When something is truly special it’s worth a little extra effort to experience it.
People throughout the country have made that extra effort and traveled to the tiny town of Grandin to find what “Rural Missouri” magazine named the best restaurant in rural Missouri.
The Lil’ Black River Café is owned and operated by Poplar Bluff native Alan Porter and his wife, Valerie Porter, and based in a town that was once home to the largest lumber mill in the country.
Each year, “Rural Missouri” has a best of edition and votes come in by the thousands to pick the very best that rural life in Missouri has to offer in several categories.
The restaurant they picked offers everything from burgers on fresh-baked buns to shrimp topped with triple Berry Brandy Cream Sauce and an Escargot appetizer served with garlic toast.
In fact, there are a few delectable items you won’t find offered often in a town with a population of around 230, but then, Porter likes to defy expectations.
After traveling around the country with a rock band, spending the better part of a decade cooking at restaurants in Springfield, Missouri, Porter found himself in Fort Meyers Beach, Florida, where he met his wife Valerie.
He worked as a chef in various restaurants for over a decade until the couple decided to move back to Porter’s hometown and “retire.”
“Then that first winter came and I got kind of bored,” he said. “There wasn’t much going on, so yeah now so we bought ourselves a job.”
A building built on a century-old foundation in 1934 right along the banks of the river was purchased, remodeled and opened on Mother’s Day 2014 as the Lil Black River Café. In the ensuing years, additions have been made, but the bottom line is the quality of the food and the easy-going atmosphere. Porter wouldn’t have it any other way.
“What makes me happy is giving people something that they may not be able to get normally,” he said. “I’m not here to get rich off of it, like I said, for me, it’s giving this area something that they don’t have, you know.”
His love of cooking comes from his experience with a family restaurant in this area as a child, and lessons learned later in the Poplar Bluff High School culinary arts program and as a Navy cook.
“My dad did his 20 years in the Navy and he retired, and we moved back here to Poplar Bluff where my dad and my grandparents on my mom’s side opened up a restaurant,” said Porter. “It was the old Deer Run restaurant out at old 60 and T highway and then they had the Crossroads Lounge that they put in and I’d go in every once in a while, at night and make some biscuits and gravy for my dad.”
Porter also participated in the foodservice program at Poplar Bluff High School back in 1983. That’s where the passion to cook started to take shape, he said. From there he joined the Navy as a cook and served on the USS Halsey. ON the Halsey, he learned a valuable lesson, “You don’t have to always follow the rules when cooking.”
“I learned a lot there,” Porter said. “We had a lot of good cooks on our ship where we used the recipe cards as a guide. We didn’t follow them exactly and it gave me a little more freedom to try this or try that.”
The Lil’ Black River Café is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.
You can check out the daily specials see their menu on their Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/Lil-Black-River-Cafe-488272254627384/
Reservations are encouraged and you can reach the restaurant at 573-593-4023.