27-06-2025
It's All About The Biscuits At This Harlem Café
Melvin 'Boots' Johnson with his beloved Harlem biscuit, at his shop in the middle of Harlem. Coourtesy of Harlem Biscuit Company
Melvin 'Boots' Johnson was a chef at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in NYC in the early 2000's, vanquished him head-to-head in 'Beat Bobby Flay' on the Food Network, but when it came to opening his own café, he turned to something from his childhood: biscuits. In 2020, when the pandemic was just picking up steam, Johnson opened the Harlem Biscuit Company on 135th Street off of Adam Clayton Blvd.
Johnson was raised in Compton, Calif. outside of LA., but his family roots hail from Mississippi and New Orleans, so as he puts it, 'biscuits are in your blood when you are a Southern Black man.' He describes his cooking style as 'Cajun/Creole, Southern and contemporary flavors.' His nickname Boots rose from his mom buying him red cowboy boots as a youth, removing them, which he would put back on in the middle of the night.
When Johnson launched his business, he was very ingenious about starting on a tight budget. He opened out of his home garage, and then transitioned into his friend's speakeasy, and spread the word virally. He then opened Harlem Biscuit on 135th Street in a shared space with the restaurant Exquisite Vibez, from 8 a.m. and closing at 2 p.m. and the restaurant starts at 4 p.m.
When he debuted, Johnson admits that he was surprised there was no other biscuit place in a 'predominantly Black neighborhood with many people migrating from the South.'
Harlem Biscuit and Exquisite Vibez share the costs 50/50. Inventive Johnson reached out to 20 different food influencers and TBO Harlem (The Best of Harlem) to help spread the word on Instagram. When influencers started posting stories, it went viral on TikTok as well.
Biscuits Sell in Harlem
After 5 years, it has become so successful, despite only being open 6 hours a day, that it generated a million dollars in revenue over the last two years, Johnson indicated. 'We fill a void. Most everything else for breakfast near us in Harlem is a bacon, egg and cheese from a bodega,' he points out.
Named After Harlem's Literary History
He has dedicated many of his best-selling biscuit specialties to the venerated literary history of Harlem including: the Langston, named after poet Langston Hughes. the fried chicken biscuit; the Frederick, for Frederick Douglass, consisting of pork sausage, egg, cheese and jerk honey, and Zora named after writer Zora Neale Huston, for vegan sausage, and of course, the classic bodega made with bacon, egg and cheddar cheese.
It also offers a wide array of breakfast platters, biscuit bowls, consisting of crumbled biscuit, bacon eggs, potatoes and chicken sausage gravy, and sides such as grits, and also homemade lemonade.
For people who are more health-conscious, he recommends the vegan sausage biscuit, which uses egg whites but still contains buttermilk. 'It is what it is,' Johnson states.
Johnson's goal is 'To be the bagel shop for New Yorkers but in biscuit form.' He says its demographic is quite eclectic but most of all attracts people who gravitate toward Southern food.
He also recommends the everything biscuit, which he says is like an everything bagel, and is known for its garlic and salt flavor.
Deliveries Generate 50% of Sales
Though it seats 50 people inside and 6 people in the backyard, it does a healthy to-go and delivery business to the tune of about 50% of its business. It opened during Covid when Uber, Door Dash, Grubhub and ChowNow kept them alive, and still does.
Johnson With 3 Assignments
But Johnson is also a multi-faceted entrepreneur and chef who can't be held to one business. Indeed he serves as executive chef of the Victoria Restaurant, which is inside of the Renaissance NY Hotel, which has been garnering a strong reputation and is located adjacent to the Apollo Theatre on 125th St. He describes the food served there as 'elevated Southern food for a sophisticated pallet.'
And that's not all. He also own Boots and Bones, a BBQ restaurant, in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Island. Since one chef/owner can't be at three places at once, he relies on his Biscuits manager Pernell Boatright, Scott Rodriguez who runs Boots and Bones, and Ian Woods, his assistant at the Victoria, all of whom have been with him for at least 8 years.
Asked if he has considered opening a second Harlem Biscuit Company, Johnson replies that if he could find an investor that would speed things up. He'd love to open in downtown Manhattan but if Brooklyn calls, he'd venture there. He'd prefer to be somewhere below 50th Street, which is the end point of his delivery services.
He's also exploring turning his beloved biscuits for sale as a consumer-packaged good in supermarkets. His main task is identifying a co-packager which could reproduce the biscuit. 'When it reaches Wal-Mart, I know I've completed my task,' he says.
Johnson just turned 57 years old, and he expects to retire at age 58 as chef but still maintain ownership. How will he juggle his 3 restaurant assignments? He laughs and says he uses the Ring camera in his apartment, and watches what is going on in his 3 kitchens.
Asked the keys to Harlem Biscuit Company's success, Johnson, who has a vibrant sense of humor, replies, 1) Cook like a 70-year-old Black woman because everyone has a grandmother and recalls the sense of calm when they consumed their first biscuit, 2) Always stay consistent.
