Otis Jackson's Soul Dog Serves Up Authentic Soul Food to NoHo

NoHo's newest restaurant opened its doors for business on April 26.

Located near the corner of Lankershim and Magnolia boulevards, Otis Jackson's Soul Dog is owned by Don and Rasheedah Scott, and the establishment serves up authentic soul food with a Southern Mississippi flavor. Patch dropped in to check the place out and find out more about the business from Rasheedah, who was behind the counter.

Don is a co-screenwriter of the films Barbershop and Barbershop 2, but the restaurant business has always been in his blood. His mother operated a restaurant in Cleveland for 30 years.

"Don always sort of ran from running a restaurant, and he wanted to strike out on his own, as most people do," Rasheedah Scott told Patch. "And then when we got together, I do a lot of catering and that kind of thing, and we played with the idea for about five years, looking for various locations."

Scott said when they started getting serious about opening a restaurant, NoHo was one of the first places they looked.

"I knew there was going to be a lot of development happening over the years when we first started looking over here, because I knew that North Hollywood was going to be something," Scott said. "It's got a great artistic vibe to it, people are so cool and down to earth here. I love it here."

Soul food is traditionally cooked with taste and flavor as the only objectives, but mindful of health concerns, the couple refer to their restaurant fare as “Conscious Comfort Food.” 

Soul Dog says its hot dogs are all-beef and have no gluten, antibiotics, added nitrates, preservatives or artificial colors. The chicken is all-natural and fried in non-allergenic peanut oil. They also chose a local artisan hot dog bun supplier. 

"My whole thing is, I will not feed other people what I will not feed my kids, so if we're going to do this restaurant, it has to be a real hot dog," said Scott. "I want to go to the factory, and I want to see what's happening in there and that kind of thing."

And who is Otis Jackson? Scott said Jackson was a friend of Don's family who helped instill in them a love of soul food as well as creative hot dog recipes.

"We're just paying homage to him. He just did things his own way," said Scott. "And from what we know he always encouraged people to start their own path, in that just because you are of a certain ethnic background it doesn't mean that you have to stay in a box. And we sort of apply that theory to what we do with soul food."

And why "Soul Dog"? Well, they serve soul food, and they serve hot dogs, but their specialty is mixing the two, putting traditional soul food fixings on the hot dogs, an idea that originated with Jackson.

"Who would have thought that you could put that on top of a hot dog?" said Scott. "And you can, you just have to think outside of soul food, what we think of it as, which is greens on a plate with some chicken."

Fitting the NoHo vibe, one of the walls is decorated with a large mural painted by two local artists, Steve Engels and his wife, Michaela Tomassini. The mural, dubbed “Ode to Ernie,” is inspired by the painting Sugar Shack by famed artist Ernie Barnes. The painting appeared on a Marvin Gaye album and in the closing credits of the 1970s television show Good Times.

Otis Jackson’s Soul Dog, 5166 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.