Sean Robinson, grandson of Cozy Corner founder Ray Robinson, with Cornish game hen — one of the restaurant’s signature items.
Cornish game hen isn’t something you’d expect to see in a Memphis barbecue restaurant.
“I don’t see it ever,” says Bobby Bradley.
Except at Cozy Corner, where Bradley is manager.
Bradley is the grandson of Desiree Robinson and her husband, the late Ray Robinson, founder of Cozy Corner.
As far as Bradley knows, Cornish game hen has been on the Cozy Corner menu “since day one.”
His grandmother, Desiree, 81, says, “We opened our first restaurant in Colorado. I know it was on the menu there.”
Why Cornish game hen? “Because we liked it,” she says. “And our menu consisted of what we ate.”
Desiree’s husband began barbecuing at home after they moved from Memphis to Denver, where he got a job. Their friends loved his barbecue, which included Cornish game hen. Ray eventually opened a restaurant called Ray’s Barbecue in Denver.
Several years later, the Robinsons moved back to Memphis, where Ray opened Cozy Corner in August 1977.
Cornish game hen, a type of crossbred chicken served young, typically weighing less than two pounds, was on the menu, but Desiree says, “It didn’t sell real good at first. People weren’t used to it. They just couldn’t understand why you would want to sell a whole baby chicken.”
The Cornish game hens eventually became popular at Cozy Corner, but they caught even more attention after being featured on Guy Fieri’s Food Network show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, in 2008, Bradley says. “Then it went crazy.”
They put their Cozy Corner rub, which includes salt, pepper, and paprika, on the hen before it’s put on the barbecue pit for two hours or more. If the customer asks for it, they then add the Cozy Corner barbecue sauce, which Bradley describes as “not vinegary, not super-sweet, but a decently balanced sauce.”
They use the same rub and sauce they sell at the counter, but the flavor of the Cornish game hen isn’t going to be duplicated by somebody else at home, Bradley says. “It’s a combination of the way we cook them and what we cook them on.”
But, Bradley says, “You can always give them a shot.”
Bradley’s philosophy: “If only one person is selling them and it’s an item that you rarely ever see and you taste it and it’s really good, the combination of good taste and the wow, unique factor come together and it takes on a life of its own.”
They sell 85 to 100 Cornish game hens a week, but it’s not the “top-selling item on the menu,” Bradley says.
That would be the ribs, followed by the wings.
“Cornish game hen gets all the buzz, but I don’t think it’s the best thing we do,” says Bradley. “But it’s OK. I love the buzz. Come get ’em.”
