Matthew “Mattie” and Celia McGhee have finally made their vision a reality.
The couple are opening their first restaurant “Juniper,” named after their 5-year-old daughter, in northern Johnson City. Mattie and Celia McGhee are opening the restaurant alongside chef Romeo Tivoli and beverage manager, Christina Crout. The restaurant will open on Sept. 13 at 4:30 p.m. and will close at 9:30 p.m.
Mattie and Celia McGhee have spent over twenty years in the dining industry. Mattie McGhee attended the Culinary Institute of America and has worked at several renowned restaurants such as The Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach, Florida, and The Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
Celia McGhee, a Johnson City native, attended Johnson & Wales University and has worked at renowned restaurants such as Café Boulud in Palm Beach, Florida, and The Watergate Hotel. The couple met each other at The Watergate Hotel, which is where their vision came to fruition.
“We knew we wanted to start a family, we knew we were going to have to slow down,” said Celia McGhee. “We had a vision of having a restaurant we could control, a small place where we could do great food.”
The couple wrote their business plan while they were in Washington D.C., and while the location changed, the overall plan for the restaurant did not.
Celia McGhee grew up in the Knob Creek area of Johnson City, which helped the couple find the perfect spot for their vision.
While Mattie McGhee and Tivoli ran a small bakery in Bath County, Virginia, Celia McGhee and her daughter, Juniper, stayed local to the area waiting for the perfect place to open. The original building that they have built Juniper around made Celia McGhee very cautious at first, but she fell in love with the “creek running through the property and how it is set off the road.”
“We looked at several other options while we were trying to make the decision on where to go and this property really stuck because of its location and being tucked away,” Celia McGhee said.
Celia and Mattie McGhee have worked all over the country in various cities and say that “there is nothing like the feeling of going to a restaurant and having every expectation met and exceeded.”
The goal of their restaurant is to meet every expectation their patrons have upon entering their doors. They want to bring more seasonal and local menu items to our area as well. “We want to be very selective as to what we put on the menu and will be changing it all the time,” said Celia McGhee.
Some of the items they will be serving on their opening night include North Carolina trout, fried green tomatoes, pork belly lumpia and a variety of desserts such as sorbet and cakes. At the bottom of every menu at the restaurant states that, “Fifteen cents from every meal is donated to Coalition for Kids.”
“Donating to the Coalition for Kids is something that we absolutely want to do. It means a lot to us since it is food related; we may change donating to non-profits yearly, but we want to give back to the community. It is our responsibility to give back to the people who are coming here,” said Mattie McGhee.
Mattie and Celia McGhee will have their opening night for Juniper on Sept. 13 at 4:30 p.m. located at 1033 West Oakland Ave.
The restaurant will be open from Tuesday through Saturday every week from 4:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. To learn more about Juniper visit: juniperjc.com or call (423) 930-9200.
