The Day My Mother Decided to Open a Restaurant

        I must begin this story by giving you a bit of background information on my mother. Mama has always loved to cook. Some of my earliest memories are in the kitchen with her. If she was at the stove whisking a sauce, I was right next to her whisking away, even if my pot was filled only with water and with no heat coming from the stove below it. But even more than cooking, my mother loves to entertain. Whether it was fancy hors d’oeurves at a political fundraiser or martinis and chili at our annual Halloween party, I remember watching the joy of the guests as they tasted her food. I was even more in awe of how much the joy escalated when she walked into the room. The woman always has and always will know how to work a room! 

Mama graduated from Ole Miss with a degree in elementary education (something she never really used). After graduation, Mama went to Paris for a sort of “finishing school” through the famed Maxim’s Restaurant. This is where she truly fell in love with cooking and eating French food. 

Following her return, Mama moved to Memphis, where she opened Lyn Newcomb Interiors. She didn’t major in interior design at Ole Miss because, although he was a supportive man, her father said “Lyn, anyone can be a decorator.” She protested making the point that she would be a designer, NOT a decorator, but at that day and age the man simply didn’t get it. Mama was hired to design a man’s home in Huntsville, AL, they fell in love and were married. And that is how my parent’s began. Eighteen years later, they divorced. I was a sophomore in high school then. It was ugly and horrible and one of the worst years of my life- but as it happens in many horrible situations, something wonderful came of it. 

Mama and I had moved into a new house just a few streets over from Daddy’s and had just begun to settle ourselves in. I woke up one morning to the sounds of clanging and banging of pots and pans and an array of mouth-watering smells coming from the kitchen downstairs. I wandered down (still half-asleep) and found my mother, still in her bathrobe and house shoes, pacing back and forth from the stove to the counter, checking recipes. It was clear that she was not making dishes that were appropriate for the breakfast that I had been expecting. I looked at her like she was crazy. Then all of a sudden, cast-iron skillet in hand, she turned to me and said in one of the most confident voices I have ever heard, “LeeLee, I’ve decided to open a restaurant. I have always had a father and a husband who told me I couldn’t. Now my Daddy is dead and my husband is gone, so by damn I’m doing it.” 

At this point, I wasn’t just looking at her like she was crazy. I truly believed she was. But there was no turning back from there. We spent the next few weeks together searching through all of our favorite cookbooks and marking recipes we thought would be perfect for her new restaurant. We must have gone through 6 stacks of post-it notes. We decided that the menu needed to be filled with the things (specifically the Southern things) that we loved the most. That was when we realized that Lyn’s was going to be special because of how personal it would be. A few crazy months later, Lyn’s Gracious Goodness was officially open for business. 

I don’t know how to describe Lyn’s other than by saying that it is SO my mother. The atmosphere is so happy and vibrant- all yellow, lime green and my mother’s favorite, orange. The menu is filled with the most personal of items- things that are really special to us. Don Wheeler, a family friend of ours, made the best pimento cheese in town and that is exactly how you will find it on the menu- “Don’s Pimento Cheese.” Another favorite is “Carl John’s Fried Bologna Sandwich.” Carl John is one of my best friends from childhood. Growing up, his mother, Sarah Gessler (much healthier and subsequently much thinner) didn’t keep bologna as a regular item in her refrigerator. So when Carl John would come over to our house, we would always have fried bologna sandwiches. The version of this sandwich at Lyn’s Gracious Goodness has been rated one of the “Must-Have” sandwiches in Huntsville. (Miss Sarah later agreed to buy bologna for CJ, but only the fat-free kind, which we all know... isn’t really even worth it.)

Looking back on that day she decided to open a restaurant, Mama admits that she really didn’t know what she was getting herself into. The restaurant business is known for its instability, long hours and unreliable employees. You can never really expect what will happen when you walk in the door each morning. Mama may have been a little crazy that morning, but I have never been more proud of her in my life. Opening Lyn’s Gracious Goodness brought her back to life. And in a way, it brought me back to life too. It showed me a side of my mother that I had never seen before- the most confident, hard-working and determined woman I’ve ever met- and it opened the door to the culinary world that I now love so much. 

Check out Lyn's Gracious Goodness Online!

www.lynskitchen.com