HALIFAX – Mama Roos Italian Kitchen meals truck has made a reputation for itself all through the Roanoke Valley, cooking up Italian meals with a family-friendly sauce recipe.
House owners Jason and Jennifer Williams of Mama Roos have been showing at numerous occasions, together with scheduled visits to the Trophy Room in downtown Halifax. Nonetheless, the couple didn’t enter the meals business till a couple of years in the past.
Jason stated they’re initially from Londonderry, New Hampshire, which is within the southwestern a part of the state, close to the Massachusetts border.
“Now we have plenty of Italian eating places and issues like that,” he stated.
Jason stated his household moved to Emporia, Virginia, three years in the past, the place he drove a tractor-trailer for work and Jennifer was a stay-at-home mother.
Jennifer had a ardour for cooking and at one level in her life attended culinary faculty to change into a chef.
Having grown bored with being on the highway, Jason stated he steered to his spouse that they open a meals truck enterprise, beginning with sandwiches integrated with Jennifer's household Italian sauce recipe.
“So different folks got here and confirmed him how you can step it up just a little higher, and now it turned out to be this sauce that we use right now, which is in virtually all of the issues we produce,” he stated.
Having began his foray into the meals truck enterprise two years in the past, Jason stated he had his personal enterprise in New Hampshire for 10 years and understood the enterprise facet, however studying how you can run a cellular restaurant was one thing new.
“We by no means wished to have a restaurant,” he stated. “It wasn't one thing we wished to do, and the cellular meals enterprise is just a little higher as a result of we are able to go the place the purchasers are. We are able to supply a better high quality product; We don't should be slaves to the restaurant, we meet folks and introduce genuine Italian desserts and delicacies to completely different areas that is likely to be underserved. Whereas you might need to go to Richmond to get a extremely good Italian restaurant. In actual fact, you will get it proper now right here in Halifax. Even when it's as soon as per week or as soon as a month, we're nonetheless right here cooking genuine issues and also you don't should go that far.”
The couple stated they’ve been coming to downtown Halifax for a few yr and have constructed up common clients who love their meals, with excessive demand for his or her lasagna, the place they are going to make 10 pans for patrons.
Jason stated Jennifer used to make it for everybody in her household and her aunt, who’s married to an Italian, is at all times impressed.
“She's like, 'God, that is even higher than mine.' So, it's a type of issues that anybody who has it actually is aware of they’ve one thing particular proper now,” he stated.
The corporate has begun packaging its sauce to promote, which it just lately examined and labeled with dietary info.
When requested how they received the identify Mama Roos, Jennifer stated it was derived from a nickname she had throughout her youth when her associates known as her Roo.
Jason stated the journey has been incredible up to now, not solely studying concerning the enterprise but additionally assembly the native folks.
“This gave us the chance to satisfy plenty of fantastic those who we wouldn't have met if we hadn't arrange this meals truck,” he stated. “We wouldn't have met John Haggerty [owner of the Trophy Room and Haggerty’s Steakhouse]and we wouldn't have met lots of the folks we frequently meet and change into associates with. And we additionally wouldn't have been in a position to make so many individuals pleased with meals that they didn't have or that reminded them of the meals they’d at residence after they had been youthful and issues like that.”
On her mom's facet from Caserta, Italy, Jennifer confirmed gratitude as her ardour for cooking got here from her household, together with her late grandparents.
“I miss them, they present you like by their cooking and that's what I really feel after I do it,” he stated. “Though I’m additionally half Polish, my grandmother taught me many fantastic issues and taught me loads about cooking. That's why I bear in mind it loads after I cook dinner. I hope they’re proud.”
