Women's Clothing Boutique in Thunderbolt, GA

Every neighborhood should have a Finches.

Everything about the "sandwiches and sundries" shop that opened on Dec. 1 is darling, and it is no surprise that the first month of operations has gone so well for husband-and-wife co-owners Miles and Rebecca Matthews, and co-owner Jamie Pleta, who is also the eatery’s manager.

“Things have been so good,” Rebecca said and then said it again, each word spaced apart with a clearly thankful emphasis.

“We’re doing it. We’re going to make it. We’re keeping the lights on,” she said with a delightful laugh that was a recurrent punctuation mark in our conversation this past Sunday as we sat in the sun on Finches’ front patio.

Sandwiched between YES Antiques and Thrift, and a one-time automotive garage turned short-term vacation rental, the new north Thunderbolt shop is adorable inside and out, freshly renovated while also looking like it has been there for decades.

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For the hour on either side of noon, the eager eater traffic was steady, patrons calling out a "hi" or a "thank you" to Rebecca by name, who then returned the familiar favor with a smile in her eyes to show for the one under her mask.

“The neighborhood support has been phenomenal,” she said, eyes still smiling.

Again, I wish Finches were in my neighborhood.

Rebecca Matthews knew this part of Savannah well as a tourist. Her best friend since high school had attended SCAD, so she had visited town often over twenty-some years.

“Bonaventure really held a place in my heart, and I always remembered the cute bungalows stretched along here,” she said, looking out over the shop's location on 2600 Mechanics Ave.

Having most recently worked on New Jersey’s largest organic farm, where Miles launched its food truck and Rebecca ran its agro-tourism program, the couple moved to Savannah in 2016, when Miles was named junior sous chef at the newly opened Husk.

Fittingly, what endeared Savannah to them was a singular experience during a stopover stay, what Rebecca called “a glorious meal and also the epitome of Southern hospitality at The Grey.”

That evening, the Matthewes had to interrupt their meal when they received news that a close friend had been in a bad accident. The Grey staff took care of the tab and even invited them back for breakfast the next morning.

Already aware of the city’s fine food scene, the couple became enamored of its authenticity and was touched by the genuine kindness given them.

“Food and beverage people stick together,” Rebecca explained. “We could feel that is part of the pulse of the city. There are a lot of hospitality and service workers here that are thriving and are what make it feel like home.”

With Miles in the kitchens at Husk and then The Alida Hotel, Rebecca was part of the opening team at Perry Lane Hotel and then managed the property’s boutique and was a food-and-beverage supervisor.

Jamie Pleta was also a food-and-beverage manager at Perry Lane and helped open the luxury hotel, and “she and I just hit it off,” Matthews recalled.

Not far down the road from Finches, the Matthewses moved into one of those little bungalows Rebecca remembered from all those trips to town, and this past November, a bike ride led them past the then vacant property.

At that point, the idea of their own little sandwich shop was barely a seed.

The calendar ominously turned to 2020, and Rebecca and Jamie stayed at Perry Lane until the worst of the pandemic began taking its toll on hospitality workers. Around the same time, Miles ended a two-year stint at The Alida.

They needed jobs so they made jobs.

Planning for an as-yet-unnamed eatery started in March, when the Matthewses went into YES to talk to proprietors Cookie Espinoza and Frankie Kerby, who own the trio of buildings tucked into the southeast corner of Mechanics Ave. and River Dr.

Rebecca “just connected with Cookie. She and I, like this,” she snapped, the sound effect filling in for words that fail in such moments. “You know when you make a friend instantly?”

This was a casual inquiry about a charming property that had not yet been redone throughout: a neatened-up exterior and a bare interior.

Rebecca saw the space and even showed it to a friend, brainstorming a retail concept that never took flight.

Throughout, she kept in touch with Espinoza and Kerby about the property, who mentioned some "talk" about a possible coffee shop going in but said that they would be happy to talk to the Matthewses about whatever idea they dreamed up.

Rebecca knew what she and Miles would bring to the venture but acknowledged that a piece was missing.

