Cooking with heart and soul.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

With apologies to James Brown, Papa's got a brand-new bag.

It's catering.

And retail sales of his popular sauces and seasonings. And cooking classes. And - maybe - a televised cooking show.

Ted "Papa" Lee is leveraging the success of his Papa's Soul Food Kitchen & Blues Joint at Blair Boulevard and Fourth Avenue in Eugene's Whiteaker neighborhood to extend his barbecue-flavored reach.

He has leased the former Pasta Ravello storefront - across Blair and next-door to the Red Barn Natural Grocery - to open a catering and production kitchen next month. The sauces and seasonings will be produced at his new Papa's Soul Food Kitchen Whiteaker Hall, and the facility will also accommodate Lee's cooking classes and the filming of pilot episodes for the show he intends to "shop around" to local television stations.

"Man, it's been a beautiful thing," he says. "We've had the busiest winter we've had since we've been up and running. Every night, there's still a waiting list, and we still have our live music from Wednesday through Saturday.

"I guess we've just found that niche."

Lee's career as a restaurateur has been a matter of building incrementally upon his successes. He started his barbecue business from a red cart at Seventh Avenue and Polk Street, graduated to a cubbyhole storefront on West 11th Avenue and then moved three years ago into his Whiteaker neighborhood location, across Fourth Avenue from the Tiny Tavern.

His new plans are another expansion upon what he's already doing.

"We just stay true to what we do, and we have fun with it," Lee says.

He and several friends are stripping the Italian facade out of the former Cafe Ravello storefront and replacing it with the same rustic board and corrugated metal motif that they used in his restaurant across the street. Because he and his friends are doing so much of the work, Lee says he does not know the project's total cost.

The new kitchen is expected to be up and running by the second week of April.

"It has to, because we already have parties and stuff booked," he says. "That's why we're up painting to the wee hours of the morning.

"We needed to expand, because we're turning down a lot of catering jobs - left and right," he says. "This spot came available, so we picked it up."

The new space is in the historic Willis Building, which - like the adjoining Red Barn - is owned by the Neighborhood Economic Development Corp. NEDCO is a nonprofit agency that promotes home ownership and retail growth in lower-income neighborhoods.

The production kitchen will be primarily a behind-the-scenes addition to his business, but retail customers will be able to buy some items there - such as whole sweet potato pies, and the sauces and seasonings that Lee intends to start producing by this summer.

He'll offer three sauces: Soul Barbecue, Regular Habanero and Sweet Honey Love. His seasonings will include In-house Cajun Blackening, Southern Fried Fish Flour, Creole Spice Blend and Regular Barbecue Rub.

His classes, which are not yet scheduled, will teach everything from sausage-making to cooking gumbo. And he wants the television show - which Lee calls, "Now You're Cooking with Soul" - to look at the origins of various foods and "the whole mystic of the foods and flavors out there."

If all the new business ventures don't keep him busy enough, Lee has one more project in the works. Sometime in the next few weeks, he's going to start a "barbecue blues revival" on Sunday afternoons at the restaurant - featuring himself and his musical partner, Walker T. Ryan as "100 Percent Delta Stomp."

"That's one thing I'm really excited about," Lee says.