By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
There is a distinct cadence to Cherry Street near 28th Avenue, where traffic moves through Seattle’s Central District, students from nearby Garfield High School make their way through the neighborhood, and Fat’s Chicken and Waffles has spent more than a decade serving Southern comfort food from a corner with deep ties to the community.
Step inside, and the energy carries from the kitchen into the dining room. There is the sound of seasoned chicken hitting hot oil, steam rising from freshly baked biscuits and plates of Creole-spiced chicken and checkered waffles making their way to tables filled with conversation. Music plays as customers eat, talk and occasionally move along with the rhythm.
For owner Erika White, the scene reflects what she wanted Fat’s to become: more than a restaurant, but a place connected to the neighborhood she grew up in, a family tradition of hospitality and a sense of community.
Opened in August 2015, Fat’s occupies a corner steeped in neighborhood history. Longtime residents may remember the location as the former home of Catfish Corner and, before that, One Stop. White remembers the space from well before she ever imagined owning a restaurant there.
“I would frequent it before it was Catfish Corner, when it was One Stop,” said White with a laugh. “I snuck into the tipping in the bar. I wasn’t old enough, but back in the day, you finagle your way up in there. Now it’s Fat’s, and it’s also like that community feel.”
White’s connection to hospitality began even earlier. Before entering the restaurant industry, she performed music, but the idea of running her own kitchen had long been in the background. Her father was a chef, and their home regularly became the place where family and friends gathered.
“My father was a chef, so our home was like the host home,” said White. “There were a lot of parties happening there in the ’70s where I started serving drinks when I was like 5, 6 years old. So, I’ve really been doing it since I was a kid, for over 50 years now.”
When the Cherry Street space became available, White saw an opportunity to bring those experiences together in the neighborhood where she grew up, creating a welcoming gathering place centered around soul food.
The culinary foundation of Fat’s draws heavily from Southern cooking, with a particular emphasis on the flavors of New Orleans. Chicken and waffles remain one of the restaurant’s signature offerings, while the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit Sandwich has become particularly popular with customers. The menu also includes a Seafood Sampler, along with New Orleans-inspired dishes such as red beans and rice, collard greens, rice and gravy, and andouille sausage gravy.
“The main reason why we wanted to do New Orleans is because that food, everyone loves,” said White. “It’s all inspired from Southern cooking, and most importantly, this menu is New Orleans-inspired, where you got the red beans and rice, and the collard greens, and rice and gravy, andouille sausage gravy.”
Fat’s operates as a scratch kitchen, where biscuits are baked each morning, sauces are made in-house and familiar dishes are given the restaurant’s own touch.
“We make our biscuits every morning. All of our sauces are made in-house,” said White. “We put our own twist on it, right? So yeah, it’s going to taste like red beans and rice, but we throw pickled pork and ham hock in there. We pickle our own pork.”
For White, soul food isn’t defined by one recipe or one particular way of preparing a dish. What matters is what goes into it.
“I always tell people there’s no one way to make soul food, but the most important thing you must do is put some seasoning in there, right?” said White. “And I think that’s what really makes it soul food, and it’s food that you cook from your soul. I don’t want to ever serve something that I wouldn’t eat myself.”
Putting that philosophy into practice begins well before customers walk through the doors. The morning crew prepares cornbread and biscuits, simmers gravy and gets the chicken ready before service begins. The pace changes throughout the week, with weekend brunch bringing some of the restaurant’s busiest hours.
“Our weekend brunches are like the busiest service, so that’s typically going to be a fast-paced, turn-and-burn service,” said White. “During the week, we have our breakfast and lunch, so those are like nice steady flow, kind of calm between dinner, and then dinner picks back up again.”
Behind that daily rhythm is a kitchen team that has remained remarkably consistent. White said her lead chefs have been with her for 10 years, nearly as long as Fat’s has been open.
“My chefs have been with me for 10 years. So, we are family now, you know,” said White. “We’ve created this bond. Not only do we cook and do this stuff here, but we’re like, ‘Yo, let’s get together and go hang out,’ so that it’s not just work. It has really become family.”
That sense of family extends beyond the people working inside the restaurant.
With Garfield High School nearby, students have become part of the everyday life of Fat’s. White’s daughter attends Garfield, and she said the restaurant has become a place where young people know they can come in, eat and feel welcome.
“We are aunties for the youngsters that come in,” said White. “We got the kids that go to Garfield, our daughter at Garfield now, so her and her little homies, they come down. Creating that space where you feel comfortable and creating a safe space, it’s open for everybody. It’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s just for a race of people,’ it’s for who’s hungry. You hungry? You in luck today. I got you, baby.”
That relationship with customers became especially important five years after Fat’s opened, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted restaurants throughout Seattle and left owners uncertain about what would happen next.
“COVID happened in year five and we’re like, ‘Oh shoot,’” said White. “No one knew what was going to happen in the world, let alone your restaurant. And you had restaurants that were open 20, 25 years that ended up closing down.”
For 15 months, Fat’s operated with takeout only. White said the response from customers during that period showed her how much the restaurant had come to mean to people looking for something familiar during an uncertain time.
“I feel like what we ended up creating gave people that comfort in what they needed,” said White. “When we opened back up, takeout only for 15 months, people were coming. I was really surprised the first day how many people showed up.”
That history of community support is taking on renewed significance as Fat’s becomes this week’s featured restaurant in The Seattle Medium’s Pack the House campaign, an effort encouraging people to intentionally support local Black-owned restaurants by showing up, spending money and continuing to come back.
The campaign comes as Fat’s enters its second decade on Cherry Street, still maintaining the sense of food, family and community that has defined the restaurant since it opened.
After 11 years in business, White has also learned lessons about what it takes to sustain an independent restaurant. For people considering entering the business, she emphasizes building slowly, developing a dependable team and understanding the finances behind every plate.
“Challenges is going to be finding a solid crew, having good financial backing, starting off with a small menu, and then growing your menu,” said White. “Literally take your time and allow it to grow organically, price your food where you’re paying for the food, but then you’re also making a profit.”
White can now look around the dining room and see much of what she originally envisioned: a restaurant rooted in the neighborhood, a staff that has grown into family and a place where people feel comfortable enough to eat, talk, listen to music and sometimes dance at their tables.
“I feel like the vision is manifesting,” said White. “You come in and you just instantly like, ‘Yo, this is popping.’ You sit down, you see people dancing at the table. We built something that people enjoy.”
Fat’s Chicken and Waffles is a participating restaurant in the Pack the House campaign, a 10-week community initiative presented by The Seattle Medium, the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, Byrd Barr Place and the Central Area Collaborative to encourage the community to intentionally support local Black-owned restaurants. For more information about the campaign, participating restaurants and weekly schedule, visit PackTheHouseSeattle.com.
