A Gallatin restaurant is serving up a hearty helping of humor alongside Southern favorites like chicken and dumplings and cobbler.
Featuring a daily variety of meat-and-threes, Mama’s Kitchen has turned its menu into a catchy series of videos, posted fresh daily.
The videos are bringing new attention to the East Main Street restaurant, which has attracted more than 100 new customers since the first one was dished out last month.
“They all say, ‘I saw your video; that’s why I’m here,’ ” co-owner Jim Clark said. “For people to come here for the first time and take that first bite, and you see that satisfied look on their face, we know we’ve done our job.”
The videos, said Paige Brown with the Gallatin Area Chamber of Commerce, are bringing the owners closer to their customers.
“They’re bringing creativity, enthusiasm and energy to the whole community,” Brown said. “It’s a brilliant marketing strategy.”
Cooking alone in June, Clark said the idea just hit him: “I’m gonna do a video today and tell people we’re having barbecue ribs.”
On that video from June 5 — the day Taste of Gallatin took place — Clark also told customers that Mama’s Kitchen would be closed for dinner and instead offer free lasagna at the annual sampler.
“We had an overwhelming response,” Clark said. “People loved it and said they wanted to see more.”
More was served. Sitting on a rocking chair with dancing chickens behind him or incorporating popular themes from films, such as “Forrest Gump,” Clark has since posted a video a day on the restaurant’s Facebook page. In one clip, he does a car salesman spinoff.
A singer/songwriter, he often incorporates songs in the 1-minute clips like on Monday when he sang “Butter Beans” by Little Jimmy Dickens to highlight the veggies on that day’s menu.
The song conveniently mentions cornbread made from an in-house recipe daily and served complimentary. This recipe, like many others at the cafeteria-style eatery, goes back decades.
Clark and co-owner Brian Baker of Hendersonville learned them from their mothers and now share made from scratch, feel-good meals in a hometown family atmosphere.
“We wanted to make it feel just like you’re going back and getting a hot meal at mama’s,” said Clark while mixing mashed potatoes at the kitchen earlier this week.
Supporting other businesses
The two country chefs prepare ingredients on-site as opposed to buying pre-made. Each day, they peel 75 pounds of potatoes by hand.
Meat seasonings are also mixed on-site and homegrown vegetables are cut and mixed in the kitchen, even the coleslaw. The signature dessert, Mama’s Dream Cake, is a chocolate delight soaked in condensed cream for two days.
Their homemade banana pudding and cherry cobbler won best desserts at the 2013 Taste of Gallatin, but Mama’s Kitchen is not here to compete.
“We support local businesses,” Baker said. “Everybody can use a little help. Small business is what Gallatin is raised on.”
Clark has already done a video from Classy Cakes More on the square and plans to answer other businesses’ incoming requests for the same. And while many have learned of Mama’s through the videos, Gallatin businessman and regular James Ramsey walked in the first day the venue opened in October 2012 and has been coming several times a week ever since.
“I’ve never had anything that wasn’t good,” said Ramsey, while finishing his chicken casserole. “It’s clean, it’s friendly, and I love their fried chicken and sweet potato casserole.”
After a friend recommended Mama’s to cousins Sarah Jennings and Nancy Voight, they have been coming from Wilson County once a week for months.
“I like the home-style cooking,” Jennings said. “I like it all.”
Contact Dessislava Yankova at 575-7170. Follow her on Twitter @desspor.
Mama’s Kitchen
495 E. Main St. in Gallatin
615-230-7865
Watch daily menu videos at:
www.facebook.com/mamas.kitchen.77?fref=ts
Hours
Sunday-Friday for lunch: 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
Tuesday and Thursday for dinner: 4 p.m.-7 p.m.
Saturday: closed
Learning to cook
Mama’s Kitchen co-owner Brian Baker brings 20 years of culinary experience to the eatery that started in the kitchen of his first restaurant Baker’s Café in Goodlettsville.
“I didn’t know how to cook,” Baker said. “My cook never showed up for work, and we shut down for two days. Then, mom and I just got in there, and we started cooking. Within a month, we had standing room only. It’s just like everything else: If you have good food and clean atmosphere, people will come.”
Article source: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/gallatin/news/2014/07/16/mamas-kitchen-dishes-good-humor-daily-videos/12716277/