Much anticipated downtown Corbin restaurant set to open this month

Seasons Restaurant owners Shea Hensley, left, and Jason Matthews discuss the impending opening of the restaurant with manager Angela Mitchell last week.

Down home cooking in a relaxed and elegant atmosphere is what Seasons Restaurant owners Shea Hensley and Jason Matthews have spent four years trying to perfect, and the results of their efforts will be ready for the public to judge in the near future.

With no firm opening date, but a commitment to offer two special Valentine’s Day dinners on Feb. 14, Hensley and Matthews say Seasons has been a "labor of love."

"We just didn’t want to go in debt. We took our time," Hensley said. "Fifty percent of restaurants that open go out of business in the first year. When you are on Main Street working every day and you see businesses and restaurants closing, it is very discouraging. It’s scary. We wanted to be careful."

The duo owns the House of S&J, an upscale jewelry shop and interior design store, on Main Street in Corbin. They say a restaurant has been the "missing link" for their business. The two envision the main store sort of akin to the gift shop at a Cracker Barrel where patrons enter in through it and leave the same way, giving them a chance to peruse, and perhaps buy, items they see.

"We needed something else to draw people into the store. If you have people coming into your business all the time, they will buy things. We feel like we have a lot to offer," Hensley said. "Everything has finally started to come together on it. It took us four years to get it just the way we wanted it."

Matthews said the restaurant is called "Seasons" because they plan to tailor their menu to the changing season.

"That way, we can be creative and offer seasonal dishes that are a little different than you might get at other restaurants," Matthews said.

From start to finish, Seasons has been a slow, arduous project. Hensley and Matthews crafted many of the features in the restaurant on their own. Hensley points to a pair of medieval style tavern doors with large, ornate lion’s head knockers as an example of the craftsmanship. He made them himself and stained them to look aged and natural.

A stunning tin-coated ceiling was revealed after several layers of drop ceiling were removed. More tin covering was salvaged from a local hardware store before it was demolished.

Likewise, impressive crown molding from another part of their store was repurposed, repainted and used in the restaurant.
Ornate cornice boards over lavish curtains were all specially made for Seasons. All of it was done, piece-by-piece, as finances became available.

"We stay broke," Hensley said, and laughs. "We would get a little money and do part of it here and get a little more and do something else there. This place really means a lot to us. This has so much heart in it … a lot of our blood, sweat and tears."

Seasons plans to initially open only from lunch. Hours, tentatively, will be from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Weekends will be reserved for scheduled special occasions.

Angela Mitchell, a former employee of Performance Food Service, will serve as manager of the restaurant. She said the menu would feature timeless favorites like fried chicken, roast, soup beans and cornbread and salads. Also on the menu will be lunch staples like sandwiches and hot dogs. She figures the price range will be, mostly, in the $8 to $15 range for most entrees with higher end items as well. There will be featured specials daily, decided by Seasons Chef Thomas Gambrel, and desserts.

"I think it will be kind of like an upscale Cracker Barrel," Mitchell said. "There will be some things a little more elaborate like steaks and things like that, but we want to keep the menu manageable"

Mitchell said she feels reasonably confident staff can handle the customers efficiently when they arrive, but said the purpose of having a low-key, "soft" opening is to allow some time to adjust to the pace of running a restaurant.

"We are going to try to keep it simple and do what we do well," Mitchell said.

Hensley said, in the end, he wants happy customers and hopes Seasons is a long-term, successful addition to Corbin’s downtown.

"The heart of any town is its Main Street. We love Corbin and want to see it grow and prosper," Hensley said. "I just love to please people and I love to see the expression of their faces when they are enjoying themselves and they are happy. That’s what we are trying to accomplish with this."

Anyone interested in making Valentine’s Day reservations is encouraged to call the House of S&J at 523-2530.