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Southern Proper Opens Tonight in the South End

The South End gets some new Southern hospitality tonight. Chef Jason Cheek, a North Carolina native and alum of Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette’s restaurants, debuts Southern Proper on Thursday, March 1.

“This is a chicken-and-beer joint but with a lot more technique involved,” Cheek says. “A lot of our philosophy inside the space is craft and kindness.”

That means traditional Southern cuisine, inside an old-meets-new space on Harrison Ave.

The interior design is “very much developed around being in my grandmother’s living room, crossed over with being inside an tobacco barn,” Cheek says. Look for upgraded, recycled materials, like raw, North Carolina pine walls and beams; antique lamps hand-picked by Cheek; and a tin-plated bar salvaged from an old theater.

Located on the ground floor of the shiny, new Girard building, “the exterior is very modern and very Natick Mall,” Cheek previously told Eater Boston. Southern Proper makes use of natural light that the floor-to-ceiling windows of new construction provide, but with the chef-partner’s vision, aided by RODE Architects and BHaley Designs, “We’re trying to make it as warm as possible, and as comfortable as possible.”