Va. eatery to launch truck serving wings, sandwiches
NORFOLK, VA. » In the past couple years, whenever we’ve gone out to try every version of a comfort food in Hampton Roads, there’s a spot we expect to see somewhere near the top of the rankings: My Mama’s Kitchen.
Mama’s hard-fried buffalo wings aren’t even necessarily the restaurant’s best version of wings, and yet they earned a spot among our top two in the region in a 2018 taste test. Chef Moe Stevenson’s hot wings were a singular rendition: crispy, sticky, and as complex as a Tolstoy novel.
And in last year’s fried chicken sandwich taste test spanning more than 40 sandwiches, My Mama’s Kitchen again arrived near the top of our list with a spicy-sweet take on Nashville hot chicken drenched in tangy remoulade.
But the restaurant’s location, tucked on a residential side street of Ocean View in Norfolk, has kept it the best-known secret in town, a name passed around with reverence.
Now for the first time, My Mama’s Kitchen will come to you — and they’ll be bringing those world-beating fried chicken and wings along with them.
This weekend at Smartmouth Brewing in Norfolk, Stevenson will inaugurate his new My Mama’s
Kitchen food truck, an idea he’d been kicking around for more than a year.
“We’ll offer the staples of our menu: the drip (fried chicken) sandwich, some of the wings. And then probably the best of our sides: collards, mac and cheese and cornbread,” Stevenson said. “We want to have some things are food-truck only, but we’re still going through it right now, trying to see what works best and what we think will work best.”
The truck will debut from 2 to 8 p.m. Sunday at an event devoted to bringing under-the-radar flavors to local beer fans.
On the first Sunday of each month at the brewery, marketer and event promoter Jarrell Williams has been curating a popup event called Nomarama Sundays. Williams seeks to showcase food that strays from the standard rotation of chefs and food trucks seen at breweries in the area, often from chefs with diverse cultural backgrounds.
“You know I like to spread love,” he told The Pilot. “And while I love seeing the same people flourish, there are a lot of others deserving of the space and opportunity.”
For Cole Friedman, Smartmouth’s event director and talent booker, asking Williams to come aboard was an easy decision when trying expand the brewery’s food offerings beyond their usual network of vendors — which will still continue to serve the brewery on other nights.
“I thought, ‘Who can we work with that’s trusted by a lot of people, to help us expand beyond our network we know? Jarrell was the first person I thought of. I follow his Instagram, go to his Munchie Markets, take tips on new hole-inthe-walls.”
The first month of Nomarama Sundays, in July, showcased chef Carlton Peterson of F.O.O.L. Catering, who brought an off-beat taco menu of pulled pork and jerk chicken tacos. In August, the south-of-theborder mash-ups continued: Auntie’s chef Doddie Braza served up Filipino tacos and nachos made with spicy pork sisig and charcoal chicken.
The Nomarama event augments the brewery’s new second-Sunday jazz brunches at both the Virginia Beach and Norfolk locations, which also offer rotating pop-ups of local coffee roasters. In Norfolk,
Sept. 13 will be chef David “Regular” Hannah serving an array of “brunchthemed snacks,” Vessel Craft Coffee, and the jazzfueled funk of Paper Aliens. Virginia Beach will feature the Andy Gilstrap Project, brunch from Donnie Fry’s, and coffee from nano-roastery Fathom Coffee.
For Friedman, the food pop-ups are a way of filling in the gaps created by COVID-19, which shut down most live music.
“A lot of events are on the back burner,” Friedman said. “We just wanted to do something fun and exciting that doesn’t bring massive crowds of people.”
As for Stevenson, he hopes to use Nomarama Sundays as a chance to introduce people to the fact that My Mama’s Kitchen is now available to come to breweries and events — to find new customers, and meet some old ones where they live.
“I don’t think we’ve ever officially announced we have a food truck,” Stevenson said. “So this, showing up at Smartmouth, will be the announcement.”