NEWS CHRONICLE PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY - John Corathers officially opened his restaurant, Johnny’s Southern Grill & Seafood, at 133 W. 3rd St. in Tama on Wednesday evening.

A passion for cooking and food runs deep in John Corathers’ blood: the Florida native grew up in a family full of chefs and restaurateurs, and they all shared their tips and tricks with him throughout his formative years. Corathers, who now resides in Nashua, is bringing all of that knowledge and experience to his new restaurant in downtown Tama, Johnny’s Southern Grill & Seafood, which officially opened its doors to hungry customers on Wednesday evening.

“You can grab pretty much any guy off the street or any girl off the street, and we can cook hamburgers (or) pizza. But we do something really different, and we do it the way we do it down south. Basically, I’m bringing five-star seafood in a two-star atmosphere,” he said.

To keep his prices reasonable, Corathers uses paper plates, and he doesn’t plan to hire waitstaff. Customers order at the front and can either dine in at 133 W. 3rd St. or take their food to go with the goal of keeping a shrimp dinner at $16 or $17 instead of $25.

Johnny’s late father, one of the most decorated helicopter pilots in the U.S. during the Vietnam War, served in the Army for 52 years, and his extended family was spread out between Florida, Louisiana and Texas owning farms, seafood businesses, shrimp and oyster boats. Corathers quickly realized his passion for cooking, and he trained with renowned Cajun chef Justin Wilson after a chance encounter at one of his aunt’s cafes.

“That’s where I learned a lot of my breading methods. My brother still owns a restaurant that he and I started years and years ago down in Eastpoint, Fla., and to this day, he still uses breading methods and cooking methods that I instituted,” he said.

Corathers ended up moving to Iowa due to his work in the trucking industry, and a contract with Hirschbach Motor Lines brought him to Clinton along with his wife and kids about 20 years ago. A new contract with Target in Cedar Falls resulted in the move to Nashua, which is located about a half hour north of there.

When his father John Karl Corathers passed away in January 2020, it impacted the younger Corathers greatly: despite the distance between them, they called each other every day and had remained close throughout their lives.

It also forced him to examine what really mattered as he thought about his father’s unyielding passions for initiatives like the therapeutic horse program for veterans he was deeply involved in. It led John to realize he didn’t want to die behind the wheel of a semi-truck and inspired him to launch a food truck specializing in the southern recipes he had grown up creating and preparing.

The food truck business grew and succeeded over the next several years, but a near-death experience and extended hospital stay in 2025 threw another wrench in John’s plans. He lost his food truck and went back to driving to bring in income. He was eventually able to purchase a smaller food truck before an opportunity arose through word of mouth communications between people in Nashua and the Tama-Toledo area. He had been leasing a commissary building in Nashua that wasn’t a full-blown restaurant, but when that lease expired, he heard about the available space here through building owner Marty Hardon.

The two businessmen met and worked out a deal — quoting “The Godfather,” Corathers described it as “an offer he couldn’t refuse” — and he got to work on preparing the location to become the home of Johnny’s Southern Grill & Seafood.

“I can honestly say that without Marty’s 100 percent support, this would not be happening. I wasn’t funded to buy a place like this,” Corathers said.

And while money is important to keep any business in operation, he added that he’s motivated by something deeper as he always seeks to help others and share his southern flavors with customers who wouldn’t be able to get them anywhere else in Iowa.

“I’ve taken the flavors and methods that I’ve learned in grandma’s restaurant and aunts and uncles’ restaurants and the Cajun flair from Louisiana… and then breading methods and things that I’ve learned from a Cajun chef and just kind of melded them all, and over the years, I’ve created my own flavors,” he said.

His dry breading methods even allow customers with Celiac disease to enjoy his culinary creations. And while seafood such as shrimp, catfish, grouper and scallops remains the core component of the menu, Corathers plans to mix in some specialty items like BBQ, gumbo and jambalaya along with low-country crawfish boils, steak and shrimp nights and more.

The seafood, he said, will always be fresh with a secret breading recipe, and he’ll never use a heat lamp or a microwave for as long as he’s in business. As the restaurant gets off the ground, the regular hours will likely be lunch and dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but they could be expanded based on staffing and demand.

To keep up on the latest happenings with the restaurant, follow the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078072729998. Positive reviews were already making the rounds after a soft opening earlier this month, and Corathers is excited to share his passion with the Tama-Toledo community. The food truck will also remain active at events around the region.