Want real home cooking? Go to Mom's Restaurant. Any of them

Seniors, time for a junior moment.

Remember "The Flintstones"? Remember how Fred, craving a real home-cooked meal, sees a sign on a restaurant: "Mother's Place"?

"Whaddaya want, Mac?" says the tough-looking counterman.

"Y-y-you're mother?" Fred stammers. 'Right Mac," says the burly guy. "Mother's the name. Sam Mother."

Cue laugh track.

With Mother's Day — Sunday May 12 — just around the corner, we dare to ask: Why are so many restaurants named for mother?

A mother's touch

Mom's Kitchen (Fort Lee), Mom's Restaurant (Ringoes), Mama’s Café Baci (Hackettstown), Mom’s Golden Griddle (Manalapan), Madre & Son Soulfood Café (Newark), Mom’s Kitchen (New Brunswick), Mom’s Kitchen to Go (Mahwah), Momma’s Place (Linden), Mama Suegra Café (Parlin), Meemom’s (Brick, Middletown, Wall) are just a few in New Jersey.

Nor can we forget such now-defunct maternal gems as Mother’s Ale House Restaurant (Wayne), Mom’s Kitchen (Plainsboro) and Mom's Peppermill Restaurant (Hightstown).

What, after all, could be more homey than a restaurant called "Mother's Place"? Or "Mom's"? Or "Mama's Kitchen"?

It's a name that suggests warmth, love, the maternal bosom. No wonder Fred Flintstone was so dismayed to see his Hot Bronto Sandwich served by a guy with beard stubble. That was the joke.

And "Mother's," as the name of an eatery, also brings to mind all those wonderful old family recipes, made from scratch. Even if your actual mom was more likely to defrost a Swanson's dinner.

But there are other reasons why Mother is the name of your favorite bistro. Reasons known only to the proprietors of these establishments. Behind every Mom's Restaurant is a Mom.

Three generations

"The name says everything," said Thomas Schiano, co-owner of Mama’s Café Baci (the word "baci" means "you kiss"), named after his mother Antonietta Schiano, who passed three years ago.

"She was a terrific cook," Schiano said. "I wish I could tell you she went to some culinary institute, but she was taught to cook by her sisters, Maria and Mafalda. They were a big influence."

A family business for 54 years — the third generation is now coming on board — the Hackettstown restaurant specializes in the southern Italian cuisine "with a unique flair" that Antonietta and her husband Antonio (also a cook) brought from their home in the farming region around Naples. About 90 percent of his menu derives from his parents' recipes, he said. Baked rigatoni. Pasta aglio e olio with cherry tomatoes and fresh garlic.

"What everybody wants today is simplicity," Schiano, said. "Farm to plate. We were eating that before it was cool."

The restaurant not only takes after his mother's cooking, it takes after his mother, generally. "She was a genuine, straight person," Schiano, said. "She did not like fake. I remember her smile — she had a nice smile — and I also remember her generosity."

Everyone's a winner

There was a time when she was almost too generous.

The restaurant sometimes gave out small gift cards for special occasions: a child's birthday, say. "My mother one day says to me, can I have some of those? Now mind you, my mother could not read or write English. She looks at them. She says, 'What is this?' I say, 'This is a $5, this is a $10, this is a $20.' "

She was to keep them in her pocketbook, he told her, and give them out for suitable occasions. But he soon learned that, as far as his mother was concerned, everything was a suitable occasion.

"I asked how many she had given out. 'All of them,' she said. I said 'All of them?' She said, 'What am I going to do, take them with me?' She'd given away $200 worth of cards."

His mother's satisfaction, in any case, was priceless. "She was so happy," he said. And it didn't hurt business.

Just a month ago, Billy Crystal was a customer. He'd evidently heard that the cafe's vegan food was mahvellous. "His wife is vegan," Schiano said. "And they were shooting a movie nearby. We gave them a private table in the back."

The mother of them all

There's no mom like your own mom, of course.

But the Mom of Mom's Restaurant, Ringoes, was everyone's mom. "Everybody called her that," said owner and chief cook Christine Cobb, whose grandmother was Mom. The mom.

"Christina Ricciardelli, a.k.a. Mom, had opened the establishment 56 years ago when Ringoes in Hunterdon County was — even more than today — farm country. Blossom Hill, the restaurant was originally named, after the dairy that had originally been there. Her first customers were migrant workers. And sometimes, they would come at the end of their shift, after the place was closed.

