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[W]hen I was a kid…it used to be Howard Street [in Greenwood] was really popular. People from out the country would some up to Greenwood, and it’d be just--you--you couldn’t stir ‘em with a stick!
–Mattie Smith

Mattie Smith, originally from Minter City, Mississippi, began her cooking career in her grandmother’s kitchen. When she moved to Greenwood in 1984, she cooked at the cafeteria inside the local Piggly Wiggly. Soon she began to have dreams of opening her own place, and in 1997 she made that happen. What Mattie serves is soul food, pure and simple: fried chicken, catfish, neck bones, yams and collard greens. Serving breakfast and lunch during the week, Mattie has a different menu for each day, and her most popular day is Tuesday. If you come early, you can get meatloaf, chicken and dumplings and broccoli casserole. And don’t forget the bread pudding! Mattie loves what she does, and she loves her customers. And while the restaurant itself is a modest place, the big tables, soap operas playing on the television and friendly atmosphere make it place where you’ll definitely want to become a regular.

Edited Transcript

What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. Download the FULL TRANSCRIPT in PDF form (100K) by clicking this link. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

Subject: Mattie Smith, owner and cook
Date: June 11, 2003
Location: Mattie's Restaurant
Interviewer: Amy Evans

All right. I'm here with Mattie Smith of Mattie's Place, a restaurant on Market Street in Greenwood, Mississippi. And would you mind my asking your age?

Mattie Smith: My age--

For the record?

Yeah, I was born in nineteen forty-five, the twelfth month, sixth day in forty-five, and I'm fifty-seven years old.

Okay. And, uh, how long have you been open here on Market Street?

I've been here ever since nineteen ninety-seven. Uh, June 6th.

That's right. I remember your anniversary was just the other day.

Sure is!

Well, did you have a cafÈ before this one?

I left from, um [pause] Piggly Wiggly out on highway seven. I worked for them for seventeen years.

What did you do at Piggly Wiggly? Cook?

Cooked.

It's a grocery store. They had a cafe in the grocery store?

They had a cafeteria in there.

Okay.

And a deli. And I managed it for four years there, but I stayed there [pause] nearly sixteen years. 'Cause--correction, I had--would have been sixteen years if I had stayed there till September, but I left there in February.

And what made you decide to open your own place?

Well, I just always wanted something because--my own--because I love to cook, and I wanted to stay in the business and--What happened, I just came into a little money. My mother passed and my father and I came into a little money and I wanted to go out on my own. I tried--But I wished I'd had to done it when I was younger, but God just wasn't ready for me then, you know. But, uh, because now I'm--I guess, tired. As age--years go by--you keep getting' up you're gonna be tired. You know?

The restaurant business is a hard business.

The restaurant business is hard. Very hard work. Cause if the employees don't do it, you have to do it.

And you're here every day regardless, I know.

Every day. Regardless.

Where'd you learn how to cook?

Well, my grandmother. I was raised by my grandmother [and named for her as well, Mattie mentioned before the interview began]. My mother was there for most of the time, but my grandmother, um, would let me cook. And I started like cooking around eleven--ten or eleven. I don't exactly remember. But I love to cook. I would go to my aunt's house to cook. Walk miles for, uh, just to cook. And--for her kids. And she would let me cook because she was kind of lazy--on the lazy side. Yeah--

And so--

And I love to eat too. I been about--I'm not a big lady, but I love to eat! Yeah.

Well, I remember when I was in here for lunch the other day, you said you don't cook with recipes 'cause you'd just mess 'em up.

I just mess it up. I can't follow recipes but just--I say guess--guess at it. And most of the time it turns out pretty good.

I know, I have your menu right here that I am looking at, and you've got so many different things on there. How do you decide what to serve?

I have the same menu that I had--I was using at the Piggly Wiggly. That was, uh, the same menu. I just went straight ahead--just left there and brought my menus on.

And what do you call this? Soul food or home cookin'?

SOUL FOOD.

Yeah?

That's right.

You have neck bones and everything on here.

Oh, yeah. That's--

What's your most pop--

--back in the Southern.

What's your most popular dish?

Um, Tuesday menu. Meatloaf and chicken and dumplings. It's the corn, broccoli casserole. That it's--that's my populist day. On Tuesday.

And, uh, you're open for breakfast too.

Yes, I am.

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And how many people do you have working here?

I has a granddaughter helps me--helps me sometime. When she's out of school but, uh--she goes to college so--And I have two more employees. Full-time employees.

Both women I assume from--

Both women. Yeah.

Is there a reason for that or it just happened that way?

No, it's just--just one of those things. God sent me, uh, Vicki. She's real sweet. To the customers is very polite. You know, she's like a haaard worker. She works for two--two peoples. She has--she does while she at work. But one of 'em is kind of slower. My Jackie, I call her. She's kind of slow and so--but she sticks by me. You know, you can't--things she thinks she can do, she's always there for me. She do most of my running--errands. And I let her do that because, you know, she's slow in the kitchen. But--I most likely--I--I do my own cooking. Most all my own cooking.

