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Before even reaching the front door of Durham’s Soul Forking Good, Walter Johnson was recognized.
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Striding across the parking lot in a baby blue polo and matching hat, thin with a white mustache, he’s nondescript for a mega-star of the online food-reviewing world, whose social media accounts boast hundreds of thousands of followers.
“Are you Mr. Tendernism?,” a woman asks from a picnic table. “Can I get a picture?”
Johnson is all too happy to oblige. It’s the first of a dozen or so selfies he’ll take at Soul Forking Good, one of three soul food stops he made in the Triangle this summer.
Mr. Tendernism is part of a growing industry of national food influencers, whose video reviews can launch small businesses into the Instagram feeds of people all over the world. He specializes in spotlighting soul food restaurants around the country and coined the term “Tendernism” for slow-cooked meat so well-cooked it slips off the bone.
For Soul Forking Good owners Dominique and James Turner, the drop-in appearance happened in the middle of the afternoon on a normal Thursday. They’re hoping it’s the next step to taking their braised turkey wings and beef ribs to the masses.
“We’re looking for national attention, we’re looking to go here, there and everywhere,” Turner said. “Right now we’re just local, but we’re looking to expand across the nation.”
Soul Forking Good launched as a food truck in the Triangle and recently expanded into its first brick and mortar location. The restaurant is something of a social media sensation itself, with tens of thousands of Instagram followers, all hungry for succulent shots of jerk beef ribs and ribbons of dripping collard greens.
Still, the visit from Mr. Tendernism carried the nervousness of an audition for Soul Forking Good. Turner prepared a spread of the restaurant’s highlights, the turkey wings, the ribs and chicken cutlets with Mumbo sauce, a house sauce inspired by her childhood in Washington, D.C.
“We let Mr. Tendernism try some of our top dishes, turkey wings, collard greens mac and cheese, the southern staples,” Turner said. “My number one specialty is my chicken with Mumbo sauce, I brought my flavors from back home in Washington, DC to DC, Durham County. That’s my favorite.”
This is where Mr. Tendernism steals the show. The sexagenarian rose to online fame by celebrating the hard-earned tenderness of barbecue pitmasters and chefs, holding up their beef ribs and braised meats until he only had clean bones in his hand. Then he’d launch from his seat, sometimes throw his reading glasses and often punctuate the moment with a “Booyah!”
“I want people to feel what I feel,” Johnson said in an interview. “Food is part of the way you soften people’s hearts. When it comes to this right here, I’m not a doctor or anything, but I am a tendernism-ologist, you can guarantee.”
After Soul Forking Good, Johnson, his wife and his cameraman made stops at Durham’s V’s Kitchen and Cary’s Nana Morrison’s Soul Food.
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India Jackson named V’s Kitchen after her grandmother Veronica Carter, who first taught her how to cook. The restaurant on Miami Boulevard just celebrated 15 years in business. Jackson served some of the kitchen’s signature dishes, like oxtail with gravy and rice, popcorn shrimp and a soufleed sweet potato she calls sweet potato fluff.
“He’s a wild guy,” Jackson said of Johnson’s Mr. Tendernism persona, which showed up after a bite of shrimp, flinging his glasses across the room. “It was hilarious. He really liked everything he tried. I know it can change a business, it can make or break a business. But I think it can also help build community.”
Johnson is more hype man than food critic, seeing his role as promoting Black-owned restaurants across the country.
“Soul food, barbecue has been something that African Americans have been doing for centuries; now it’s booming and people kind of understand it,” Johnson said. “You go to places, people want to get better, don’t nobody ever want to stay the same. So any kind of assistance I can (give) by tasting their food, then I assist them. I don’t actually come out and cook, but I get down.”
Turner is a self-taught chef, glued to Food Network as a kid who knew she needed to feed her household while her mother worked.
“My mom always worked two or three jobs, single mom, we were just at home me and my siblings and we never had food except stuff to put in the microwave,” Turner said. “Food network was a thing for me, just always watching different recipes. I knew I had to eat, so I knew I had to cook.”
Once he tasted her food, Turner’s husband urged her to share it with the world.
“I cooked for him and he said, ‘What do we need to do to get this thing going and put it out to everybody?’” she said. “He was kind of my push to start the food business, I was just doing it at home.”
After a few weeks, Mr. Tendernism posted his Soul Forking Good video, eating his way through a mountain of food.
“Rice Krispies ain’t got nothing on this,” Johnson said about the chicken. “That’s booyah right there.”
The video quickly became one of the account’s biggest posts of the year, racking up more than 630,000 views in two weeks. For Turner and Soul Forking Good, that’s a launchpad as the restaurant considers new locations.
“I never thought it would happen,” she said. “A year ago we were in a food truck and now we’re here and we’re about to be everywhere. It’s overwhelming, but it’s a great feeling.”
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