“We need[ed] someone who was in charge,” she admitted. “He has his skill set. I have my skill set. Together, they work really nicely, but there’s still this middle ground” of the books and the tech and the customer service that befit a manager: Jamie Pleta.

Matthews invited her to “take a walk” in Thunderbolt, and Pleta agreed that it was a sweet space and a great idea.

Matthews said, “Do this with us.”

“She fell for it,” she added with a big laugh. “In her iconic Chicago accent, she said, ‘Why the hell not?’”

“She jumped in, took a leap of faith,” Matthews continued. “We were here open before she’d even had a bite of his food.”

The trio held meetings on the Matthewses’ front porch and planned in private, not to keep anything from anyone but simply to counterbalance the “closely knit together” fear of failing and getting their collective hopes up too much.

“I didn’t know what to call it,” Rebecca admitted.

The business plan needed a name once they began shopping for loans and insurance.

She had just finished reading "The Goldfinch," still by her bedside. The gas station next door had once been known as Byrd’s.

Atticus Finch came to mind, “definitely a character that’s been in my life for a long time,” she said. “My sister, if she was a boy, was going to be named Atticus.”

Even Mother Nature seemed to play her part in their alighting on an avian appellation.

“Oddly enough,” Matthews recalled with another laugh. "This little bird followed us around during all of our meetings, to the point that we thought we were hallucinating.”

They saw the same distinct feathered friend over and again, and while at the nearby Vertu Farms market one day, she heard a woman say, “What a beautiful little bird.”

There it was: a little bluish finch.

“See you next Sunday,” called a patron as Matthews finished the reverie and stood up to take a tray from another.

Seating at Finches, by design, is outside only. The interior’s maximum occupancy is 11, but there is no point in using up that space for so few distanced diners when local retail can add the sundries to the sandwiches.

Roughly half of Finches is a cute and carefully curated bodega with a cooler of beverages and a gift shop of local merchandise, including handmade candles and even masks.

“We want to feel local,” said Rebecca.

Meanwhile, Miles Matthews is in the compact kitchen, a small space where an experienced chef changes the menu daily and preps almost everything on a panini press, using Auspicious Baking Co. breads and pastries.

In designing the interior, the obliquely open kitchen was purposeful so that folks can see the talented and passionate man who makes the food.

“That’s Miles. This has been his career path for twenty years,” Rebecca said, highlighting some of the kitchens that he has helped put on the map over a career spent in quality cuisine.

“It’s his turn, which is really nice for me to watch.”

Also by design and out of practicality, Finches’ menu is small - a handful of sandwich mains, a soup, a few noshes - and the team is “completely unapologetic about not posting” it. Whatever is on offer that day will be tasty, and there will be something for anyone’s appetite.

The restaurant is “really dog friendly,” Rebecca emphasizing "really," and the menu that Sunday featured grilled cheese and a PBJ for the kids both young and my age.

The Dive Bar, a scrumptious chicken sandwich slathered with proper caramelized onions and house-made beer cheese sauce, is messy yummy, the sign of all great sandwiches and a harbinger of any meat-on-bread Miles concocts.

The Millennials Toast deserves the praise other food writers in town have already heaped on it: Auspicious Bakery bread, plenty of smashed avocado, toasted almonds, sesame seeds, and roasted garlicky spices, served with an equally flavorful arugula salad.

As a hopefully more munificent 2021 looms, it is anything between difficult and impossible to come to terms with the past year that might well go into the annals as "Worst Year in World History." For so many folks, imagining a day-to-day that has symbolic sunshine and silver linings is still ‘too soon’, as the saying goes.

All the same, even if Nietzsche was a ninny and order does not come out of chaos, maybe sandwiches do.

“It was the push that we needed,” Rebecca Matthews said soberly of the pandemic’s repercussions on their lives, “and we’re doing it for ourselves.”

From Tuesday through Sunday, if the literal sun is shining, head to Thunderbolt and sit outside at Finches. By the people and by the patio fire pit, you will be welcomed warmly, and you will immediately wish that this place was serving sandwiches in your neighborhood.

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