SAVANSA, Ga. (AP) — Former food network star Paula Dean announced the sudden closure of the savanna restaurant that gained her fame with its menu of fried chicken, banana pudding and other luxurious Southern dishes.
Dean ran a Lady & Sons restaurant for nearly 30 years with his two sons, Jamie and Bobby Dean. Faithful fans visiting Savannah were lined up at Dean’s buffet, and much after Food Network cancelled its show “Pola’s Home Cooking” in 2013.
But Dean, 78, said Friday that the woman and her sons closed forever with a chicken box that sold take-out lunches behind the main restaurant. Statements posted on Deen’s website and social media accounts did not state why the restaurant was closed.
“Hey, my sons and I have sincerely decided that Thursday, July 31st, was the final day of service for the woman, son and chicken,” Dean’s statement said.
“We appreciate the wonderful memories and your loyalty over the past 36 years,” she said. “We have endless love and gratitude to all our customers who have passed through our doors.”
Dean said four restaurants outside of Savannah will remain open. They are located in Nashville, Tennessee and Pigeon Forge. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Branson, Missouri.
The Lady & Sons windows were covered in brown paper on Friday. A sign posted on the front door read, “It is a heavy heart and enormous gratitude to announce that we have retired and closed.”
Dean’s restaurant looked “packed” until it closed
Adrienne Morton and her family visited Savanna from Cincinnatti and booked dinner at Dean’s restaurant at 5:45pm on Friday.
Morton said she received a text message Friday morning saying that her appointment had been cancelled.
“We thought this was a mistake, or maybe they were going to close, we didn’t live here and we weren’t speeding up, but no, no, no, no,” Morton said. “We hope they have the best. Hopefully everything will turn out.”
Martin Lowe works in his downtown office across from Dean’s restaurant. He said it appears to be getting stronger until the business closes.
“I didn’t know there was anything wrong,” Lowe said. “I walk there two or three times a week at lunchtime and it was always stuffed.”
Dean has become fame of Savanna’s almost broken food network
Dean got divorced and almost broke when he moved to Savannah with a boy in 1989 and started a catering business called Bag Lady. She opened her first restaurant a few years later at her local Best Western Hotel, and in 1996 she started a woman and son in downtown Savannah.
The restaurant was immediately lined up through the door and served around 1,100 diners per day at Dean’s popularity. A food critic at USA Today awarded Lady & Sons “Meal of the Year” in 1999.
Dean moved the Savannah Restaurant to a large nearby building the year after Food Network debuted “Pola’s Home Cooking” in 2002.
Food Network cancelled Deen’s show in 2013 amid a fallout in a lawsuit by a former employee. The transcript of Dean answering questions under oath in a legal deposition has been published with Dean’s troubling answers to questions about race.
When she was asked if she had used the n-word, Dean said, “Of course.”
Dean returned to television with ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” and Fox Nation, which began streaming “at home with Paula Dean” in 2020 on chef Gordon Ramsay’s fox show “Masterchef: Legends.”
