When there’s a long line outside a restaurant, the place must be doing something right. And when folks in line are waiting cheerfully to get in the door, well, that’s even better.

Timothy J. Powell, a Birmingham chef, knows how to keep customers happy at O’Taste & See, a family-owned eatery in the Crestwood Festival Centre. Powell, 36, specializes in hearty dishes that fill the tummy and satisfy the soul.

In fact, Powell has nicknamed his restaurant “Home of the Heavy Plates,” pointing to generous portions that form a crucial part of his food philosophy.

“‘Home of the Heavy Plates’ is simple,” Powell said in an interview with AL.com. “You’re going to eat off this plate, the bare minimum is two times, and some people say they eat off of it three times. I guess it depends on your appetite. But very rarely will you finish a plate. … I’m big on food quality and food quantity. Nobody’s going to leave hungry.”

Although Powell is a humble guy, he’s proud that O’Taste & See has found success over the past year, serving up fried chicken, oxtails, beef tips and other dishes that evoke grandma’s kitchen. Powell, who started cooking for spaghetti dinners at his church, doesn’t have formal training as a chef, but he’s clearly got a passion for preparing tasty food.

“God taught me how to cook,” said Powell, the son of two pastors. “I give this gift totally credit to God.”

He opened O’Taste & See in December 2022, taking over the former location of a wings joint in the shopping center at 7001 Crestwood Blvd. Powell’s restaurant is tucked into the back of the center, near a Burlington store and a movie theater formerly known as The Edge.

“I didn’t even know this place was here,” Powell said. “It was a God move. I was just driving by and — boom! — the sign was in the window, and we began to get the ball rolling from there. I had a dream but I didn’t know how long it would take. I started from very humble beginnings.”

He named the restaurant after a Bible verse, Psalms 34:8: “O taste and see that the Lord is good: Blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”

Faith and food are important to Powell, and he soon began to draw a devoted base of customers to O’Taste & See, mostly via word-of-mouth and posts on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

“It’s not that I haven’t wanted to get out in the community,” Powell said, “but the community seems to just come. And I’m grateful.”

Sundays are especially busy at the restaurant, with lines snaking out the door and heading in the direction of the cinema. Powell’s menu for O’Taste & See is organized as a meat-and-two, but hungry customers don’t always stick to that.

“It could be a meat-and-five, because most people that come here are getting a lot of sides,” Powell said. “But it is definitely soul food. I cook from the soul. I believe that the food should be prepared from the soul. And you can tell the difference.”

Several main dishes have become popular at O’Taste & See, Powell said, but he pointed to one as a particular favorite. “Our hamburger steak is crazy,” he said. “Hamburger steak with onions and homemade gravy, over a bed of rice.”

Let’s take a closer look.

WHERE DID THE RECIPE COME FROM?

“It’s my recipe,” Powell said. “It comes from trial and error, because I had to get it down to a science.”

HOW IS THE DISH PREPARED?

“We’re authentic soul food, so I’m not giving you a frozen patty,” Powell said. “I’m hand-patting all of our burgers. They are 100 percent beef, good quality beef. I cook it on the grill. I only use two seasonings for it, only two. We hand-chop our onions. Onions are cooked on the grill, also. It smells great. We do everything by hand here, and the gravy is homemade. … It’s cooked well done, but moist, not the dried-out well done.”

(Note: Powell declined to reveal the two seasonings he uses on hamburger steak, preferring to keep that an in-house secret.)

WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL?

“What I would feel makes that dish special is, you’re able to take something such as a regular burger — most people would complement it with a bun, ketchup, cheese, pickles, mustard — and there goes a burger,” Powell said. “But let’s take this same meat, and make it into a healthy meal. It’s actually a meal with some homemade gravy, with some fresh onions, sitting on a bed of rice, with two extra sides.” Price for the dish: $15, including two sides.

WHAT SIDES GO BEST WITH HAMBURGER STEAK?

“I would recommend macaroni and cheese, and yams,” Powell said. “That is the meal.”

WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE?

“It tastes like love,” Powell said. “Love sometimes got a little kick in it, but it’s going to wrap back around to love and warming the heart.”

HOW POPULAR IS IT?

“I’m probably doing 100-120 pounds of beef per week,” Powell said. “And that’s (over) four days. That’s a lot of beef.”

WHAT ELSE DO THEY SERVE?

Fried and smothered pork chops are another favorite with diners, Powell said. (”I probably go though five packs of pork chops a day.”) Other main dishes include fried and baked chicken, turkey wings, neck bones, meatloaf, white fish, and liver and onions. Powell, who enjoys Italian food, recently added a three-layer lasagna to the menu, along with Tim’s Cajun Chicken Pasta.

Sides abound at O’Taste & See, including collard greens, fried corn, green beans, cabbage, okra, pinto beans, and broccoli and cheese casserole.

Desserts include banana pudding and Peach Dump Cake (similar to a peach cobbler), which are made in house. Renee’s Sweet Sensations creates the other desserts, which include pound cake, red velvet cake, carrot cake, key lime pie and more. Powell said Renee’s Sweet Sensations was founded by his mother, who makes the desserts from scratch.

The restaurant also offers a specialty drink called Country Punch. “The Country Punch is a beverage I came up with five years ago,” Powell said. “It’s a punch filled with flavor and love. I make it in a 5-gallon cooler, with a whisk. Only three other people know the recipe.”

WHEN ARE THEY OPEN?

O’Taste & See is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, and 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays. The restaurant is closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays. Powell said about 60-70 percent of his business is takeout food, but there’s a dining area inside the restaurant, as well.