Newburgh restaurant owners opening second location in Evansville
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Newburgh-based Nellie’s Restaurant, an American eatery serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, is introducing a second location called Nellie’s North in Evansville this month.
The restaurant’s owners, Renee Jimenez and her husband, Jose, bought the former Wolf’s Bar-B-Q building for their business expansion. The barbecue restaurant closed its doors in December after nearly 100 years in operation.
“This is my thing at the new place. And my husband is going to run the one in Newburgh,” said Jimenez.
Jimenez said the additional space offered at 6600 N. First Ave. will allow her to expand the dinner menu and make more desserts.
“We’re keeping the same menu, but we’re adding a lot of new things,” she said.
Kim Wolf, owner of Wolf’s Bar-B-Q, said she’s looking forward to the new restaurant livening up the north side.
“I will be happy and proud to go by that location and see it thriving and being a good part of the northern end of Vanderburgh County,” she said.
Nellie’s Restaurant and Nellie’s North
Jimenez began serving customers at Nellie’s Restaurant in Newburgh in 2017. Though there was no formal announcement about opening day, word spread quickly once the doors were unlocked.
“When we opened Nellie’s in Newburgh, we didn’t tell anyone. By 11:00 a.m., we had a line around the building of people wanting to try it,” said Jimenez.
Business is booming at the original location, but Jimenez said space is limited, especially with baking.
“The cheesecakes and the pies and the cookies, they’re taking off. And sometimes I can’t even have any in the dessert cooler because the kitchen is so small,” she said.
Nellie’s also serves breakfast all day, which Jimenez said makes it difficult to focus on the dinner menu.
“[At the new restaurant], we’re going to add chicken and dumplings, chicken or shrimp gumbo, things like that,” she said. “I’m going to try hard to make my dinner menu something where people say, ‘I want to go to Nellie’s [North] for dinner.’”
Jimenez said the size of the north side location will allow her team to spread out and get creative.
“There are four kitchens, and one’s going to be exclusively for my baking and the things that I want to add to our new menu,” said Jimenez. “If someone wants to come in and buy a whole cheesecake, they can.”
A remodeling process is underway, which includes new range hoods and flooring, plus a breakfast bar. Jimenez hopes to open Nellie’s North by the end of March.
“We’ll have a grand opening later because it’s so hard in the beginning. You have all new employees and stuff. Everybody has to get into their rhythm,” she said.
Wolf’s Bar-B-Q
Wolf started the process of selling her barbecue restaurant’s property about four years ago. The business began as Wolf’s Highland Delight Packing Co. in 1926. Wolf’s grandparents sold barbecue and other processed meats to grocery stores and taverns. They also owned the Highland Inn and a second packing house in Grayville, Illinois.
“In the 1940s, my dad and his brother bought the packing company from my grandmother. Then, they opened the first barbecue restaurant. It had a little pull-up window, curb service. The girls wore roller skates,” said Wolf.
The restaurant burned down in the 1950s, but Wolf’s father and uncle rebuilt it. After her uncle passed away in the 1960s, Wolf’s father incorporated the wholesale division and the restaurant as Wolf’s Barb-B-Q, Inc. She began working in the business when she was 14 years old.
“Dad’s dream was to make barbecue. Not a picnic thing, but something that everybody could come in and enjoy. You could wear fine clothes, or you could wear boots, but everybody could enjoy themselves, and it would be nice,” Wolf said.
When Wolf’s father retired in the late 1990s, she and her three brothers bought the company. Eventually, she became the sole owner after her siblings left the business.
“I wanted to make sure that we served top-quality food. I never changed any of the recipes. They call for more expensive ingredients, and I never changed that. I kept those ingredients the same so that if you came in five years ago, what you tasted that day was going to be exactly the same,” said Wolf.
Even though the business was still going strong in 2023, Wolf said the time had come for her to retire. However, her children weren’t interested in taking over the operation.
“I have a daughter who’s been with me for over 20 years. She was a cook, and she said, ‘Mom, I can’t do what you do. I can’t do that. I would fail if I took it over.’ Because I did everything. The books, payroll, everything,” said Wolf. “I was so proud of her for coming forward and saying that because that takes a lot of courage.”
Wolf said she sold surrounding property over the last few years to make the sale of the restaurant more manageable. Though she had other offers, the decision to sell the building to Jimenez was ultimately about more than money.
“It was about who was going to be able to succeed in that area with whatever they wanted to put into it,” Wolf said. “When [Renee and Jose] came through … their visions were working in their eyes, and it was like, ‘Wow, this is cool to see. This is magic. I’m being a part of a magical moment.’”
‘Fantastic people’
With her long tenure in the restaurant business, Wolf said she knows good people like the Jimenezes when she meets them.
“They’ve got dreams and aspirations. They have energy behind them, so that helps. They’re going to do a fantastic business because they’ve got good food and they care, and that means a lot,” she said. “The people of Nellie’s are fantastic people.”
As for additional Nellie’s locations, Jimenez isn’t ruling out the possibility of starting her own family legacy.
“I just feel like when you start going beyond what you can handle, that’s when your product starts to suffer. I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m never going to say never. I have five kids, so maybe they’ll want [a restaurant],” she said.
Wolf said her segue into retirement includes a mix of necessary tasks and much-needed relaxation.
“I’m doing a little bit of reading, catching up on doctor appointments, finalizing a lot of the business stuff,” Wolf said. “I’m going on a vacation for 10 days. It feels good to say, ‘Okay, I don’t have to worry about what’s going on back at the restaurant.’”
Wolf is also looking for a buyer for the Wolf’s Bar-B-Q brand.
“I took the potato salad out years ago and put it in a separate [limited liability company],” she said. “I’ve got the barbecue for sale, and I’ve got an interested party, so it may open back up Wolf’s Bar-B-Q.”
Wolf thanked the community for coming out and supporting the barbecue restaurant in its final days of operation.
“I’ve always said, ‘We don’t just serve food; we create memories.’ And that’s what a lot of people came in and said,” she said. “There were so many people expressing all the different things that they remember Wolf’s tied to in their lives. That was a fantastic, heartwarming experience. I will never forget that. I love the community, and it was nice to see the community love back.”