fundraiser for “a new concept restaurant that would license its name from the Brennan family. The idea? Memphis would be a flagship location for a franchise called Owen Brennan’s Louisiana Restaurants.”
Jim, who personally invested and raised $2.5 million of the $3 million needed to open the restaurant, eventually became the sole owner. (The family still pays royalties to the Brennan family for use of the name.)
They’re currently in the process of hiring a chef, Bae says, and they want to update the menu by “going back to the basics. The origin of Creole-Cajun food is Southern African-influenced food, and also French cuisine. There has been a huge Southern food renaissance, and that’s definitely showing up in menus all over the South.”
“Viet Cajun” is another idea they are considering, he says. “There’s a lot of Vietnamese communities that settled in Louisiana and Texas, and Vietnamese ingredients are very similar to Creole-Cajun food. So, you start to see these Vietnamese restaurants that are also doing Cajun. And, that, to me, is the frontier.”
It’s the same with their desserts. “The Brennan family invented bananas Foster,” Baker says. They want to honor that tradition, but also add their new takes on the desserts.
photograph by michael donahue
Their popular brunch, which began sometime in the 1990s, has “definitely become a core part of the restaurant,” Bae says.
But they intend to improve upon the successful concept: “Back to the basics again. Just better food.”
Overall, he says, “Our business is broken down into two things. One is brunch, the other is events and celebrations. We seat, with the patio, 460 people. We’re one of the largest restaurants in Memphis that’s not inside a hotel.”
They also are working toward a “complete kitchen renovation, and then go to the front of the house.” As for the decor, he says, “I think we can freshen it up. Again, in the same concept of the menu. Going back to the core, but also looking at the frontier.”
They want Owen Brennan’s to be more “Memphis” in its look. “If you look at the pictures on the walls today, the black-and-white photos are from Louisiana, but we have 35 years of history in Memphis. The first thing I want to do is bring in those 35 years of history on our walls.”
Like when The Firm was filmed at the restaurant. “We have two chairs with ‘Gene Hackman’ and ‘Tom Cruise’ on them. That history should be on our walls, too. [Hackman] would come back again and again,” Baker says. “He would cook in the back with our staff and play poker with people. He really enjoyed coming here.”
Their customer base is a mixture of generations, Crucifixio says. “I’d say we’re a happy mix,” adding, “I still have a lot of regulars that have been regulars since we opened — and their kids, and even their grandkids.”
Owen Brennan’s is located at 6150 Poplar Avenue #150 in The Regalia.
