Durtybirds Southern Kitchen Settles Into Jonesboro With Oxtails Worth the Drive

Durtybirds Southern Kitchen opened at 335 Upper Riverdale Road in Jonesboro on July 17, tucked into the Tara Crossing shopping center on Clayton County's north side. Patch covered the opening within two weeks. Chef Kawaun and co-owner Julian built the menu and the room from scratch, and the local chamber of commerce lists it as locally owned, not a franchise. Three months in, The Infatuation gave it a real sit-down review on October 1, not a press blurb lifted from a release. That kind of notice from an Atlanta food outlet almost never reaches a Clayton County restaurant, which is exactly why it is worth a second look now rather than a year from now when everyone already knows about it.

The menu runs Southern comfort with a few modern turns worked in: honey hot lemon pepper wings, a double smash burger, Nashville hot salmon, Cajun Alfredo pasta. The dishes worth the drive are the slow-cooked oxtails over rice, the one splurge on the menu at $37, and the Southern turkey chops at $28, both plated with mac and cheese and a side of braised kale greens. Most entrees land between $19 and $28, so the oxtails really are the outlier. The Infatuation called out the candied yams specifically, heavy on nutmeg and cinnamon and, in the reviewer's words, "sweet but not cloying" — if you only add one side to a plate, make it that one. If a full dinner is more than you want, there is a $12 plate special at lunch, and the wings run $12 for a seven-piece order.

This is a spacious room built for groups rather than a quiet two-top: a small bookstand up front, black-and-white film stills from Boomerang and Love Jones on the walls, and coverage so far describes it as a regular after-church and Sunday-dinner stop. Parking is a shopping-center lot, so there is no circling the block the way there can be closer in toward the airport. It suits a client relocating to Jonesboro, or anywhere in South Clayton, who wants a real sit-down kitchen nearby instead of another fast-food exit, and it is the kind of local knowledge a generic relocation packet never carries.

Durtybirds is closed Monday and Tuesday, open noon to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday. Go on a weekend afternoon, split the oxtails and an order of the wings between two people, and expect the room to be loud and full. That is the point of the place, not a flaw.

Photo courtesy of Durtybirds Southern Kitchen.