New breakfast spot coming to Cooper-Young. Here's what we know about Kitchen Laurel.

A new breakfast joint is coming to Cooper-Young, with an experienced local chef at the helm.

Longtime lead chef at Tsunami Kevin Sullivan is opening Kitchen Laurel, a restaurant specializing in comfort food. The eatery will be located at 800 Cooper St., the site of the recently closed Farm and Fig.

Development began in January and is progressing rapidly — Sullivan hopes to do a soft opening in March, followed by a grand opening in the beginning of April.

Sullivan said he's "getting away from my fine dining background and getting more into comfort foods." While he's not ready to get into specifics, Kitchen Laurel's menu will offer all the staples of a traditional breakfast spot, with the "Asian flair" Sullivan said he's known for.

Born and raised in Orange Mound, Sullivan began his career in the restaurant industry washing dishes at Tsunami. Over the next 21 years, he would rise to earn the position of lead chef at the popular seafood restaurant. Though he bounced around various restaurant projects across Memphis, like working at Alchemy or assisting in opening Agave Maria Downtown, Tsunami was always home. Still, in order to turn his full attention to opening his restaurant, at the start of 2024 Sullivan finally left the place where his career began.

"Every step has been a real opportunity for growth," he said.

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Sullivan said he's taking with him many of the lessons he learned at Tsunami, including what he saw during the pandemic. As the restaurant moved to curb-side pickup only, Sullivan said he came to recognize the most frequent customers who supported Tsunami through that difficult time. With Kitchen Laurel, he wants to create a space that will attract that same kind of community support.

"I realized that if you build a community of people who support you, who are about what you're about, you will last through the strangest and hardest times," he said. "And that's just stayed with me. Everything I do revolves around thinking about... making sure it's enjoyable and it's somewhere people want to be."

This next step in Sullivan's career undoubtedly presents a new challenge, but he is prepared to meet it head on, and figure things out on his own terms.

"I've always worked at somebody else's system. I got to figure out, you know, what's going to work best for me. It's my first time doing it. So it's gonna be interesting."

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Sullivan said he's most excited to share his food with people, to see their reactions and hear their critiques of his product, good or bad. Now that he's in change of the direction his kitchen takes, he's looking forward to combining "people's taste with my sensibility."

"You could use all these techniques and learn all these lessons out here in the world. But if it doesn't help anyone else... it doesn't matter," he said. "You have to have people out here enjoying your art."

It's a huge undertaking to open a new restaurant from scratch, and Sullivan said that simply wouldn't have happened without his wife, Stacy, who he said has been heavily involved in getting permits, scheduling meetings and far more.

"She is the only reason why this thing is happening because if it was up to me, we would be done already," he said laughing. "I cannot do it without her. If the city of Memphis has any type of love in their heart for anything I'm doing, it's all because of her that it's possible."

Jacob Wilt is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal. You can reach him at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis restaurants: New breakfast spot opening in Cooper-Young