A desire to pair craft beer with quality food gave way to The Camp, a restaurant and sports bar Under-the-Hill designed to showcase a variety of high-quality beers from the region with an array of Southern staple menu items.

The idea behind The Camp, owner Mike Wagner said, was to create a local gathering place where friends and family could enjoy comfort food, watch sports, share stories and try some of the finest beers being created by state and regional breweries.

“We wanted to make something where everyone could enjoy some good food, cold beer and just enjoy each other’s company,” Wagner said. “We’re not just another bar, though, because we’re more restaurant than bar, but we do want to push these new craft beers that are blowing up right now.”

The Silver Street restaurant aims to take advantage of recent changes to beer laws in Mississippi that allow the sale of a variety of beers with higher alcohol content.

The menu, however, is just as important as the beer, Wagner said, and was the main reason the California native brought in executive chef Mark Coates to design and execute a simple, yet robust menu.

“It’s simple to a degree, but really there’s nothing simple about it,” said Coates, a Forest native. “We have a serious passion for food here, and it’s a lot of chef-driven food that we’re going to make perfect every time to make sure we’re giving the customer the best product.”

The best sellers on the menu since opening last week have been the premium burgers, which are all made with a half pound of angus beef brisket that’s ground daily at the restaurant and sandwiched between freshly baked bread made each morning.

The fresh ingredients and made-from-scratch items are the only way Coates cooks, he said.

“If it wasn’t squealing yesterday, I don’t want it in my kitchen,” Coates said of his meat selection. “I’ve been cooking my entire life and that’s the philosophy I’ve always taken, so that’s what I want to bring here to this kitchen and to Natchez.”

Other menu items include the “Camp Chili Mac,” which combines the restaurant’s chili and macaroni and cheese plates and loaded fries, which are topped with shredded cheddar, smoked mozzarella, bacon chunks, jalapeños and chipotle.

But the items that have yet to make it to the menu are what really excite Coates, who has led successful barbecue and restaurant operations in Philadelphia and Miami, among other locations.

“Craft beer is the perfect medium to pair with food, and Mississippi is going through a renaissance right now of bringing in local, craft beers,” Coates said. “You can design a beer around a meal or vice versa, so there’s a lot of varieties and choices we can experiment with.”

That renaissance is what originally attracted and inspired the idea for The Camp.

Wagner and his father in law, Richard Sheehan, had tossed around the idea of creating a sports bar and restaurant in years past, but Wagner said the pieces didn’t fit into place at the time.

Sheehan, who once owned Hollywood National Studio, purchased the Northgate Shopping Center on U.S. 61 North in 2007 after he sold his studio in Hollywood and needed a place to invest the proceeds.

Wagner visited Natchez a few times after the purchase and considered opening a restaurant in the shopping center.

“It just wasn’t the right time,” said Wagner, who worked in the hospitality industry before returning to school to study sports marketing. “I just wasn’t ready to move and make that change at the time.”

Last year, the opportunity resurfaced and, this time, Wagner was ready.

“I had made a business and marketing plan for a sports bar when I went back to school, and it just so happened that I was extremely stressed out in my job and wanted something else to do with my wife being pregnant and my son on the way,” Wagner said. “Richard (Sheehan) mentioned moving to Mississippi to look at starting something here, and three weeks later we were on a plane coming to Natchez.”

The trip served as a chance for Wagner to begin looking at available spaces and learn more about the area, but it also helped spark the central idea behind The Camp.

“Being from California, I’m used to going to a bar and being able to get a lot of different draft beers, but I had a hard time finding that here,” Wagner said. “It just kind of made me go, ‘Hmm’ and start thinking.”

Then Wagner met Natchezian Chuck Caldwell, who told Wagner about Tin Roof, a brewery in Baton Rouge operated by his son, Charles Caldwell, and another Natchez native, William McGehee.

The encounter spawned a variety of brewery tours across Mississippi and Louisiana, where Wagner said he was overwhelmed with the generosity of those operating the facilities.

“I’m meeting all these owners of breweries, and my mind was blown about how nice they all were and willing to tell me everything I wanted to know,” Wagner said. “That’s when I realized we wanted to be all about the craft beer and bring something to Natchez that people haven’t seen before.”

The backdrop to bring those ideas to fruition eventually became Under-the-Hill, in the same location where a previous restaurant, Natchez Landing, once called home.

“It all made sense with having this historic, beautiful building that’s right here on the river, so we started the lease negotiations and started putting some ideas down on paper,” Wagner said.

The renovations to the building weren’t too intensive, Wagner said, and mainly involved making modifications to some of the dining room areas and the bar area.

More room was made at the bar to fit the 18 beer taps that Wagner hopes will see a lot of use.

“Because craft beer is relatively new to the South, we want to make sure we’re offering options and educating people who want to learn more about the beer,” Wagner said. “We just want people to have a great meal and, if they want, be exposed to some of the great new beers popping up right now.”

The Camp is located at 21 Silver St. and is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.