Family makes a comeback: 2 new restaurants after fire at Macon soul food joint

The family behind a soul food restaurant destroyed by a fire in downtown Macon plans to open two similar food joints in the city’s south side next week.

587 Soul and Smooth 587 will run as separate businesses with similar soul food staples in a plaza off Eisenhower Parkway and Pio Nono Avenue. The grandchildren of Regina Smith, who owned 587 Southern Style Cuisine downtown on Second Street and Mulberry Street Lane, will own both new establishments, she said.

“I’m coaching (them) into how to run it, manage it, everything,” Smith said.

She anticipates large crowds, especially at Saturday and Sunday brunches. Smooth 587 will mostly serve as extra space when the primary spot, Soul 587, overflows with customers.

“It’s a different business with a different name but it’s kind of the same concept…” Smith said. “If I get overflow and need extra room, I can take them down there.”

She and Xzavier Ottoman, a professional chef, opened the downtown restaurant as co-owners in early October 2024, but Ottoman separated from the company days later, they told The Telegraph.

“We had differences about the food,” Smith said. “The food wasn’t up to the way I needed for it to be.”

About a year later on Sept. 29, the interior was burned in an accidental fire ignited by oily kitchen rags, according to the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department.

Smith said she was at home when one of her restaurant managers called before 1 a.m.

“She said, ‘Girl, you must don’t know your building on fire.’ I said, ‘A fire? Stop playing,’” Smith recalled. “... It was kind of a bummer.”

She hopes the new restaurants will be more accessible for customers.

“I got that building because most of my customers were complaining about the parking (downtown), so I grabbed that building to kind of work with everybody,” she said.

587 Soul will be at 2435 Pio Nono Avenue; Smooth 587 will be at 2471 Pio Nono Avenue.

Smith hopes both restaurants open by Monday, “but every time I look at the building, I’m changing something around,” she said.