A Memorable Breakfast Experience at Mother's in New Orleans

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Text & Photographs by Gerry Dawes©2010

A month ago (mid-September 2010), while in New Orleans (my first time back in thirty years!) to speak on Spanish wines and food at Adolfo García's Río Mar, Kay and I had breakfast at Mother's, a New Orleans institution established in 1938.

Front dinner room at Mother's, orders are placed cafeteria style, then brought to your table.

Kay and I sat up front at a communal table right next to where owner Jerry D'Amato holds court, greeting customers, answering the phone, running his business from a tall table just inside the door, which begs the question:  How the Hell does Jerry survive the constant change between hot and cool from the constantly opening and closing of the front door? 

Jerry D'Amato at his greeter's table-office.

We ordered shrimp Creole omelette & grits for Kay, the crayfish etouffée omelette with grits for me, along with blackened ham, slices of the "World's Best Baked Ham," fresh-from-the-oven bisquits, coffee and, at the end, what else?, a breakfast dessert of Mother's bread pudding.  (Note:  If you don't understand or like grits, God help you, but you don't have to eat them, even in Who Dat Nation.)

Shrimp Creole omelette & grits.


Crayfish etouffée omelette with grits.


"Blackened" ham, the ends and well done outer pieces from the baked ham.


Mother's Bread Pudding.

Stacie Robinson waited on us and she was anything but rude. 

Before the bread pudding, Jerry took me on a tour of his exceptional wall hangings, a virtual museum with photographs, World War I, World War II,  Korean War and Vietnam War (Police Action) posters, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival posters, posters and photographs of New Orleans musicans such as Pete Fountain, Dr. John, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc.--several of which you can see in the slide show below.  

Jerry Lee Lewis.

Mother's has survived all the major hurricanes, including Katrina, of the past 70-odd years, and will most likely survive all the negative on-line reviews by would-be restaurant critics bitching about the place being "touristy," service being "rude," lines being "too long," the place being "too small" (it has three dining areas including two huge back dining rooms) and the food being "lousy."

Is Mother's a "tourist trap?"  Depends on your point of view.  Since New Orleans itself is one of the most "touristy" cities in America and long has been, sure you can say Mother's is touristy.  Is it down-home New Orleans?  Absolutely, it has been since 1938 and all the tourists in the world haven't changed that.  Is the food better elsewhere?  Sure, it can be better in many other places in New Orleans, but Mother's has its own special patina, its own special ambience, even camaraderie, the food is a real down-home experience, perhaps a little dated by time, but thank God some places still preserve some of what we have lost to compare against what we may have gained or not.  Besides, we all can make our own choices and judging by the lines outside the door sometimes, a lot of people are still choosing Mother's. 

Five heart doctors in New Orleans for a convention.  A New Orleans Times-Picayune article showed them chowing down at Mother's. One was quoted as saying, "Low cholesterol diets are for people with coronary disease. I am low-risk.  I don't have to go to extremes."   

New Orleans Times-Picayune article on heart doctors eating at Mother's.

And there was Michelle Obama, recently in New Orleans to promote nutrition for school children, refused requests to be photographed eating at Mother's.  She did not say whether she was "low-risk," but she wasn't "going to extremes" to avoid the food at Mother's either.

I was also extremely abstemious in the amount of grits I ate at Mother's.  I only ate part of what Kay didn't finish!

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