Everybody Eats Cafe’ & Restaurant – Benton Park

Everybody Eats Cafe & Restaurant sits in the heart of Benton Park and cooks two traditions at once: Southern comfort food and hibachi.

That combination is the whole idea rather than a compromise. The kitchen describes its own style as black hibachi – the theatre and the fast, hot cooking of a hibachi grill applied to the flavours of Southern and soul cooking. In practice it means sizzling hibachi bowls sharing a menu with Cajun pasta, fried fish and shrimp, fried oyster po’ boys and the rest of the comfort repertoire.

The Cajun pasta is the dish the restaurant is known for and the one people order without looking at the menu. The seafood side of the kitchen is taken seriously, which in a landlocked city is worth saying.

Everybody Eats stands on Utah Street in Benton Park, a few blocks from Cherokee Street and an easy walk from the eastern end of Cherokee Antique Row. It is a neighbourhood restaurant rather than a destination one – which is generally the sign of a good one.