New seafood restaurant and private bar owners in Thomasville don't let special orders upset them - Lexington Dispatch

Fiancés Crystal McWilliams and Kelvin Thorne have opened up a seafood restaurant like no other in Thomasville, called Cosmos Cuisine & Cocktails.

It's not just the menu offerings — such as shrimp and grits, seafood boils and homemade flavored sauces for the boils — that make it unique, but also their business model that sets this restaurant apart from others in the Chair City. Their business at 615 E. Main St., is really a private bar with a restaurant attached.

"We are a private bar that happens to have a restaurant beside it," said McWilliams, a Michigan native who is engaged to Thomasville native Thorne.  "You have to have a membership to come in, but it's only $1 a year. It just made sense businesswise to set it up this way as a private bar with a restaurant instead of as a restaurant with a bar with how the ratio is of how we have to sell food to drinks and other things."

Cosmos Cuisine & Cocktails, which opened with a ribbon-cutting on May 15 with Thomasville City and chamber of commerce officials, is under one roof in the former Down Home Cooking and Catering by Doe's location, a soul food restaurant that closed on Dec. 31, 2020.

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"I wanted to have soul food, but we didn't want to come back in here with the same thing," Thorne said.

Thorne, who is a voracious foodie and loves to cook, handles the kitchen and back end of the restaurant. McWilliams handles the front end and also tends bar.

The menu features seafood boils with four different seasonings or homemade sauces, such as Cajun and lemon pepper, and combination plates with salmon, whiting, ocean perch, catfish, shrimp, lobster tails, chicken tenders and chicken wings. The combo entrees can be prepared grilled, fried, broiled or boiled and include homemade cole slaw, fries, hush puppies and a soft drink or tea.

In addition, the chicken wings are roasted and come with a choice of six homemade sauces or simply tossed in Old Bay seasoning. Special orders and requests are not an issue for McWilliams and Thorne, who also said they believe in making everything homemade instead of warming or cooking restaurant-quality packaged food. They are working toward making in-house the few items they do not make now, such as the hush puppies and clam chowder. 

"Our Buffalo sauce for the chicken wings is a family recipe," Thorne said. "My mom taught me how to make it. Some people call it dip chicken sauce. It's Buffalo sauce with our special touch."

In the short time they have been open, they said they have taken feedback and already modified the menu. For example, they learned not everyone wants cheese in the grits for their shrimp and grits dish. Also, they found out some do not want beef kilebasa sausage in it, and others want the grits as a side dish with other seafood or chicken offerings.

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So now, they serve the shrimp and grits in a disassembled manner with the grits in their own bowl, with our without cheese, and the other requested ingredients along with the shrimp in its own bowl. Customers can choose to mix it or eat separately their custom-made dish. You can also get grits as a side with meal.

The other available menu sides feature asparagus, steamed rice, corn on the cob, potato wedges and homemade macaroni and cheese. McWilliams would share that there are three kinds of cheeses in the mac and cheese, including mild and extra sharp cheddar cheese, but she wouldn't share the third cheese, which she said is a secret. Finely diced onion and bell peppers also make an appearance in her mac and cheese.

Seafood was an obvious choice for the couple's restaurant menu because not only is Thomasville a seafood restaurant desert except for a couple of restaurants that have a handful of seafood dishes on their menus, but McWilliams grew up in the seafood business.

Her parents, Edith and David Bell, opened Dexter Fish Market in Detroit, Michigan, where she grew up, for several years until her father's death. She stood on boxes at age 4 to wait on customers. She pulled the fish out of cases for the customers, weighed them and rang them up. The family eventually added equipment at the market to sell cooked seafood for pick up too.

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"I was an entrepreneur at age 4," she said. "My dad got the whole family together when they decided to do this and said if anyone in the family did not want to do this, we would not. It was all hands on deck and we all had to want to do this. My brother pointed out that I was only 4 and asked his dad if she said no, would the family really not do this. He said, 'Yes. We all have to be in on this ... My dad really empowered me at that moment. I had a choice."

Even after attending the University of Michigan where she graduated with degrees in chemistry and engineering, McWilliams returned home on breaks and weekends to work the family business.

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She worked for many years in a variety of positions, from chemist to business consultant and salesperson for two major agricultural and medical pharmaceutical companies before moving to North Carolina to be near her then in-laws when her children were young.

In fact, she met Thorne, an Army veteran, when he sought her out for business development advice. He didn't take her advice and the company he was trying to create did not get open. They did work on another business venture together and their relationship turned romantic.

At Cosmos Cuisine & Cocktails the wine, beer, and mixed drink are growing weekly as McWilliams hears from customers what they want and has time to find a vendor to stock that beer and time to learn to make new cocktails. The wine served is a brand not available for the public to purchase in retail locations.

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She plans to add smoothies and protein drinks sold through the bar for daytime customers and a wide variety of energy drinks to be paired with liquor for a mixed drink.

The bar and restaurant are open late from 11 a.m.- 2 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to midnight on Sundays. As the late night sets in, the menu becomes more limited and shifts more to an a la carte concept. People can order a piece of fish, fries or chicken, while the seafood boils and crab legs will not be available late. The a la cart menu is available all day and night, however. 

In addition, the new private bar and restaurant, the pair owns a telecommunications company they operated out of their High Point home

Menu items can be ordered for take-out and you pick it up or through DoorDash delivery.

"We know now after the year we've had with the pandemic that people need a place to come together and relax," McWilliams said. "We want Cosmos Cuisine & Cocktails to be that place. We want this to be a place where people come together from diverse backgrounds."

- Jill Doss-Raines is The Dispatch trending topics and personality profiles senior reporter and is always looking for tips about businesses and entertainment events, secret and new menu items, and interesting people in Davidson County. Contact me at jill.doss-raines@the-dispatch.com and subscribe to us at the-dispatch.com.