Big Mama's Kitchen

Ryann Zechmann Author

06/29/2022 Added

13 Plays

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[00:00:00.120]As showcased on multiple platforms,
[00:00:01.920]such as Sundance and Food Network
[00:00:03.960]Big Mama's Kitchen is located in Northern Omaha, Nebraska.
[00:00:07.500]The kitchen specializes in soul food and is black owned.
[00:00:10.740]But that's not all.
[00:00:11.850]It's a family owned business that works
[00:00:13.260]to improve its community and those around them.
[00:00:15.690]The business was initially started by Big Mama's family.
[00:00:19.200]Big Mama was Patricia Gibbons Barron.
[00:00:21.780]She was born and raised in Omaha.
[00:00:23.700]She loved nothing more than to cook and feed
[00:00:25.380]those around her and wanted to share those things
[00:00:27.180]when it came to her restaurant.
[00:00:28.710]My name is Ryan Zekman and I was so honored
[00:00:30.900]to get the chance to sit down with Big Mama's daughter,
[00:00:33.540]Gladys Harrington, who talked about the story
[00:00:35.730]and the restaurant further.
[00:00:36.990]Here's Gladys talking more on Big Mama.
[00:00:41.370]I went to Kellom Elementary,
[00:00:43.770]which is a few blocks east.
[00:00:46.380]She went to Central High School and she graduated in 1960.
[00:00:51.720]My mother wanted to go to college out of town
[00:00:55.110]but her parents like, "You can go right here to UNO.
[00:00:57.007]"You don't need to go outta town."
[00:00:57.960]She wanted to go to a black school,
[00:00:59.370]historically black college.
[00:01:01.410]And you know, like most people at age 18 you think
[00:01:04.680]your parents are the worst people in the world, right?
[00:01:06.570]And you wanna get away from them.
[00:01:08.250]So she thought, "I'll show you
[00:01:09.637]"I'm going to join the military."
[00:01:11.850]And she joined the United States Navy.
[00:01:15.420]She wanted to be a cook on a ship.
[00:01:18.060]But they told her women can't be on ships.
[00:01:20.970]You can be a bookkeeper, a file clerk or a secretary.
[00:01:23.940]So after bootcamp, she was a file clerk.
[00:01:26.970]She was in the military for four years,
[00:01:29.130]came back to Nebraska.
[00:01:31.590]Now I missed part of the story.
[00:01:33.120]So I told you that my mother loved to cook
[00:01:35.100]and she loved to feed people.
[00:01:36.900]And she gained that joy and love for cooking
[00:01:40.200]from her grandmother, Lily.
[00:01:42.270]And the first thing that my mom learned how to cook
[00:01:44.490]when she was six years old was biscuits.
[00:01:47.220]And she learned how to cook them on a wood burning stone.
[00:01:50.070]And that biscuit recipe that my mother learned
[00:01:51.960]when she was six is still the same recipe
[00:01:54.240]that we use here today.
[00:01:55.980]So a lot of the foods that you'll eat at Big Mama's
[00:01:59.850]are recipes of my great grandmother Lily's.
[00:02:02.760]And so they've been in our family for over a 100 years.
[00:02:05.610]Yeah.
[00:02:06.780]So after she got out of the military came back to Omaha
[00:02:11.940]and she wanted to
[00:02:18.900]get professionally taught in her love of cooking.
[00:02:22.170]And so she enrolled in Metropolitan Community College's
[00:02:24.660]culinary school.
[00:02:26.310]And about the same time she got a job
[00:02:28.740]at what was Northwestern Bell,
[00:02:31.650]it was a telecommunications company.
[00:02:33.750]And this is mid 60s.
[00:02:37.260]And about the same time she graduated from culinary school,
[00:02:40.020]she got a promotion into management at the phone company.
[00:02:44.400]This is at the height of the civil rights movement.
[00:02:47.370]Civil rights laws had been passed.
[00:02:50.460]And so corporate America was looking to promote
[00:02:57.300]and make managers out of African Americans.
[00:03:02.580]So because of her skillset and her knowledge,
[00:03:06.240]she also went to college there too.
[00:03:08.190]She wanted to be a social worker, she thought.
[00:03:12.090]But as I said, her career took off at the phone company.
[00:03:16.260]And so she didn't put opening a restaurant aside,
[00:03:20.340]but she catered.
[00:03:21.660]My mother started out making wedding cakes and birthday,
[00:03:24.480]any kind of cake you could think of.
