Jevon Martin and Marjorie Pier
STREET SOCIAL, PETALUMA
PETALUMA’S NEW HOT spot, Street Social, may have opened its doors down a narrow brick alley in the centuries-old Lan Mart building just this past January 1, but the restaurant’s unique vibe has been alive and “popping up” for over seven years now.
Husband-and-wife owners Jevon Martin and Marjorie Pier met while they were both working for Chef Jeremy Fox (formerly of Napa’s now-closed Michelin-starred vegetarian Ubuntu) at LA’s Rustic Canyon. Marjorie was tending bar and Jevon was the sous chef.
Along with all of the other things new couples dream about, this culinary duo dreamed about perfect, high-spirited, never-ending meals accompanied by exquisite drinks. And so it was that Street Social, a roving supper club, started popping up in homes all over the Los Angeles area. “It just had an underground following and people loved it,” Marjorie recounts. “So we kept it going as we traveled. We moved up to Santa Cruz, and then we moved up to Sonoma three and a half years ago, with the intention of finding somewhere to put down our roots.”
Jevon started cooking at age 10. “I was raised by all women, and they wanted to instill a knowledge of how to cook in me. My great-aunt had restaurants and my grandmother had restaurants. Knowing how to be resourceful in the kitchen is something that you need in life.”
“I was kind of a latchkey kid, so I never really used any of their recipes. I would just invent my own stuff when I was a little.
We didn’t really do allowances, but my mom was, like, ‘If you want to earn money, I will pay for your ingredients, and then you have to hustle your cookies.’ So I would hustle them at churches, to the neighbors. I was 11 years old.”
Yes, he graduated from Le Cordon Bleu. And then he worked at Hometown Buffet. “All the [fellow] cooks would ask me, ‘So, what are you doing here? Did you drop out of high school?’ ‘No! I actually graduated from culinary school recently, but no one will pay me,’ I would respond.” The chef shares that all of the prestigious restaurants to which he applied wanted culinary school grads to stage, aka work for free. Jevon wanted to work—and be paid for doing so.
Shortly after his buffet days, he met luminary LA chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, and joined them to open the wildly successful Animal. “The first advice they gave me was to just bounce around at a bunch of places so you can learn a lot of stuff. It wasn’t totally horrible advice, but in interviews people are, like, ‘Why did you work at so many places?’ I would work at a place for a year, and if I felt like no one was better than me, then I wasn’t ‘hungry,’ so I would leave. I’d go somewhere where I felt like I was at the bottom. I always like the competitiveness of, just, everything. Even a conversation, she’ll say,” he says, looking over at Marjorie.
“But I’m the same, so it’s perfect,” she smiles.
From Rustic Canyon to celebrity chef Ben Ford’s Ford’s Filling Station to Lucques under chef Suzanne Goin, Jevon bounced in and out of some world-renowned kitchens, during an iconic LA food moment. And it shows in his cooking—confident, full of curiosity, playful and perfectly executed.
Marjorie was behind the bar mixing artisan cocktails when the couple met, but her life story feels like it is from another era. She’s traveled the world, using restaurant work as a home base to return to in order to make money—to feed more travel. “I lived up in Tahoe for a few years, then landed in Santa Cruz, then San Francisco, did some college, did some photography school,” she muses. The more we talk, the more surprises come out of her.
The couple returned to Marjorie’s true home base, Sonoma County, three years ago. Jevon, an LA native, says he is “starting to get the hang of it.” He gained an on-the-job education on the finest local food and drink producers in the area during his tenure as executive sous chef under Chef/Owner Ari Weiswasser at the radically local-sourcing Glen Ellen Star in Glen Ellen. Familiar names like Glentucky Family Farm, Liberty Ducks, Devil’s Gulch Ranch and Stemple Creek fill Street Social’s consciously crafted and often-changing menu.
Street Social’s roots as a roving dinner party are present in elements of the intimate space—like a portable speaker that fills the two floors with eclectic, perfectly suited tunes. But, like chef Jevon and Marjorie, who fulfills multiple roles as the restaurant’s GM, host and server, the concept itself has grown up in the last seven years.
“The first dinner was eight courses, with pairings, and lasted four and a half hours. We made, like, 100 bucks,” Jevon says, remembering their early logistical shortcomings.
“That was the best night of my life,” Marjorie says.
Two daughters, two geographical moves and their own restaurant opening later, things are “an emotional roller coaster. We purchased the business in November and we opened on January 1. It is unheard of to flip a restaurant that fast,” says Marjorie, marveling at the pace herself.
“And–in between, also getting a lot of press, which was really weird,” Jevon adds.
“Weird?,” I retort. “It was very warranted.”
“You don’t get press like that, so we were super hyped thinking about [the upcoming] summer. Up and down, up and down, up and down,” Jevon says, as we discuss what it’s been like to navigate a shelter-in-place order with a brand-new restaurant.
The couple’s pandemic pivot has Marjorie running lots of to-go boxes of Jevon’s food out to the curb, lending Street Social a lingering feel of its pop-up origins. Luckily, the flavor and wit of the food carry enough ambiance to survive the drive home. The couple has also created a bottle shop offering small-production, organic and regeneratively farmed wines to accompany takeout meals.
In the spirit of an underground supper club, after our interview I take my crispy yet moist fried chicken, deeply flavored collard greens and umami-intense grits home and make an occasion of it. Specially selected wine (not that bottle long sitting open on the counter), candles, the good silver and Charles Mingus’ jazz notes complete the scene. Until we can again be held in the graciousness of the restaurant’s dining room, we do what we can to honor the food, and those who crafted it.
Edible Marin & Wine Country: What was the first meal you made that you were proud of ?
Chef Jevon Martin: Ratatouille
EMWC: What was your favorite food as a kid?
Ratatouille
EMWC: What food do you wish you loved?
Wine
EMWC: What food do you love unreasonably much?
Sandwiches
EMWC: What is the most difficult cooking technique to do well?
Preparing an omelette
EMWC: What are you exploring in your kitchen now?
Working solo
EMWC: What nonculinary influence inspires you?
Nature
EMWC: What is your idea of a very healthy meal?
A satisfying salad with all of the bells and whistles
EMWC: What is your favorite ingredient?
Berbere [the Ethiopian spice mix]
EMWC: What is your favorite hangover meal?
Eggs, hardboiled
EMWC: What restaurant in the world are you most dying to try?
Maaemo in Oslo, Norway
EMWC: What kitchen utensil is most indispensable to you?
Baby offset spatula
EMWC: Who do you most like to cook for?
Hungry people
EMWC: If you could do one other job, what would it be?
Culinary teacher
EMWC: What is your favorite midnight snack?
A sandwich
EMWC: What most satisfies your sweet tooth?
Haribo sour gummy bears
EMWC: What would you eat at your last meal, if you could plan such a thing?
A really delicious sandwich
EMWC: What’s your favorite… breakfast?
Bacon, eggs, toast and hash browns
EMWC: … pastry?
Donut cinnamon roll
EMWC: … a late-night/after-work meal?
Korean BBQ
EMWC: …a cup of coffee?
One with half and half in it
EMWC: … a greasy spoon meal?
In-N-Out
EMWC: … place to shop for groceries?
Farmers’ markets
EMWC: … ice cream flavor?
Pralines & cream
EMWC: … chocolate?
I don’t really eat chocolate.
EMWC: And lastly but not leastly … what is your favorite local wine or beer for the season?
HenHouse Brewing Company’s Saison
