Featured Image: VisitGreenvilleSC
In 1917, Eugenia Duke began building her legacy, making and selling simple sandwiches featuring her signature spread in Greenville, South Carolina. Today, Duke’s Mayonnaise reigns supreme across the South and is the third most popular mayo brand nationwide, best known for adding a creamy zip to a diversity of dishes.
“Besides her famous mayonnaise recipe, Eugenia was also a revered cook,” notes John Nolan, owner of Greenville History & Culinary Tours. In addition to Duke’s successful sandwich business, he says, she also opened a tea room that served full meals and published a cookbook. Duke was a rare female entrepreneur during an era when women’s options were quite limited. In all of these ways, she was an inspiration for many of Greenville’s queens of cuisine today.
Small Start, Big Presence
Growing up in Brownsville, Texas, Dayna Lee‑Márquez learned how to make tortillas and tamales at her grandmother’s side, so it was natural for her to bring that taste of the Rio Grande Valley with her when she moved to Greenville. Much like Duke, who got her start selling a limited menu of sandwiches like chicken salad and pimento cheese to hungry soldiers, Lee‑Márquez started out selling breakfast tacos at breweries. After evolving from pop-up to brick-and-mortar restaurant in 2021, however, it wasn’t long before Comal 864 was gaining national recognition — named as one of the restaurants putting Greenville on the map by Food & Wine in 2022, earning a nod as a James Beard Award semifinalist in 2023, and making USA Today’s Best Restaurants list in 2025.
And while Lee‑Márquez’s food was shaking up Greenville, the city was inspiring her in turn. “Duke’s is an important part of my menu,” says Lee‑Márquez, who notes she won’t eat any other mayonnaise now. “We only use Duke’s — from our aiolis and dressings to some of our most popular appetizers.” Her elote street corn recipe, for example, which is featured in the cookbook Eugenia Duke’s Unofficial Mayo Guide to Greenville, SC, is a mix of flavors Lee‑Márquez grew up with and the lauded condiment of her now home. “I grew up eating prepared Mexican street corn from the food vendors at the local flea market,” she says. Now, adding Duke’s to Comal 864’s elote “takes some of my earliest childhood memories and morphs them into something even better.”
Balancing Flavor and Tradition
Brazilian-born Tarciani Harger was a fashion designer before becoming executive pastry chef of iconic Southern restaurant Soby’s, where her designer’s eye continues to serve her well while she crafts illusion cakes and deconstructed banana cream pies. Her work is also informed by her community, says Harger. “Greenville has a food culture that feels both rooted in tradition and constantly evolving, and that balance is incredibly inspiring as a chef.”
Harger says Duke’s story resonates with her because it’s based on “the power of simple food done exceptionally well.” She notes that Duke’s Mayo can be an unexpectedly versatile ingredient thanks to its “signature richness and tang.” While Harger says she rarely makes the same dessert twice, she contributed a tried-and-true chocolate cake recipe to the Unofficial Mayo Guide, based on a neighbor’s recipe that she fondly recalls from childhood. Her version of the cake gets its intense richness, moisture, balance, and depth from the luscious mayonnaise.
Looking Back to Step Forward
“To be a part of Greenville’s story as a female entrepreneur feels optimistic,” says Khailing Neoh, chef and owner of Sum Bar. Like Duke, Neoh started her business to fill a gap in the market, opening the city’s first dedicated dim sum restaurant. At Sum Bar, Neoh serves dishes like char siu pork, siu mai dumplings, and sesame balls, and welcomes newcomers into the fold on Mahjong Mondays, hosting beginner classes alongside open play.
“Duke’s mayo legacy and reputation were among the first things I learned about Greenville,” says Neoh, who moved to the area a decade ago. She appreciates how people in Greenville strive to look to both the past and the future — acknowledging the city’s success stories and past shortcomings simultaneously is “respectable and inspiring.” Entrepreneurship and the resulting small businesses, Neoh says, are at the heart of the community’s vibrant, welcoming culture. “I would hope Eugenia Duke would be proud of what Greenville is today. I imagine she would be.”
For more inspiring stories from Southern neighbors, click here.
