Editor’s note: This blog post has been updated to include comments about the biscuits and gravy.
Wooster has a new restaurant in town, Biscuit Uprising. The biscuit-themed restaurant is the brainchild of the same foodies who gave us Smoke the Burger Joint, Old Carolina BBQ, and Baja West Coast Kitchen — friends Tim Hug and Brian Bailey, founders of the Ichor Restaurant Group. Biscuit Uprising is on Beall Avenue, occupying the same space that formerly housed Smoke.
Hug and Bailey write on the Biscuit Uprising website that they came to love the kind of breakfast served in the south when they traveled the Southern United States checking out barbecue restaurants. One of the things they loved was a flaky biscuit smothered in house-made sausage gravy. That love of a Southern breakfast led to Wooster’s new restaurant, which is the first location of the new concept. It opened Friday, March 22, and my wife, Wendi, and I visited the restaurant on Saturday morning, the second day of what the owners have dubbed “the national launch of Biscuit Uprising.”
I posted some photos on Facebook and friends John Giltner and Brock Yoder asked for a review. This is not a full review, because of menu selections were somewhat similar. However, with Biscuit Uprising being so new, here is a little something. We will most likely add photos and update our “review” as we visit the place some more.
When you walk in, the layout is the same as Smoke: You order at the counter, serve yourself drinks, and find a table while the staff cooks your meal. When we arrived around 9:50 a.m. Saturday, the parking lot was packed. As we stepped inside, just about every table was taken … except two. I grabbed one of the tables and sat down while Wendi looked over the menu. I was hoping to order a number of different dishes, so we could sample a variety of offerings. However, because it was so busy, we just ordered a couple of dishes.
Wendi went with the Chicken ‘N French Toast Biscuit, and I went with Tenders + Biscuit. The Chicken ‘N French Toast Biscuit was the restaurant’s take on chicken and waffles. Wendi received three hand-breaded, freshly fried chicken “tenders” (which were technically chicken breast strips and not tenderloins, but more about that later) with a biscuit cut in half, dipped into a French toast mix with cinnamon and grilled.
The Chicken ‘N French Toast Biscuit is served with syrup and whipped cream. Wendi said the biscuit started out tasting like French toast, but it was difficult wrapping her head around the fact that it was the texture of a biscuit. While the flavor was there and Wendi liked it, the biscuit did not absorb the syrup like French toast or a pancake.
I was really hoping to have a country fried steak biscuit. However, there was not one on the menu. I used to work at a Burger Chef when I was in high school, and the restaurant served a country fried steak biscuit, and it was great. While they did not have what I was craving, they had a number of biscuit sandwiches: Original Chicken (which features a brined, deep-fried chicken thigh); Sausage and Cheese (house-smoked sausage patty with American cheese); Southern Chicken (fried chicken thigh with pickles and homemade pimento cheese); and Fried Green Tomato (cornmeal breaded tomatoes with the pimento cheese).
I settled on the Tenders + Biscuit, which featured four buttermilk-brined chicken tenders. I could have gone with the grilled tenders, but I opted for the deep-fried ones. Earlier, I mentioned these were chicken breast strips and not truly chicken tenderloins. This is not a big deal for me, because tenders have tendons — the breast strips do not. I prefer the breast strips.
Wendi and I both liked the chicken tenders. Wendi said they were seasoned well. Incidentally, I made some homemade chicken fingers the other day. I brined the breast strips in “buttermilk,” actually some cream with milk and vinegar. I added some seasoned salt to the brine. When I prepared to deep fry them in my new enamel-covered cast iron Dutch oven, I seasoned the flour too much. My chicken fingers turned out to be too salty. The chicken tenders at Biscuit Uprising were seasoned well.
They have some Dippin’ Sauces: Sweet BBQ, Carolina Mustard, Mississippi Comeback, and Jalapeno Ranch (aka Alabama White). We chose Mississippi Comeback and the Alabama White. The menu said Jalapeno Ranch, but when I asked for it, one of the workers said, “Alabama White?” I said yes. I also got the Mississippi Comeback, which is in the same vein as Raising Cane’s or Zaxby’s sauces. Raising Cane’s sauce is said to be made of ketchup, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and pepper). They were both pretty good. However, to me, the Alabama White didn’t seem to have jalapenos in it. If it did, then it was not much. It was good, but not very spicy.
As for my made from scratch biscuit, I would have liked a little more salt in it. The flavor was a little bland, for my taste. Wendi often tells me I over season things, so that may be why. When it was served, it was room temperature. I would have preferred it to be hot so the butter melted.
Something I really appreciated about Biscuit Uprising is the fact that most of the menu offerings do not include eggs, though the Loaded Biscuit Bowls do. I don’t like eggs. I don’t eat eggs. However, whenever I go out for breakfast, I either have to pay for eggs I will not eat or pay through the nose ordering a la carte menu items. You can add an egg to any of the biscuit sandwiches.
I wonder if the owners are focusing on the wrong thing in the concept of the restaurant: Biscuit Uprising. The biscuit did not really stand out. It tasted a lot like the biscuit you get at KFC. When I lived in Daytona Beach, there was a restaurant decades ago: Skeeter’s, Home of the Big Biscuit. The biscuit was huge. The pancakes were huge. The biscuit stood out because it was humongous.
The chicken tenders space might be too crowded with the two chains I mentioned previously, but Biscuit Uprising has some really good tenders. Because they are brined, they are moist. I am looking forward to going back because I really need to try the sausage and thyme gravy (see comments below). Some of the other things I want to try are the Strawberry Shortcake and the Sausage and Cheese Biscuit. Wendi is interested in trying the Southern Chicken Biscuit and the Blueberry biscuit.
In the original post, I said I needed to try the biscuits and gravy. Well, I did a couple days later. The biscuits and sausage gravy with thyme was pretty good. Again, I would have liked a little more salt and pepper in the gravy, but I like my food well-seasoned, which is why I probably enjoy a lot of ethnic food. One thing I was surprised about in eating the biscuit and gravy: I was full after eating it, and I am a big man. I keep hearing people talk about how good the Strawberry Shortcake is, so you know we will be heading back soon to try it.
Biscuit Uprising is at the corner of North Street and Beall Avenue. The address is 206 Beall Ave., Wooster.