[00:03:26.250]She was a master cake decorator
[00:03:27.930]and she made the prettiest cakes in the world.
[00:03:30.600]It was a running joke in our family.
[00:03:33.390]Don't let my mom make your wedding cake
[00:03:35.550]'cause all the wedding cakes she ever made,
[00:03:37.080]those people never stayed married, none of them,
[00:03:39.120]including myself. (Ryan and Gladys laugh)
[00:03:42.390]She was like an albatross around your neck.
[00:03:45.120]When it came to her making your wedding cake.
[00:03:47.790]My nephew and his wife though, she made,
[00:03:50.640]that was the last cake that she made, wedding cake.
[00:03:53.340]And that would've been in like, what year is this?
[00:03:55.890]2022?
[00:03:57.570]So this would've been in like 2001.
[00:03:59.460]It was absolutely beautiful.
[00:04:00.960]It was a castle, 'cause she had a princess, kind of thing.
[00:04:04.080]Anyway, so my mom ran a catering business out of the house.
[00:04:07.680]She got married, had five girls
[00:04:12.210]and was had an illustrious career in corporate America.
[00:04:17.670]So when she was about 62, she's like,
[00:04:20.197]"You know what, girls I'm not getting any younger.
[00:04:23.287]"And I really wanna open up a restaurant."
[00:04:26.100]And we're like, "okay mom.
[00:04:27.397]"So we'll do like the rappers do.
[00:04:29.197]"They sell CDs out of the trunk of their car
[00:04:31.237]"and we're gonna sell food outta your house."
[00:04:33.360]And so on Saturdays you could come to her house
[00:04:37.320]and either get your food to go or sit at her kitchen table.
[00:04:41.040]My mom's called Big Mama
[00:04:42.300]because when she became a grandmother
[00:04:44.250]she didn't wanna be grandma, nana and nothing like that.
[00:04:47.760]And in a lot of African American households
[00:04:50.220]the grandmother is the big mama.
[00:04:54.300]Big mamas is one of the first African owned
[00:04:56.880]businesses in Omaha and is known for its diversity
[00:04:59.250]in the Northern area.
[00:05:01.230]This neighborhood that we're in this part
[00:05:03.060]of the city is called North Omaha.
[00:05:06.030]It is predominantly black,
[00:05:10.110]has been for probably 60, 70 years.
[00:05:13.560]And like most cities that have a large community
[00:05:17.970]of African Americans when Martin Luther King was murdered
[00:05:22.800]there were riots here.
[00:05:24.480]And when the riots happened
[00:05:26.790]most of the white people and businesses left.
[00:05:29.580]So this part of the community has been neglected
[00:05:32.340]for over 50 years.
[00:05:35.610]My mother wanted to see North Omaha revitalized.
[00:05:40.560]She wanted to be the thriving place that it was
[00:05:43.110]when she was a kid.
[00:05:44.640]And that's why she was always very adamant
[00:05:46.440]about keeping our restaurant here in North Omaha.
[00:05:50.610]I said before, Big Mama's family
[00:05:52.083]is a family-owned business in Omaha, Nebraska.
[00:05:55.020]Here's Gladys talking more about the importance of family
[00:05:57.690]within the business.
[00:05:59.790]Without family, there would be no Big Mama's.
[00:06:03.750]When my mom was alive, there was four generations
[00:06:06.570]of us working here at the restaurant.
[00:06:09.030]I told you that the majority of our recipes
[00:06:11.580]are those that came from my great-grandmother.
[00:06:14.670]So once again, without those recipes and those traditions
[00:06:17.700]being handed down, we wouldn't be here.
[00:06:21.060]It's the fabric of what Big Mama's is all about.
[00:06:25.590]Not just that her family works here
[00:06:28.680]but when you are an employee of ours
[00:06:32.730]we feel like you are a family.
[00:06:34.440]When you are a customer of ours
[00:06:37.740]we feel that you are family.
[00:06:39.060]When you come in here, we want you to feel
[00:06:40.770]like you're sitting at your cousin's house.
[00:06:43.500]Now our old restaurant really felt
[00:06:45.300]like you were at your grandma's house.
[00:06:47.100]In this new space, it's more upscale and it's more modern.
[00:06:51.360]But we really do, when we come here
[00:06:53.430]we want you to feel like you're right at home.
[00:06:56.850]And I can't say that our family-owned business
[00:07:02.490]is any different from anyone else's family-owned business.
[00:07:06.810]But I will say that family-owned businesses are the heart
[00:07:13.920]of American business.
