photograph by michael donahue
Lou Martin with his grandson, DeAndres “Deuce” Weir, 5.
Lou Martin celebrates the 20th anniversary of his restaurant, Uncle Lou’s Fried Chicken, this month. That’s a lot of chicken thighs, legs, and breasts slathered with his signature “Sweet Spicy Love” sauce. The restaurant serves hamburgers and other items, but the fried chicken recipe came from his great-grandmother. Martin came up with the sauce.
When he was about 13, his mother told him the secret to “Madear’s” fried chicken. She told him again decades later when he decided to sell chicken at his new restaurant. Today, if people ask him how his great-grandmother prepared her chicken, Martin says, “Madear said the secret to fried chicken is —.” And that’s all he’s going to say. It’s a secret.
Born and raised in Memphis, Martin has been in the food industry since high school. In 1988, he opened his first restaurant, Catfish Express, where he sold farm-raised catfish. “I had no idea about running a business,” he says. “I had a few dollars and an idea.”
He then went into the concession business, selling turkey legs at his “Turkey Express” booth at the Mid-South Fair and Memphis in May, before opening his short-lived Turkey Express restaurant Downtown.
In 2001, Martin opened his new restaurant and began selling burgers and other sandwiches. Then he remembered his great-grandmother’s fried chicken: He thought, “Bingo, we’re going to do fried chicken.”
He considered naming his restaurant “CFC — Country Fried Chicken,” an obvious play on KFC. But his colleague, D’Bo’s Wings N More owner David Boyd, said Martin needed to come up with a better name. “I have a lot of nieces and nephews,” he says. “I’ve always been ‘Uncle Lou.’ When I bounced that off him, he was like, ‘Kind of catchy.’”
To enhance his chicken, Martin came up with a sauce, which he originally called “Honey Dip.” It’s made with honey, red wine vinegar, Louisiana hot sauce, and “Corruption,” Martin’s special seasoning blend.
Uncle Lou’s wasn’t very popular at first, Martin admits. “I don’t know how I kept my doors open.”
Then he got a call from the Food Network and, eventually, was invited to be on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Since then, Uncle Lou’s has been featured on the show three times, including an appearance last August.
Fieri gave Martin the new name for his chicken sauce. He said Martin should call it “Sweet Spicy Love.” Business picked up “immediately” after the first show aired, Martin says. “It didn’t stop. And it hasn’t stopped.”
