Exclusive: Why South’s owner left the kitchen to start a farm and mental health nonprofit
N’Gina Guyton’s new coworkers are worms. She’s now more concerned with when the next rain will come than whether South’s water dispenser is adequately stocked. A cockroach sighting is no longer a cause for concern; deer, with their affinity for her kale and collard greens seedlings, are her preeminent pests.
Guyton’s vision and hands-on leadership over the last five-and-a-half years helped South, built to merge her Louisiana heritage with California cuisine, stake its reputation as arguably the best Southern restaurant in the Sacramento region. Her mother’s fried chicken recipe stood apart as the dish became ubiquitous across Sacramento’s dining scene, and Thrillist called the house hamburger not only the city’s best but No. 66 nationwide in 2017.
But in developing the former Cheung Hing Co. grocery store at 2005 11th St. into a culinary destination, Guyton became impatient, cold, angry and controlling, by her own admission. She wasn’t as nurturing to her children as she would have liked, she said, and a divorce with South co-founder Ian Kavookjian is being finalized.
“It was really overwhelming. I was seeing things in my life spiraling out of control (because I was) trying to give 100 percent of myself to everything,” Guyton said. “You’ll go crazy doing that, and I was going crazy doing that, and things suffered in my life due to that.”
And so Guyton walked away in January, relinquishing her role as South’s director of operations to longtime employee Chris Doggett and purchasing a two-acre farm in northern Sacramento County. Blackberry brambles sprawl along the perimeter and by a rusted old Navistar International truck; a lemon tree in full bloom sits closer to the farmhouse. She still drops by South to check in every day, but only works the Friday lunch and Saturday dinner shifts.
The farm came with trees and vines growing pecans, pomegranates, figs, grapes and peaches, and Guyton plans to add limes, cabbages, onions, carrots, heirloom tomatoes and chickens (for eggs, not meat), plus more of the already-growing crops. Up to 80 percent of South’s produce will eventually come from the farm, Guyton said, forcing the menu to change with the seasons.
A rotating bounty shaped traditional Southern food back when refrigeration wasn’t an option, and Guyton said she wants the revised menus to better reflect the region’s complex culinary heritage. Restaurant staff are reading books on the history and cuisine of west Africa, northern Mexico, France and Native American tribes that gave the American South staples such as grits and black-eyed peas.
“I feel so much potential for South (to be) more than just a place to get fried chicken, but (to be) a place where we really start to take a look at the roots of Southern cooking, the history of Southern cooking, what Southern food is to America ... and being able to educate people who come into the restaurant about that,” Guyton said. “It has a story that’s hundreds of years old and it comes from many cultures, and people need to really appreciate that.”
Guyton moved with no agricultural background aside from a home garden and visiting farms to stock South’s kitchen. Her 20-plus years in the restaurant industry, including managerial stints at Ella Dining Room & Bar and the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel, offered no guidance on how to dig an irrigation system or build a fence.
A network of female farmers such as Cathy Suematsu, who owns Spreadwing Farm in the Capay Valley with her partner Michael Smith, have smoothened the transition some. But Guyton has hired no help and doesn’t plan on doing so. The burden of turning South into Sacramento’s most farm-to-fork restaurant lies entirely on her shoulders.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. I’m out here by myself and there’s literally this honey-do list of things I have to get done,” Guyton said. “But the old version of me that is very impatient is like, ‘I want it now, do this and do that,’ and that’s just not how this works. It’s really slow and sometimes you make big mistakes and have to start over again.
“It’s definitely slowed me down. I have patience, and that really permeates my entire life now. I like this calmer version of N’Gina. This girl is really cool. She’s not as crazy.”
Mental health in restaurants
Guyton is far from the only restaurateur whose mental health suffered as a result of their lifestyle. Half the food and beverage services employees surveyed in a 2017 Mental Health America study said work stress always or often impacted their personal relationships, and 43 percent always or often engaged in unhealthy habits to cope with workplace stress.
“Because there is no work-life balance (in restaurants), you feel really disconnected. And unfortunately when you’re connecting with people at 2 in the morning, it’s often over substances,” said Sacramento therapist Lupe Rodriguez.
The addiction and mental health crisis in restaurants caught the national spotlight when Anthony Bourdain took his own life in June 2018, and crested locally six months later with a wave of suicides that December. That shock resonated throughout the local hospitality scene and prompted Guyton to talk to Brenda Vaccaro, a clinical psychologist and founder/executive director of the Spark Center for Self Development, about ways to reduce therapy costs for industry employees.
Vaccaro and Guyton leveraged South’s money and the Spark Center’s connections to form a mental health nonprofit called The Verity Project. It’s scheduled to launch in early April with two therapy groups for industry members led by Rodriguez, who specializes in patients with addiction, anxiety and eating disorders and worked at Northern California restaurants and nightclubs for 16 years.
One group will focus on addiction and harm reduction, the other on coping skills and building resilience. Cutting out alcohol cold turkey is often not feasible for restaurant and bar employees, Rodriguez said, and can lead to Grand Mal seizures and serious memory deficiencies. So rather than encourage participants to stop drinking entirely, the program will aim to help people reevaluate their relationship with alcohol and cut back their intake, Rodriguez said.
Service employees’ incomes can fluctuate heavily based on tips, which can sometimes keep them from following through on long-term therapeutic help, Rodriguez said. Enrollment in The Verity Project’s 10-person groups will cost participants just $10 per session instead of the usual $40 to $75 thanks to funding from South and Rodriguez’s willingness to take lower-than-normal rates.
“I don’t know of any direct mental health services that are customized to fit this unique environment,” said Vaccaro, whose husband Joseph is COO and beverage director of Selland Family Restaurants. “It’s an environment where people don’t get enough rest, where people are up all night, where people are pretty isolated socially because by the time they’re off work, there’s no one but the people you work with to go out and develop relationships with.”
Guyton plans to combine her two new endeavors with a four-course, 100-person benefit dinner on the farm at the end of April. All proceeds will go to The Verity Project, and she’ll do all the cooking.
Wine pairings and signature cocktails from downtown Sacramento’s Good Bottle Shop will be offered. Fundraising helps, but Guyton’s main goal is to boost The Verity Project’s profile through the dinner and perhaps inspire imitators elsewhere.
“We’re hoping to create a template for cities besides Sacramento so that the help goes beyond just Sacramento County,” Guyton said. “Male, female, black, white, whatever, we all have feelings. And when feelings become more than what you physically or mentally can handle, it’s okay to ask for help, for someone to step in and navigate you to (get) to a place of balance.”