Jackie’s Dream completes move to North Knox, opens to great fanfare
By Bill Foster
“Honey, you don’t need to apologize. Kids don’t need to be quiet at Jackie’s,” says Jackie Booker Griffin, chef-owner of Jackie’s Dream, to a harried father having dad night with his three kids. Jackie cooks food that tastes homemade and wants her place to feel like home. She succeeds at both, and even with a packed crowd of 50-plus, she still takes the time to personally greet every customer, often with a hug and a surprisingly accurate knack for remembering names and details. It is opening night of the restaurant at its new, larger location at 1008 E. Woodland Ave., and Jackie takes time amid the rush to reflect on the long road that brought her here.
Jackie was born in Oak Ridge and graduated from Oak Ridge High School. “Oak Ridge is a city of its own,” she says. “It made me the way I am: a people person. Oak Ridge is a melting pot full of smart people, people of all kinds. Because its schools are in the top 100, lots of people move there. So even though I lived in a poorer neighborhood, I had to learn how to get along with everyone.”
Growing up, Jackie was a star basketball player. By the time she entered the 10th grade, she had received scholarship offers from Florida, Mississippi State and Murray State. However, her life by that point already had taken some downward turns, as she was, in her words, “messin’ with boys [she] shouldn’t be” and having to work extra hard at home. With her mom away, Jackie had to take care of her brothers – her father brought her a car when she was a freshman so that she could take them to school and practices – and was responsible for cooking for the family. As a result, basketball soon faded into her past.
However, as tough as these experiences were for Jackie, they did get her started on her lifelong passion of feeding people. She always had enjoyed cooking alongside the grandmother who had raised her, particularly on Sundays when the preacher of their church along with a large crowd of relatives would gather for dinner. Most of the items on those menus, Jackie says, would be easily recognizable to current customers all these years later.
After graduating, Jackie struggled with unemployment for a time before landing a job at Arby’s. After losing that job for missing a shift in order to attend a friend’s funeral, Mike Kelly, the general manager of the Oak Ridge location of Buddy’s Bar-B-Q, provided her with an opportunity at his restaurant. She would work there on and off for the next 15 years.
Of that time, Jackie says, “I’m 19 years clean, but back then I struggled with addictions, and I would quit, but Mike always gave me another chance.” She made all the desserts, learned to run a pit and, most importantly, finely tuned her customer-service skills to the point that Buddy’s started incorporating her techniques into its corporate model. In December 1999, Jackie’s first husband died tragically, motivating her to transfer to the chain’s Bearden location. She has remained in Knoxville ever since.
Tired of food service, Jackie attended the University of Tennessee, obtaining a certificate as an administrative assistant before working in collections for a local credit union. She discovered that she hated the tedious nature of the work, though, and soon returned to food service, getting a job at Red Lobster, where she became certified as a grill master. Later, she met East Knoxville resident George Pelcher, who told her that he was working at the Crown & Goose in the Old City. Jackie applied there and got a provisional position that came with a raise in six months’ time if she were to pan out. She wound up earning that raise in just 60 days.
However, after 20 years of grinding, Jackie was growing tired of working for others and began dreaming of cooking her own food. Jackie says she thought, “Forget looking for another job; I AM a job.” Noticing that all her son’s friends ate fast food every day, she told them, “Hey, I’ll cook better food for cheaper, and y’all can pay me.” She began selling food out of her house and picked up a couple corporate customers, including one for whom she cooked every Friday. As word of mouth began to spread, she started delivering orders on a frequent basis to an east-side bar.
Then one Sunday, Jackie decided to have a test run and set up three large tables in her living room. She served meatloaf, wings, mashed potatoes, cabbage, pinto beans and cornbread. She had so many orders that her cousin had to skip her own job in order to help. She made $500 in three hours and immediately called George to celebrate. He had been telling her for years about a cinderblock building on McCalla Avenue that was already fitted out to be a restaurant. Jackie took her $500, her tax return and George’s savings, and in March 2015, Jackie’s Dream opened with Jackie cooking in the daytime and George in the evenings.
Business was good at first – but not exceptional. “I just thought we’d be a little east-side wing joint,” says Jackie. Soon, however, a distributor suggested Nashville-style hot chicken as an option. Jackie and George examined it but decided the recipes were too hot and too labor-intensive. “Someone would sue us,” she laughs, recalling that early apprehension. George began experimenting with his own hot sauce, though, and they eventually added the dish as a special, christening it Knoxville Hot Chicken. Soon afterward, popular local social-media personalities began to post about it, another round of word of mouth spread and business began to boom. And the hot chicken never left the menu.
However, they struggled to deliver everything they wanted in the McCalla location. The kitchen was too small to support catering, so that had to be set aside. The air conditioning was nonfunctional all too often, and they frequently had to close due to electrical and plumbing issues. Eventually, things came to a head when Jackie and George realized that they couldn’t afford the financial investment required to stay on McCalla.
Fortunately, the pair was able to find a vacant location on Woodland Avenue, across the street from Tennova Healthcare and Fulton High School and in a building which formerly housed the Coop Cafe. In an effort that hastened the move, a customer unexpectedly set up a GoFundMe page in support of the business, and – indicative of both the popularity and the quality of the restaurant – it was fully funded at more than $20,000 in just one week.
With the move finally a go, the new location of Jackie’s Dream opened on December 4, two weeks later than originally planned. “Construction delays really affected us,” Jackie says. “We had to open to get a cash flow going, but because of the delays, we couldn’t have a soft opening or practice. So we will have to work through some issues, but it’s going to be wonderful when we are all done.”
Over a plate of chicken, cabbage and beans – every bit as good as those offered in the old location, which automatically means they’re the best in East Tennessee – Jackie expresses her gratitude for everything that has happened. “I’m my own worst critic,” she says. “I never think anything I do is any good, but this experience has taught me that people really appreciate us and our work, and that is just amazing.
“My motto is to always work as if I owned the place, and for so many years, I worked so hard for others and didn’t always feel appreciated. That GoFundMe spoke volumes and showed that I am putting out what I want to put out in the world, even if I can’t always see it. I’m still on a cloud. It’s an out-of-body experience, and I am just so humble and grateful. I couldn’t be happier, and I can’t wait to show our customers how much we can do now.”