[00:07:16.500]Way back when when we all came over here,
[00:07:18.810]whether you came over here 'cause you wanted to,
[00:07:20.700]or whether you came over here because you were a slave,
[00:07:23.520]we all had our own businesses.
[00:07:25.860]It used to be that everybody worked at some family business.
[00:07:29.610]So it's just an honor for us to be able to continue
[00:07:35.190]that type of tradition where we can build a legacy,
[00:07:39.210]not just for our family but people in the community.
[00:07:42.330]And I told you that the community
[00:07:43.680]was very important to my mom.
[00:07:45.780]And from the inception of Big Mama's, we have always been
[00:07:49.140]a place where people could get a second chance.
[00:07:52.230]So we hire people with records, people with felons,
[00:07:57.090]we've hired people straight out of prison.
[00:08:00.870]And many of those folks have gone on to culinary school.
[00:08:04.230]My mother thought that a culinary degree was a great way
[00:08:07.890]for a person to get an education that would allow them
[00:08:10.680]to earn a wage, a living wage.
[00:08:13.380]And so one of our star employees, Cornell, he got outta jail
[00:08:18.780]like on a Monday or Tuesday, he applied with us on Wednesday
[00:08:22.410]and he was working for a Big Mama's on that Thursday.
[00:08:25.890]My mother helped him through culinary school,
[00:08:27.810]helped buy books and the utensils and whatever they needed.
[00:08:33.120]And Cornell graduated from culinary school.
[00:08:35.910]He left us, got a better job working at a hotel
[00:08:40.110]in their kitchen.
[00:08:43.140]Then he went on to Bellevue and got his bachelor's degree.
[00:08:48.000]And now he is the director of the food services
[00:08:52.920]for a local nonprofit here in Omaha.
[00:08:55.470]And he's just one example of the many, many people
[00:08:59.400]we've given a first and second chance to here
[00:09:01.949]at Big Mama's and we continue to do that.
[00:09:06.090]I just hired somebody today that just got out of jail
[00:09:09.270]a couple of days ago.
[00:09:10.380]And in our minds, a business should be
[00:09:17.520]a part of the community.
[00:09:21.780]A part of the community that contributes,
[00:09:23.550]not just takes away, but should add some value.
[00:09:28.740]Big Mama's has been recognized on Food Network
[00:09:30.870]and lots of other food platforms.
[00:09:32.850]Here's Gladys going into detail about those experiences.
[00:09:36.930]My mother was a foodie
[00:09:38.400]before that term was a term.
[00:09:41.790]And she had been watching the Food Network
[00:09:43.800]ever since it came out.
[00:09:46.500]I can remember when we were cooking out her house
[00:09:48.450]on Saturdays, we would have the Food Network playing
[00:09:51.624]on the television.
[00:09:53.220]So when we first opened back in 2007,
[00:09:56.760]like about six months into it, we had some customers
[00:09:59.760]that were like, "Oh my God, this food is so good.
[00:10:02.587]"Who would think there's soul food
[00:10:04.117]"in Nebraska of all places."
[00:10:05.850]And then you're cooking this old school.
[00:10:07.230]We're gonna ride into the Food Network
[00:10:08.790]to that Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show.
[00:10:10.950]And so they did and sometime later the producers
[00:10:15.720]of that show called and said, "Hey, we're coming to Omaha.
[00:10:18.217]"We're considering coming to your place,
[00:10:19.567]"tell us your story."
[00:10:20.880]They talked to my mom couple weeks later,
[00:10:22.987]"Hey, we're digging your story.
[00:10:25.867]"It was unique where you guys are
[00:10:27.517]"and who thought there'd be black people
[00:10:29.377]"cooking soul food in Nebraska
[00:10:30.727]"and can we come and feature you on the show?"
[00:10:33.450]And we're like, "Of course, well
[00:10:34.807]"we've never done anything like that before."
[00:10:38.340]And my mom was really nervous about it, I can remember.
[00:10:43.380]And she's like, 'cause they were gonna be here three days
[00:10:45.750]and she's like, well,
[00:10:47.077]"We're gonna have a different menu every day.
[00:10:49.687]"And I'm gonna cook something different every day."
[00:10:51.840]I'm like, "Okay mom, whatever you wanna do."
[00:10:54.210]So every single day we had something different.
[00:10:57.570]And when they came, they were here for three days
[00:10:59.850]and they filmed from eight o'clock in the morning
[00:11:02.280]to eight o'clock at night.
