Jason Fordley, owner of Soul Groove on Larkin Street, never planned to become a chef—let alone the owner of one of the most popular fried-chicken joints in the country. But losing his job unexpectedly put Fordley on a new path that's continuing to unfurl rather nicely.
Sitting in the restaurant at 422 Larkin St., soul music still blaring after the space emptied out for the day, Fordley explained that back in 2009, mobile food trucks were a brand-new concept. He was working for an experiential marketing firm and had the idea to bring a branded food truck to clients' guerrilla marketing events to better engage with people on the streets. After fooling around in his home kitchen with friends, he came up with serving a highly portable fried chicken and waffle sandwich from the truck.
The recipe was a hit. But he and his colleagues were blindsided when the firm folded abruptly due to an intellectual property lawsuit. "All of a sudden, we were out. But I had this going already, " he said of his sandwich, "so I just thought ... 'I already know people love it, so I'll see where it takes me.'"
Photo: Soul Groove/Facebook
"It was probably pretty stupid since I was engaged to be married ... and starting a family and a business at the same time is not advisable," he still says of that decision.
Regardless, his pop-ups, which featuring fried-chicken sandwiches and soul music spun from vinyl records and centered around raging night-life corridors in the Mission and Haight, quickly gained a following.
Folks from the corporate catering platform Cater2Me then convinced him to expand the menu and serve lunches to local offices. "People love us because we play records," Fordley said of his early success among tech startups. "The guys that work at Dropbox, and Uber ... Barracuda Networks, they see all the Bay Area cuisine. They see it all, everyday ... But they've never seen someone play soul music, live vinyl sets, while making their sandwiches."
"We knew we had to do something that would make us stand out and get people talking," Fordley added of the early days. "We didn't have a big budget to have fancy fliers. We just had little cards and records."
By September of 2012, Soul Groove graduated to its own restaurant on Larkin Street, on the edge of the Tenderloin, Civic Center and Lower Polk. Despite the advantages of having his own, larger space, Fordley says the move came with a major identity crisis. "We were way out of our element because we started as a night-life, late-night kind of brand. We quickly realized that we were just far enough from Polk Street bars that no one's coming down here. Even if there's a moving walkway coming down here, I don't think we could get people to come from up there."
Photo: Brittany Hopkins/Hoodline
With no more 2am crowd, Fordley and team doubled-down on weekday catering and weekend brunch, which are now two major components of the business.
But balancing the daily 12-2pm lunch rush in-house while fulfilling massive catering orders hasn't been easy, Fordley said. And on weekends, its all too common to see a line out door while groups of three or four huddle around two-top tables.
That's why, nearly four years later, he's currently in negotiations for a larger restaurant nearby. If all goes well, the new space will launch by mid-June as a "nothing-too-fancy" sit-down restaurant. While nothing is confirmed just yet, Fordley said he's hoping to have Motown on Mondays, who he's partnered with for years, play regular weekend sets at the new restaurant.
He also plans to keep the Larkin Street location, which will allow him to grow the catering business even further, but also continue to offer take-out. Fordley envisions remodeling the space by potentially opening up the front of the space and swapping tables and chairs for stand-up counters, to give it more of an on-the-go vibe.
Soul Groove's "Super Bowl kit." (Photo: Soul Groove/Facebook)
It shouldn't take long to turn the "beautiful" new restaurant around once he gets the keys, Fordley says, but hiring has been a daunting challenge. He's currently hiring all position, but getting people to show up to interviews hasn't been easy. In addition to advertising on Craigslist, he's now working with a recruitment firm to hopefully speed the process.
While Fordley's current expansion plans are reserved to the Tenderloin, it's clear that his eyes are wandering beyond the neighborhood's borders. Soul Grooves has done pop-ups in Oakland and Los Angeles, and the "reception is always good wherever we are," he said.
"If you learn how to run a restaurant that's community-focused in a pretty crazy neighborhood and a city that can be difficult for small businesses, then I feel like we'll be ready for anything," he added.
Hours at Soul Groove, 422 Larkin St., remain 10am-2pm Tuesday through Friday and 10am-5pm Saturday and Sunday. We'll let you know as soon as the deal is done and an opening date is set for the new location.