"My grandmother was a saint, let me tell you," Cobb said. "She had also bought the house next door. When the workers got done in the field they were hungry, so they knocked at her door. they said, 'Mom, we're hungry. Can you feed us, mom?' So she'd come down, open up the restaurant, and feed them. The place got to be known as Mom's."

Angel in an apron

Motherly doesn't begin to describe Ricciardelli — tragically killed, in 1990, in a traffic accident. She used to fill blue shipping barrels full of beans, dried pasta and clothes, drive them to the airport in Philadelphia, and personally load them onto Air Jamaica flights to be sent to the struggling family of her cleaning woman, Cobb recalled.

"And then she'd come home and send them money so they could pay duty when it arrived," she said. "And she did this for many years."

To top it all off, she was a great cook. Her soups were especially renowned: minestrone, pasta e fagioli, potato, split pea. The recipes are part of the Mom's Restaurant menu. "During the winter I sold them frozen by the quart," Cobb said. "Now that it's warming up, people don't order it that much."

By now, Mom's restaurant is a third generation business: Ricciardelli's daughter Rose — Cobb's mother — took it over, and then Cobb after that. But people still come in asking for "mom," Cobb said.

"They'll say to some of my employees, are you mom?" she said. "They once asked a male waiter if he was mom. He got upset."

Your mom, my mom, Meemom

You've heard of mom. But have you heard of meemom? As in Meemom's — three restaurants of that name, doing business in Wall, Middletown and Brick.

"Meemom" isn't a foreign language. Unless you consider a small child trying to say the word "grandma" to be dialect. That's where Camryn Monteforte, co-owner of all three restaurants, got the name.

"I was the first grandchild, and I couldn't say grandmother, so I said 'meemom,'" Monteforte said. "It just stuck."

Meemom — given name, Agnes Redaelli — had a thing about French toast. She would always order it out. And she would always serve it at home, in Oceanport, to Monteforte and her 11 other grandchildren.

"That was what she ate for breakfast," he said. "That was her thing."

When Monteforte grew up and began to manage restaurants, he had an idea that he might try a morning-and- afternoon eatery specializing, not in pancakes — that had been done — but in French toast. "I felt it was an untapped market," he said. And naturally, he named it after his beloved meemom — who passed in 2013. "I knew I wanted to do something dedicated to her," he said. "I really loved her."

At Meemom's, the French toast is all made with the extra-thick, one-inch bread that Redaelli always used. And the recipes are inspired by the one Monteforte grew up with — though he's glamoured it up with some variations of his own.

"We have French toast that is deep fried," he said. "Those are called French cakes. And we have one called a 'fraffle.' That's French toast we cook inside of a waffle iron. And our new thing is these French toast bowls we do. We cut the French toast into cubes, almost bite-sized, in a bowl, and then top them off like a sundae with bananas, strawberries, chocolate chips, whipped cream and cherries."

Mister Mom

Last but not least, remember that "Flintstones" gag? Maybe it isn't so preposterous after all. Ask for "mom," at Mom's Kitchen To-Go in Mahwah, and Peter Vitale will come out.

"I'm a big guy with tattoos and a Harley," he said. "People say, 'Who is mom?' and I come out of the kitchen and say, 'I'm mom. You're looking at him."

There is an explanation. One that proves that a mother's love isn't limited to mothers.

He'd been, he says, both mother and father to his daughter Jillian after her mother left when she was 10. His daughter always called him mom. "She always gave me mother's day and father's day cards," he said.

When he decided on a career transition, from landscaping to food — he'd always liked to cook — his own mother Patricia suggested the name. "She said, 'Well, your daughter calls you Mom. Why not call it Mom's Kitchen?'"

The place, which opened in 2020, does a mostly takeout business (there are a few tables and stools for on-site dining). The selections include sandwiches, deli fare, catered foods, and family meals based on his own family recipes. He's got a manager, Stephanie Spagna, to assist. Also, his own daughter.

Because what's more heartwarming than a mother and daughter working side by side? As a mom, he couldn't be more proud.

"We just keep coming up with different things that customers ask for," he said. "My daughter has ideas."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: For Mother's Day: Restaurants named after Mom