[00:11:03.750]And they would film every single step
[00:11:06.810]of every single item we had on the menu that day.
[00:11:10.740]So if we were making cornbread, for example
[00:11:12.990]they would film her taking the milk out of the refrigerator
[00:11:16.380]and pouring the milk into the measuring cup
[00:11:19.170]and pouring the measuring cup, so every single step.
[00:11:24.180]Like I said my mother was really nervous about it.
[00:11:26.370]She'd never done it before and on the third day
[00:11:28.800]is when guy came and he did such a good job
[00:11:32.310]of he was so nice of making my mom
[00:11:35.580]have fun and smile and get into it.
[00:11:39.030]And so there's two things my mother never wanted
[00:11:43.380]her restaurant to be.
[00:11:45.420]And one was the fried chicken place or burger place.
[00:11:49.137]And we first opened, neither one of those things
[00:11:51.420]were on our everyday menu.
[00:11:53.460]And so when the Food Network aired our episode
[00:11:57.360]it came out in November of 2008
[00:12:00.300]and it was about two minutes and 13, 14 seconds.
[00:12:04.020]And what did they feature?
[00:12:05.550]Our oven fried chicken (chuckles) and the Afro Burger.
[00:12:09.480]And so, hence fourth we had to have oven fried chicken
[00:12:13.770]and burgers on the menu.
[00:12:14.880]The two things my mom didn't wanna do.
[00:12:17.760]The thing about that show is they did an amazing job
[00:12:23.280]of depicting what we are all about
[00:12:25.530]in that two minutes and 13 seconds.
[00:12:28.110]And had we not been on that show
[00:12:30.720]we would not be open still.
[00:12:32.670]We opened in 2007, we were at the height
[00:12:36.270]of a financial crisis here in this country,
[00:12:38.610]worst time in the world to open up a restaurant.
[00:12:41.880]Worst part of the city to open up a restaurant.
[00:12:45.810]And the worst kind of business.
[00:12:48.090]The restaurant business is one of the hardest business
[00:12:51.210]to be successful at.
[00:12:52.980]And so from that show, there were other shows
[00:12:57.720]that were on the Travel Channel and the Sundance channel
[00:13:00.510]And it was the same production company
[00:13:01.890]that worked on all of those shows.
[00:13:03.930]And they asked if we wanted to,
[00:13:07.950]interested in doing a reality show.
[00:13:10.140]And my mother didn't know what a reality show was,
[00:13:13.230]so I told her to watch the Kardashian.
[00:13:14.580]She went, no, I don't wanna be
[00:13:15.870]that little girl sliding up and down.
[00:13:17.310]No, I don't wanna do a stripper, no I don't wanna do that.
[00:13:20.400]I told her to watch Honey Boo Boo.
[00:13:22.092]No, they're burping and farting at the table,
[00:13:24.900]don't wanna do that either.
[00:13:26.910]I said, go watch Doug dynasty.
[00:13:28.650]Okay, I can do that.
[00:13:29.970]And so we filmed a reality show for the Food Network,
[00:13:33.060]and one episode aired, but it didn't get picked up.
[00:13:38.400]They said that we didn't provide enough drama
[00:13:40.830]but we had made up in our minds before we even said yes
[00:13:45.480]that we would not be that black family on TV fighting
[00:13:49.560]and flipping tables and all that kind of crazy stuff.
[00:13:52.830]We could have and we'd have been very good at it,
[00:13:56.880]but all money's not good money.
[00:13:58.950]And
[00:14:01.500]we knew that if we did that,
[00:14:06.540]then that would be expected all the time.
[00:14:09.570]And then you'd have to become that person.
[00:14:11.760]And we didn't wanna do that.
[00:14:13.440]We're just an average family out here
[00:14:17.610]trying to cook good food for people
[00:14:20.640]and be a light in our community
[00:14:22.800]and that's what he wanted the show to be about.
[00:14:24.420]And if those kind of things don't give you good ratings,
[00:14:27.270]and so be it.
[00:14:29.550]A huge thank you to everyone that tuned in
[00:14:31.320]to listen about Big Mama's Kitchen.
[00:14:33.390]Make sure to check it out in Omaha.
[00:14:35.220]Also a huge shout out to Gladys Harrington
[00:14:37.920]for taking the time to sit down and talk with me.
[00:14:40.200]Once again, this is Ryan Zekman with Heartland
[00:14:42.720]and make sure to check out our other stuff
[00:14:44.790]that we have coming out.

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