Pine Level business expands through a piece of town history

By Randy Capps | Photos by Billy Rae Whittaker / BRIM DESIGN

PINE LEVEL — As a late summer sunlight streamed through a nearby window, bathing their corner table, a family of four raised their glasses of mimosas and Bellinis for a toast. After a Sunday brunch featuring praline French toast, applewood bacon quiche and biscuits and gravy, spirits were understandably high.

It’s a scene that likely plays out all over the world on any given Sunday, but until very recently, was not a regular occurrence in Pine Level.Amazing brunches are just one of the calling cards of the new Serving Spoon at 119 on West Pine Street, but while the food is top notch, the owner, Joyce Jenkins, offers an important clarification.

“It’s not a restaurant,” she said. “It’s definitely not a restaurant. It is an event/ venue space. It’s a place where you can have your special occasions, such as your wedding receptions, and it’s a mid-size venue. It’s not one that will house two or three hundred people. It’s something for the people that want to have a small event in a room with ambiance and grace and not have to rent a huge room.”

It’s right around the corner from The Serving Spoon, which is still offering its On the Go program, which features frozen family dinners that are ready to heat and serve. The catering business has been very good to Jenkins and her husband, Wayne, but they dreamed even bigger.

“I knew the business needed to grow,” she said. “But I didn’t know what to do to make it grow.”

So she connected with a childhood friend on Facebook, who happens to be a business consultant, and an idea was born.

Even if he did have to nudge her away from retirement first.

“He kind of made me upset by saying, ‘Just go ahead and get your rocking chair,’” she said. “‘Sit on the front porch and watch the cars go by.’ So, that just kind of spurred me. ... I wasn’t ready to sit down. I’m still not.”

That’s just one of the reasons a Bible verse adorns the back wall of The Serving Spoon at 119. From Proverbs 29:11, it reads: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

The idea was guided by a phrase on the brochure of the original Serving Spoon, which the owners are now calling “the flagship.”

“The style and grace of Southern hospitality,” she said. “That’s what I wanted this to reflect.”

Every nook of the 114-yearold building has its own story. Visitors step off the street into the parlor, a place where one

could sit and talk for hours — and to hear Wayne tell it, the owners often do just that.

It’s a nod to Joyce’s grandmother’s house, “where everything was always just so.” In keeping with a family theme, the picture on the wall facing the door is one of her great-grandmother.

“She helped mold me,” Joyce said.

Around the edges, one can find a sewing machine salvaged from the building when it was purchased, an old sideboard which was a gift from some of her earliest catering clients and a Hoosier cabinet from one of Wayne’s former postal customers.

“I really didn’t want to do anything to take away from the original style of the building, and the age of the building,” she said. “Our daughter told me that we should get a designer to come in and design everything, but I didn’t want that. Because I already knew in my heart what I wanted to see. So, we kind of went with that.

“I wanted to see old pieces that reflected the period in here. Each one of these pieces have a story. We didn’t just pick up anything and put it in here.”

The bar in front of the 10 windows that adorn the building’s facade, and the wood on the support beams that intersect the room came from an old barn on contractor Kevin Kornegay’s property. There’s also a sign on the wall for Kornegay’s

Well Boring Service. It’s fitting that the Kornegays would have a place in the building, since that family was its previous owners.

“I wanted to pay homage to Pine Level also,” she said of the decor. “Brian Phillips, who lives here in Pine Level, sent me pictures of old Pine Level.”

So, she blew one of those photos up and hung it on the wall, too.

“We are so happy and thankful she chose Pine Level to call home,” Pine Level Mayor Jeff Holt said in a recent Board of Commissioners meeting.

“We’ve gotten such a big response,” she said. “People saying, ‘Oh, it’s beautiful’ and ‘It’s done so much for this side of town.’ We’ve gotten all kind of responses from the community.”

Wayne has fielded his share of compliments as well.

“It’s been really great,” he said. “I’ll be out front sweeping, and someone will come by and say, ‘That brunch you guys had was really great. The food was awesome.’ Or I was at the flagship shop the other day, and our next-door neighbor

came in and said ‘Boy the food at that brunch was really great. When’s the next one?’”

Considering the state of the property when they bought it — as much sunlight was coming in through the back wall as through the windows — the finished product is quite an achievement.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “And such a blessing. That’s how I feel about it. Every time I come over here, I have to take it all in. Because it is a vision. It is a culmination of years. To able to walk in and be able to see this place the way it is now, especially from how it was in the very beginning, you kind of want to pinch yourself. ‘Did it happen? Was it real?’ That’s how I feel.

“A lot went into making it personal and making it feel good.”

“It’s the atmosphere,” Wayne added. “The ambiance is nice, the food is great. People come in and sit down, and they don’t talk over one another. You have nice, calm music. And even after people finishing eating, they just sit for a while.”

There’s no shortage of style and elegance, but it’s backed up by service, convenience and, naturally, great food for baby showers, birthday parties, bridal showers, Christmas parties or corporate events.

“We are the in-house caterers,” she said. “It’s a one-stop shop. You can come here, you get your caterer, event space, your ambiance, your staffing, flatware, glassware, dishes, table linens — everything you need is here. No worries about setting up or cleaning up.”

They even have the requisite ABC permits, which keeps those mimosas on the up and up.

Still, with the Bible verse on the far wall always in sight, more might be on the way. Wayne and Joyce own the building that houses the post office next door, which is a nice piece of irony for a man that spent 24 years working in a post office.

The post office is eventually going to move to the other side of town, freeing up the space.

“I have a big idea about what I’d like to see there, but I just don’t want to say yet,” she said with her customary smile.

For now, it’s just between her and Wayne during their quiet talks in the parlor.

“We come here in the evenings sometimes and just sit,” he said. “Just think about the next things we can implement. Sometimes, we don’t even want to go home. It’s peaceful here. It’s comfortable here, and we enjoy it.”

To learn more, visit www. servingspooncatering.com.