“A Soul Food Missile” — Guy Discovers the Soul Roll at Mert’s Heart & Soul
When Guy Fieri rolled into Charlotte, North Carolina, he knew exactly what he was after. As he put it: “When you come to Charlotte, North Carolina, you got to try some low country.” And Mert’s Heart & Soul, the downtown gem run by chef and owner James Bizzell since 1998, delivered in a way that had Guy reaching for NASA comparisons.
The Soul Roll: Everything Southern in One Bite
The standout dish at Mert’s isn’t your typical Southern plate — it’s a deep-fried flavor bomb called the soul roll. Chef James starts by building the components separately: collard greens cooked for an hour with garlic, olive oil, onions, adobo, vinegar, and water. The fried chicken gets a simple treatment — adobo seasoning and regular all-purpose flour before hitting the fryer.
Then comes the assembly. James layers the collard greens, fried chicken, seasoned rice, and black-eyed peas onto a wrapper, rolls it tight, seals it with egg wash, and drops it in the fryer at 350 degrees. After cutting them on the bias, he finishes with spicy honey mustard and garnish.
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Guy’s reaction? Pure amazement. “That’s astronaut soul food,” he declared, comparing it to how astronauts get their food prepared and ready to go. “This is a soul food missile… everything combined in one easy to eat bite. I got to talk to NASA about that.”
Chef James confirmed what the locals already know: people don’t leave Mert’s without ordering the soul roll. Similar to how other chefs reveal secrets to their most-popular recipes, James has found that perfect combination that keeps customers coming back.
Shrimp and Grits Done Right
The second dish that caught Guy’s attention was the shrimp and grits with brown gravy. This one hit close to home — Guy revealed his mom was raised in North Carolina, prompting him to declare himself “a good eating fool.”
James starts the grits with cold water, margarine, and yellow organic stone grits, whisking them in carefully. “The thing about grits, you got to keep stirring them so these do not stick together,” he explained, adding salt and cream to finish.
The gravy comes together with oil, flour, water, garlic, beef base, onions, and — of course — adobo. “That’s my middle name,” James joked about his liberal use of the seasoning. The shrimp cook quickly in oil, then get topped with the brown gravy, green onions, and tomatoes before landing on a bed of those perfect grits with local focaccia bread on the side.
Guy noted the gravy had “a nice little tang to it” and appreciated that the grits had “a little bite to them… can’t be too soggy.” One customer summed it up perfectly: “I do try to duplicate it when I get home but it doesn’t come out the same.”
Tips from Chef James’s Kitchen
Watch the episode closely and you’ll pick up real technique. For collard greens, that full hour of cooking time matters. For grits, constant stirring prevents clumping, and cream makes the difference in texture. And adobo? Use it liberally — on the chicken, in the gravy, wherever you want depth. It’s clearly Chef James’s secret weapon, much like the bold seasonings you’ll find in dishes like lemonade pork that Guy calls “Flavor City”.
A Treasure Chest in the Asphalt Jungle
Guy closed out his visit by praising James directly: “The piece that people love about Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives is meeting characters like yourself that invest so much in this… you embrace each little step as the most critical piece.”
Customers echoed the sentiment, calling it “straight down home country” and comparing the food to their grandmothers’ cooking. As James himself described his restaurant: “It’s like a treasure chest in the middle of the asphalt jungle.”
Find Mert’s Heart & Soul and other Triple D locations in our restaurant directory.