Couple opening baseball-themed restaurant in Portsmouth swings for fences with menu

PORTSMOUTH — The idea for the new Behind the Plate restaurant got started when John Edwards and his brother made an 11-day road trip to nine Major League Baseball stadiums in 2018.

Edwards, now 37, and his brother found new foods in each city they visited, including pierogies in Pittsburgh during a stop to watch a Pirates game. “I was absolutely blown away,” he recalled. “I got home from the trip and could not stop telling my wife… what it was all about and what we found, and she told me to put together a business plan.”

The business model was originally designed for a food truck. But five years later, Edwards and his wife, chef Martha Edwards, are swinging for the fences and taking their vision to the next level in Portsmouth's West End.

The Nottingham couple are in the midst of revamping a 999 Islington St. suite in a less than two months to open Behind the Plate, a 40-seat, baseball-themed restaurant with a culinary focus that will pay homage to America’s pastime.

Pending city permits, the couple hopes to open Oct. 18, a little more than a week before the start of the World Series.

The restaurant is painted Leary Field dugout green and decked out with baseballs, a painting of Willie Mays’ legendary over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series, homemade vintage stadium signs and a map of the country showing where each dish on the menu is from.

“Our whole motto for this is, ‘Live life like a 3-1 count.’ You have a 3-1 count, you swing for the fences,” Edwards said. “You swing away because you have all the chances in the world.”

How Martha and John Edwards came to love baseball and cooking

Like many New Englanders, John Edwards fell in love with the game as a child when he walked through a Fenway Park tunnel and took in the Red Sox’ home turf for the first time. His passion for baseball grew as he aged, and he has played in the local Coastal New England Baseball League for a decade.

Martha Edwards, 31, is a former Surf restaurant chef in Portsmouth with experience cooking in Manchester and Boston kitchens. Having a baseball fanatic as a husband and a daughter who is arguably more obsessed with the game has led to her feel like her life mirrors the 2005 movie “Fever Pitch” starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon.

“I grew up on the Red Sox and going to their games, but I wasn’t this intense until I met John, who lives, breathes and dies baseball,” she said. “For me, the whole concept is more about being able to really dive into all the food that each state has to offer.”

Foods from baseball cities on menu at Behind the Plate

The restaurant, which neighbors Image Arts, will feature a menu that goes beyond the classic stadium fare of hot dogs, peanuts and Cracker Jack.

Appetizers will include a Camden Yards-inspired crab cake, a Cubano sandwich and Cincinnati chili, with the entree list featuring sandwiches that come with a customer’s choice of a double smashed beef or pork patty, fried chicken or a vegetable patty as the base of the meal.

The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is well represented on the sandwich portion of the menu, called “The Show.”

“The Pesky," named after late Red Sox stalwart Johnny Pesky, will be a customer’s base choice served with thick-cut bacon, lobster bisque spread, buttered corn and greens on potato bread. Its counterpart, “The Pinstripe,” will have a base choice plus jalapeno kraut, Banh Mi vegetables and bang bang sauce on Rye bread.

Ten of the current 28 Major League Baseball cities will be represented on Behind the Plate’s menu when the West End restaurant opens next month: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, New York City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tampa Bay and Toronto.

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“This menu will rotate as teams change positioning, and make stronger pushes into the postseason,” the business’ website states. “We will focus on key rivalries, and never forget about the home regions of the star players.”

During the baseball offseason months, the restaurant will introduce new dishes representing new cities as trades and acquisitions occur across MLB.

“I’m just excited for people to have really good food. Just something that isn’t rinse and repeat, something different,” Martha Edwards said. “In the same vein, I’m not looking to be the next Michelin Star chef. I’m looking to give you a plate of food that you think about after you eat.”

Baseball theme will go well beyond food

Behind the Plate will sell Topps and Bowman baseball cards at the restaurant, with each children’s meal coming with a free pack. The restaurant will project baseball games, whether they’re rivalry games, playoff games or classic games aired during the offseason, on a brick wall inside the restaurant for patrons to watch alongside a television.

One treasured family memento will hang on Behind the Plate’s walls. The Edwards’ eldest child of two, their 9-year-old daughter, is an avid baseball fan who plays Little League and strives to become a professional player.

Instead of an allowance, according to her parents, she has asked to be paid in baseball cards.

Eight months ago, at a sports card shop in Rochester, their daughter picked out a box of Topps baseball cards that came with a promise of one special card in the pack. To the Edwards’ surprise, as well as the store owner’s, the pack included an autographed card of Los Angeles Angels superstar outfielder Mike Trout, a card worth hundreds of dollars.

“Immediately, I go to take it and hand it back to him, and he goes, ‘No, my word is my word. That’s her card,’” John Edwards said of the sports card store owner. “I was blown away. It was a really incredible gesture.”

That Trout card, now wrapped in cellophane and framed, will be available for all to see at Behind the Plate.

“It’s going to be like our first dollar earned sort of decoration,” he said.

Couple has restaurant experience, but this is 'different ballgame'

John Edwards previously worked locally for Thirsty Moose Taphouse and Stoneface Brewing Co. and helped start up their secondary locations. The endeavor he and his wife are undertaking, however, is the first time they are opening a new restaurant from start to finish.

If the restaurant is approved to open in mid-October, the renovation process will have been done in just 45 days, a speedy effort that has required all of their attention.

“It’s a whole different ballgame when you’re doing it with your own dime and your own time,” said Martha Edwards.

“This is us taking a swing at it. It means everything in the world to us,” John Edwards said.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Behind the Plate restaurant opening in Portsmouth on Islington Street