The Perfect Pear- Cooking from the heart in the heart of Perry

While the saying goes, ‘nobody’s perfect,’ the management of The Perfect Pear try to be as close to 100 percent when it comes to serving its diners visiting the establishment on Carroll Street in downtown Perry. Who knew of the power of pimento cheese and tomato soup?

Owner Megan Brent says she worked for many years in the food and restaurant business.

“I catered for a large restaurant,” she said. “And decided if I were to ever work that hard again, I was going to do it for myself. I found out I was good at it, and I really do enjoy it. Everything from the food to the people, it’s really my niche.”

Brent was a part of the Village Shops – also on Carroll Street – for three years. She said Leah and Brian Fountain owned the building and were the “best landlords.” This past week marked the five-year anniversary of The Perfect Pear at its current Carroll location, making it eight years total.

“We’ve always been a catering company,” said Brent. “We did private luncheons, weddings, and functions like that. There was a push for The Perfect Pear to open for lunch. We built a wonderful customer base. There was a little bit of buzz about it. We thought the next natural step would be to open for lunch.

“Little did we know we would end up smack dab in the middle of Carroll Street thanks to Randall and Terre Walker. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. We hope to eventually progress to more days than Sunday through Wednesday.”

Brent is thankful for her regular customers who call Perry home, and she can’t imagine being made to feel at home more anywhere else.

“We know people can go anywhere to dine, and they continuously come to see us,” said Brent. “We don’t really advertise, so when we do a wedding, we often end up doing all the siblings’ weddings.”

The soup and sandwich reference at the beginning is about The Perfect Pear’s best selling item. Brent added it takes a comfortable environment to draw people back to her place.

“I think we are a tight-knit little family here,” she said. “I would like to think my employees are happy … I am happy to have them here. We do things as a family. We make (most) decisions together.

“It is truly absolutely fulfilling for me to see people come to the door every day. We have just started doing Sunday brunch, and every Sunday for the last month or so we have had a group of people waiting at the door for us to unlock it. They have taken the time out of their day. Sometimes they drive from Macon … Dublin. People come from all over to see us. It makes all the long hours worthwhile.”

Brent works herself and runs The Perfect Pear by another credo, ‘Time is of the essence with everything.’ Or, ‘Hurry up!’ There’s a method she said they must follow being in the food preparation business. The restaurant kitchen does not feature a freezer.

“Our food is fresh and made to order,” said Brent. “As often as possible it is local and organic. We’ve been doing that for several years. For a great deal of time we were only one of two restaurants in Middle Georgia that offered local and organic ingredients.”

One of The Perfect Pear suppliers is Greenway Farms of Georgia located in Roberta. Brent said that’s where they get their beef, and Greenway makes specialty jams and jellies just for them. One of those is the fig jam she said you can’t get anywhere else.

“I always believe you take your first bite with your eyes, and we want our food to be attractive,” said Brent.

Brent would certainly like to be open more days of the week, but she said the other side of The Perfect Pear – those weddings – makes that difficult.

“The cooking’s the easy part,” she said. “It’s the planning out, when things are going to be out, made, set up. Eventually, we’ll probably fade out of so much catering, which has been my bread and butter. We see (the restaurant) growing. It’s nice to be here in our element fixing good food.”

Will The Perfect Pear be open again for dinner? Brent doesn’t want to make promises on that, but does see dinner hours on the weekends coming in the future.

“We thank everyone for the support they give us,” she said.

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