So if there's a day you can't happen to be here do they stand in your place pretty well?

Nooo, I--Most of the days I have to be here because they'll call me like--I --once I was feeling kinda bad out of these six years and I went home to the house--they had--they had meant to go home. I gets to the house and before I could get to the house they had a message on the answering machine. Say, "You need to come back to the restaurant because we didn't know how to season the beef stew." [Laughs]

Can't live without you.

So I had to come on back, and so I--I came on back and just sit here and listen to 'em talk. But it's hadn't been a day that I cooked go and just rest in peace because I'm over that. I think I kinda feel like I should be there, you know. I'm really dedicated to my job. I loves it.

And I can tell you like people too. Is that part of it?

I love peoples! I was raised with a--with a big family. I was the only child my mother had. But, um, I had plenty cousins and nephews and nieces--I had plenty of those raised around with us, and bad weather came--storms and things--my other would go pick 'em up and they'd all come to one house. We ate together every weekend like. Start on Saturday we ate together and Sunday we ate together. Both my--my aunts would get in the kitchen and my mother, and they'd fix up a meal. Didn't matter what it was, but we--they prepared that meal and we was together all the time. And so I came from just--I would say--from a big family even though I was the only child.

You--you get that feeling in here [the restaurant] too 'cause--there are what? Six tables that seat eight people, so you kind of have to sit in a family when you sit down--

So true.

-- to eat here.

That's right.

But I'd imagine, too, you've got a lot of carryout business?

I have a lot of carryout. Sure do. Business is--has been good. Now, I give the Lord-- praises to the Lord. Because, you know, it's just a blessing.

Well, you have good food!

Thank you.

And, uh, you cater a little bit?

Well, I do, like uh, wedding cakes. And I'm gonna have to get out of that because my hands--well, it's like a finger. You know, I get 'em some day--I get cramps in my hands. They call it arthritis, you know. So I'm trying to get out of that but I have--in the past years I have did a lot of caterin--making wedding cakes. Not just really catering, you know.

What kind of wedding cakes do you make?

Two tiered, three tiers, anniversary cake--

Are they flavored cakes?

They are vanilla inside and most likely they got white icing and vanilla icing. And, er, I makes groom's cakes but--Just like I say, lately I have tried to get out of that because--squeezing the bags, you know--my hands are--But, uh, lot of people still call, you know.

How many wedding cakes do you think you've made over the years?

Well, when I was at Piggly Wiggly I had--had done a lot. But maybe something like--maybe--hmmm, I can't exactly say. I say maybe [pause] three or four hundred cakes. From the time from Piggly Wiggly up to here, but you know--And there has been lots of 'em here, you know.

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I don't know how you do it.

[Laughs]

It's a good thing you're not open on the weekends!

No! I close on weekends. Sure is. I started closing a year--about a year and eight months--about a year and seven months ago. A year and seven months exactly, I stared closing on Sunday and Saturday.

Why was that?

Because in--well, I was getting like, uh--it's hard to get employees to work on--on weekends, you know. Somebody promise and don't never want to show up. So I end up doing the work myself so--It just got real hard on me. And then I wanted to go back to church. Get my life back into church. That's what I have did.

And, uh, I bet being here downtown you have a good lunch crowd. Local business--

Week days. Because it's not like it was when I was a kid--I was growing up. It used to be Howard Street was really popular. People from out the country would some up to Greenwood, and it'd be just--you--you couldn't stir 'em with a stick! But, uh, now it's--changed a whole lot. It's not anything down here now. Lot's of people don't come. The shoe department and all of 'em moved way out. And, uh, it's just slow down here. So it's--it really wasn't working on Saturday and Sunday. And Sunday was real good with church peoples.

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I'm sure you will. So, how about your clientele here? Did a lot of people follow you over here from Piggly Wiggly?

It's a lot of people's followed me from Piggly Wiggly. I bet--sure did. Peoples have been good to me. Sure have. In fact, I know everybody around here. So it's--it's been nice, you know.

And did you say you were born in Greenwood?

No, I was born in, um, Minter City. Little old town called Minter City. Yeah. Down here about eighteen miles from here.

When did you get to Greenwood?

Oh, I came here in nineteen eighty-four. I moved here.

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Do you sell very many hamburgers with these good plate lunches?

Sell lots of hamburgers. Yes we do. Have a good old country hamburger. Pure meat. One hundred percent pure beef. Yeah.

What's your favorite thing that you serve?

What's--what's my favorite thing? Well it---Guess, like I say, I likes to cook. Tuesday--like I told you, Tuesday's my favorite day. [Chair drags across the floor.] 'Cause everybody like the dumplings--Sam, y'all come back! [Yelling at a customer as he walks out the door.]

Do you advertise at all, or do people just talk about you?

No. When I first moved here, I was advertising--a little bit. But I haven't advertised something like four years now. Mm-hum. People knows me. Uh. Yeah, from Piggly Wiggly and--just every person, you know, because, uh, I was--just like grew up here. You know. Round me. 'Cause I have people from the rural--they come to me too.

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