It was always a good idea to travel three highways and battle the ever-congested parking area of the Anaheim Packing District to reach Georgia’s Restaurant for a meal. However, in 2019, the owner of Georgia’s Restaurant, namely Nika Shoemaker-Machado, brought her famous family recipe collection to another location in the US. Georgia’s Restaurant joint-owner and Nika Shoemaker-Machado’s mother helped her in this endeavor.
Georgia Restaurant officially opened in July 2019 in Long Beach after the success of its soft opening. It added some Southern-style comfort food to an eclectic combination of cuisines that the Long Beach Exchange already offered. It had the same menu as its Anaheim outpost, including barbecue, fried chicken, fried catfish, po’ boy, Southern fixings, jambalaya, sweet potato pie, and peach cobbler. The restaurant in Long Beach also offered a basket of sweet cornbread muffins with a dab of honey butter as a side option. The restaurant also used to serve waffles and chicken right through the day.
The original Georgia’s Restaurant was launched at the district around ten years before and was unfailingly popular even in 2019, as customers got their orders into the areas with communal seating. However, the location in Long Beach was more comfortable as compared to its flagship venue.
People ordered food at the standalone restaurant counter before settling in at the tables on the patio or in the dining space. It had a form of décor that was upgraded but was unmistakably Georgia’s Restaurant-like, with menu boards in black color. Pans and pots hung behind the restaurant register, around a framed photograph of joint-owner Gretchen Shoemaker’s husband, George. For your information, the original location was named after George.
If one ordered a plate of food, the restaurant would offer them a protein option like St. Louis-style barbecued ribs, Creole pan-friend flat-iron steak, smothered pork chops, or juicy fried chicken. As per some customers, it offered the juiciest form of fried chicken that they had ever come across at a location other than their home kitchens. The restaurant brined the bird with only dark meat for twelve hours before battering it in a very thin seasoned cornmeal coating. Customers would demand a clover honey side or a Frank’s RedHot bottle at the restaurant for more flavor.
Multiple Soulful Sides came with every single Plate-Up at the restaurant. It offered tender and bitter collard greens, Southern-style macaroni and cheese, baked casserole, and an ideal vehicle to use more of Frank’s RedHot.
The highlights included the made-to-order jambalaya put into a big bowl and topped with pasta or rice. The rich, brick-red and deep stew coated chicken, shrimp and andouille sausage with a bit of heat.
The fried green tomatoes of Georgia’s Restaurant were a significant standard of the Southern-frying abilities of any restaurant. The restaurant served the tomatoes in four fat slices for each order, with light batter sliding off when people bit into it. The location served the tomato with aioli sauce, and it was better without a dressing except for some lemon.
As several patrons noted, Shoemaker-Machado flitted about the dining space of the location in California as she greeted guests with a beaming smile. She would duck into its service area to hand out plates while managing orders and ensuring to thank every single customer for their visit.
The plates came out fast and in steaming-hot form, even as a greater number of guests poured in. It was difficult for an American restaurant to strike a balance between down-home culinary feel and commercially-run operation, but it seemed like Georgia’s Restaurant had mastered it.