Honey Soul Food opened up in late April of this year, specializing in comforting soul food with a charming southern flare.
They pride in serving food that is rooted in their own home traditions, especially when making everything fresh, seasoned for more than 24 hours and handled with love. A fun way for them to celebrate their two months of being open is with a drive-in concert, planned for July 10 from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. The concert will include music from local artists, alongside a special menu and dessert from Sweet N' Nice Ice Cream.
The special menu for the night will consist of Mac Fries, Peach Cobbler and a pineapple punch. The concert itself will start at 7 p.m., but the festivities will begin at 6 p.m. Honey is allowing each car to have three parking spots to themselves, so that they can bring their foldout chairs and space to enjoy the night. The concert will feature six different Toronto artists and customers can buy their tickets through contacting Honey on their Instagram. They also plan to have security and set up a little gate to ensure the guest list is being followed, and if they have extra spots available, they’ll be selling at the gate.
The concert will mark the beginning of Honey's community initiative called "Helper Bee"––100 per cent of all proceeds from the night will be donated to the artists performing to support them. Chanée from Honey shared she cares a lot about reaching out to the community and felt this was a fun way to start it off.
The team is comprised of seven individuals with Chanée Dowdie, Donovan Dowdie and Ophir Ellis taking the lead on the project. Chanée shared that her dad, Donovan, is the head, as he constantly shares his expertise and knowledge about cooking and how to make the perfect jerk chicken. Donovan started off with his own restaurant in Scarborough when he first came to Canada from Jamaica, however, when his full-time job got too demanding, he decided to close it down.
Honey focuses on serving up some of the most comforting food in the city. At Honey, they follow homegrown traditions, such as marinating the food in jerk seasoning, thyme, pimiento and washing their proteins off with lemon and vinegar. They acknowledge that it’s definitely a tedious extra step, but it’s what makes their food so flavourful and so fresh.
On the menu at Honey, you'll find a fan favourite––the "Jack’d Up" chicken sandwich, originally made with a Jack Daniels batter, but after committing to being a fully Halal restaurant, they have began to remove any recipes using alcohol. Chanée said she is working on recreating that flavour without using the alcohol to cater to all customers.
Other items to try out at Honey are the "Loaded Mac", made with their signature five cheese blend, chicken bacon, tomatoes and extra cheese. Their cornbread is one of their special recipes that Chanée is extremely proud of. She mentions that the recipe for it took her over 20 tries to get the perfect sweet and soft ratio with a golden crust. While most see cornbread as a dry and crumby carb, Honey is confident theirs can impress on its own.
"Comfort food is simple. It’s your mom's home cooked meals. It’s your [grandma's] Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. We see people eating in their cars, and then push the seat back and just stay there for a while and it’s like, mission accomplished," says Chanée.
To buy a ticket for Honey's drive-in concert, you can contact them through their social media. It will be taking place at 5977 Dixie Road in Mississauga and will cost $10 per ticket.
