Food and chaos.
It’s what Mary Allison Wright remembers of her childhood family reunions near their hometown of Chattanooga, Tenn., with her younger brother, John David Wright.
“We would run around with our cousins and cause absolute chaos,” she said.
Fast forward to today, and food still dominates the lives of the Wrights. And the chaos? Well, it’s more about managing it, or massaging it, than letting it go unchecked.
The siblings, along with Mary’s husband, McLain Hedges, have run a bottle shop, a barbecue pop-up and a bar, Yacht Club, all in Denver. Fresh off a James Beard Award nomination for Outstanding Professionals in Cocktail Service for Yacht Club’s awe-inspiring drinks, they opened Rougarou, 2844 Welton St., a Southern restaurant, last month in Five Points, just feet away from the intersection that lends the neighborhood its name.
They are working within a framework they know all too well. If Mary’s and John David’s family gatherings consisted of children running amok, popping biscuits and deviled eggs, Hedges’ involve party games, silly hats and a buffet large enough to feed everybody and their in-laws. The three have traveled regularly across the Southern U.S. — from Tennessee to Virginia and south to Alabama and Florida — where they picked up many of the dishes and drinks on Rougarou’s menu.
“It’s just making sure that everyone is in on it, and making everyone feel as welcome as possible,” Mary said of their family. “And I think that definitely speaks to who we are and what we’re striving to do here, too.”
Owners of Rougarou, a newly opened Southern food restaurant in Denver, Mary Allison Wright, left, her husband McLain Hedges, right, and Mary’s brother and head chef John David Wright, center, pose for a portrait on Sept. 4, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Rougarou — the name refers to a werewolf-like creature of Louisiana folklore — has a menu that gives a stylish upgrade to Southern classics and allows John David to build on an impressive career at restaurants in Chattanooga and Denver. He’s worked at Hop Alley, Uncle and Odie B’s and is responsible for Yacht Club’s signature hot dogs.
The pork shoulder ($19), for instance, doesn’t look like the one meat lovers are used to. It looks more like a layered cake, the result of John David pressing the pork shoulder upon roasting with water-filled containers weighing more than 20 pounds. Cut into the shoulder and i turns into “little bricks,” he said. It’s glazed in a sweet and sour sauce, a tangy flavor he said is popular in the South and adds “depth and complexity” to the dish.
A pork shoulder dish is photographed in the kitchen at Rougarou, a newly opened Southern food restaurant in Denver, on Sept. 4, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
The sweet-and-sour combination finds its way into other dishes as well. The blue cheese tart starter ($15) is topped with a green tomato and pickle relish. A salad of collard greens ($15) is brightened up by preserved strawberries and a sorghum vinaigrette. The hot-and-sour catfish ($21) is breaded and fried, and the “Granddad’s” chicken ($17) is served with a white, vinegar-based barbecue sauce that begs to be soaked up with white rice.
Hedges, the mixologist among the crew, has concocted a fragrant array of martinis, classic cocktails and what the drink menu calls “tropical-ish” beverages. (Drinks in these categories are all $15.) The “Holy Trinitini,” in the martini aisle, is his take on a Gibson, complete with the pearl onion on a metal spear. From the tropical-ish selections, the “Champagnekiller” and the bananas foster julep are both strong and sweet.
The restaurant is set inside a building whose interior decor, installed by the family, resembles that of a house in a bygone bayou. A gator head pokes out of one wall; a framed artwork of a white magnolia adorns another. An adjacent storefront will eventually be stocked with wine, home goods and take-home versions of their dishes, such as pimento cheese and smoked catfish dips.
Rougarou, a newly opened Southern food restaurant in Denver, features décor with touches of Southern charm on Sept. 4, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
The kitchen is open until 1 a.m. six days a week. (The restaurant is closed Wednesdays.) The atmosphere is generous: The Wright family says they are donating proceeds from one dish and a cocktail each month to the Curtis Park neighborhood organization. They will also host DJs and bands, as they do at Yacht Club, including for festivals along Welton Street.
“I think it’s a fantastic way for … Rougarou to give back to the community,” Stephen Bennett, the president of Curtis Park Neighbors, said in a statement.
The Wright family enterprise is kept buzzing by the camaraderie between the front of house, the bar and the kitchen. Jokes fly among the kitchen while servers greet customers and friends who drop by. Music is a near constant.
“We lean on each other when we need to,” Mary said. “There’s an unshakable amount of trust.”
She confided in her brother and Hedges when she needed a hysterectomy for fibroids earlier this year. They made progress to open Rougarou as she recovered.
“Even through the exhaustion, it’s a level of happiness none of us has ever felt,” she said.
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