Sweet As Magnolias On Main Street

Miz Kathi's Cotillion Southern Cafe

By Melody Murphy • Photos By John Jernigan & Trevor Byrne

You know it’s going to be seriously Southern as soon as you see the sign with “Miz Kathi’s” and a magnolia. You know from the “Come on in, y’all!” in cheerful chalk. Then you step through the front door—and back in time. And if you’re like me and my friend Laura who accompanied me, Miz Kathi’s takes you back to the South you remember from long ago.

Wood floors creak beneath you as you make your way through the cozy dining room. The atmosphere is sweet and quaint, full of antique furniture and floral chintz. It feels like you’re being warmly welcomed to your grandmother’s house. (Interesting bit of trivia: The café is located in what was once the Bank of Wildwood a century ago, but it’s lost the vault vibe.)

Small, doily-dotted tables are set with mismatched vintage china and milk-glass hobnail lamps. On our table was a saucer in a pattern from my grandmother’s kitchen. The “Southern Belle” portrait that once adorned the parlors of my other grandmother, my greatgrandmother, and at least three great-aunts hangs on the wall.

Miz Kathi—Kathi Hall Vincent, to use her full name—is a proud ninth-generation Floridian and her heritage is everywhere you look. The mint-green beadboard walls are crowded with old family pictures, photos from Wildwood’s history, signs from Florida’s long-ago roadside attractions, and framed sheet music from a hundred years ago. Her family staffs the café. And the menu is full of family recipes passed down through generations.

I knew without asking that the “Yankee tea” was unsweet. But I had to ask about the “Southern belle tea,” which was separate from “sweet tea.”

Turns out, not all is antebellum here: This Southern belle is surprisingly modern, a mandarin orange herbal tea sweetened with Stevia.

I bowed to tradition and ordered sweet tea. It came in a sizable mason jar, and after one sip I thought my great-grandmother had been resurrected to brew it. Dark and strong and sweet as the last peach of summer, it is not for diabetics or the faint of heart. It is the iced tea of my childhood, brewed by women who had picked cotton and hitched mules to plows. Steeped to the color of river water and sweetened generously, it will revive the weak, sustain the soul, and keep you awake into the night if the tent revival runs long. If you cannot commit, order half sweet and half unsweet, with extra lemon.

WE BEGAN WITH CORNBREAD, big, dense yellow squares, sweet and robust, served with pale brown butter. At first we thought it was honey butter, but upon sampling it wasn’t nearly as sweet. We finally asked for the secret: It’s their signature cane butter, blended with cane syrup.

The house salads were wonderful, mixed lettuces tossed in a red-wine vinaigrette, with finely shredded cheese, candied pecans, scallions, and perfectly sweet, fresh strawberries.

Our first entrée was the Southern-Style Meatloaf. As a tasty twist on the traditional ketchup glaze, it was drizzled with a sweet and smoky barbecue sauce. Because I like to gild the lily whenever I can, I sprinkled on some of the Dixie Dust house seasoning. I enjoy spice, salt, and savory flavors, so I was a fan. (Pro tip: If you order the meatloaf and smashed potatoes, which I do recommend, add a few dashes of Dixie Dust. Lily gilded. You’re welcome.)

I was pleased that the smashed potatoes were homemade from my favorite red potatoes. My friend was equally pleased with the side of collard greens. “They’re torn, not chopped, which is correct,” she said adamantly. She has strong opinions about greens. These were well-seasoned and cooked until tender.

Delightfully, our server brought us proper pepper sauce for the collards, the kind my grandfather made. He’d pick tiny peppers from his yard, pack a glass bottle with them, fill it to the brim with vinegar and a pinch of salt, and seal it with a flip-top lid. The longer the pepper sauce lurked in the fridge, the better it was.

Miz Kathi’s makes you think of your family, which is part of its nostalgic charm. Sitting there for lunch, you remember the way your grandfather made pepper sauce. The way your mother and grandmother taught you to fix collards. The way your father loved cane syrup. The way your greatgrandmother brewed iced tea. Heritage hangs heavy in the air, as sharp and sweet as woodsmoke.

AND THEN THERE WAS THE TRAINWRECK. Listed on the menu as Miz Kathi’s favorite, it is cheese grits with baked beans and pulled pork, generously topped with cheese and a sweet barbecue sauce. An intriguing discovery: It contains seven kinds of beans, including black-eyed peas, kidney beans, and lima beans. The Trainwreck comes in a dish the size of a child’s bicycle tire and could easily feed four. I had to ask about the unusual combination of cheese grits and baked beans. Turns out, this was an old family recipe of Miz Kathi’s. The sweet and savory notes complemented each other nicely. The cheese grits were creamy and did not require salt (a rare feat), and the barbecue pork was tender.

For dessert, my friend ordered coconut cake, while I tried the salted caramel. With its intense tropical taste and impressive height, the coconut cake was not here to play. Both cakes were very sweet and rich. (And there are plenty more where these came from: Miz Kathi’s Southern Sweetery is right down the street.)

We went on a quiet Friday afternoon, between the lunch and dinner rush, so it wasn’t crowded. But ordinarily, reservations are a must for such a popular place in an intimate space. (Side note: We loved the music in the café, a wonderfully eclectic bluesy playlist of Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Louis Armstrong, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Elvis, and more.)

Miz Kathi

WE PLAN TO RETURN and try specialties like the Whistle Stop (a Southern BLT—the “T” is fried green tomatoes—on a croissant), the Tarnation Tomato (fried green tomatoes on cheese grits with pimento cheese, bacon, and sweet tomato jam), the Voodoo Mac & Cheese (with pulled pork, fried onions, and barbecue sauce), and the Mayberry Salad (all I needed to read was “blackberry-basil vinaigrette”).

There are plenty of other Southern dishes, from Twelve Oaks Pulled Pork and Alabama Fried Catfish to Crispy Baked Chicken. Hot and cold sandwiches, shrimp, fried chicken—there’s something for all appetites. And there’s more to drink than tea—they also offer beer and wine. Cake and pie flavors vary daily, but the bread pudding and banana pudding are eternal.

If you’re hungry when you get there, you won’t be when you leave. “Full as a tick” is a Southern way of describing the feeling, and it’s accurate if not elegant. You will leave well-fed in both body and soul.

They say you can’t go home again. But you just might feel like you did after a visit to Miz Kathi’s Cotillion Southern Café.

WANT TO GO?

Miz Kathi’s Cotillion Southern Cafe 101 N Main St Wildwood, FL 34785 (352) 748-1223