WYOMING, Mich — Like many of you, I was ready to go down to New Orleans to root on the Lions at the Super Bowl, but that’s NOT happening now... so the next best thing to heading down to the ‘Big Easy’ is getting a taste of New Orleans food right here in West Michigan at Two Guys Brewing.
“It's soul food for a reason, as it fixes your soul.”
That statement from Owner, Tom Payne sounds like just what the doctor ordered for Lions fans right about now.
Every year owner Tom travels down to New Orleans and brings back ideas and ingredients to revamp his menu with real deal, down-home, authentic New Orleans cookin’.
“I've made friends with lots of the chefs at the big restaurants, and we glean inspiration from them," Payne told me. "And when we say we do Creole and Cajun food. It is what you would find in New Orleans at someone's grandmama's house.”
Tom and his staff want to bring that family feel, and togetherness around the dinner table to this former 7/11 convenience store turned taproom here in Wyoming.
"This was a dead intersection in 2016 there was crime in our parking lot on the daily I lived 10 houses down the road," Payne said. "It was important for me to heal our neighborhood and give our neighbors a spot to come in and just stop for a second, and then they can go home rejuvenated, and they can maybe change the world, if not just our little, tiny world, but that pond, the ripple it goes. You gotta, it’s gotta start somewhere.”
And food is a pretty good place to start, with the menu passing the test so far.
"We had a school teacher in here last weekend who crying at the bar because [she said] I've not had this food in 20 years since I moved.”
That is the response that Tom and his staff hopes to get from every dish of food they serve and every beer they brew, because it's not just a job it's a calling.
“Hospitality and hospitals, they have the same core word for a reason, is that folks come to us for healing," Tom said. "And it's very important that our neighbors, and then as far as we can reach out, is that they come to fix their soul and soul food. There's a reason why it's called that, is that it's it takes time to make it, and there's love and there's care. And you can come in here, and I swear to it, you cannot eat a bowl of gumbo and be angry unless it's not good gumbo, even bad gumbo is still gumbo. But even bad gumbo is still gumbo.”
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