It’s a Friday dinner rush, and the energy in Big Mama’s Kitchen in North Omaha sizzles like the breaded catfish hitting the grease. R&B music bumps from a handheld radio high atop a metal shelf. Laughter rings and pans rattle and clang. An extended family and staff push to complete orders. 

Briannah Harrison mans the fryer. She’s the third generation in a family that’s keeping her grandma Big Mama’s food and mission going – and growing. A new family-owned cocktail bar, Dena’s Place, named after one of Big Mama’s daughters, occupies the same floor of the restaurant’s new location in the Highlander Accelerator building on North 30th Street in Omaha. 

Big Mama – also known as Patricia Barron, nee Givens – died before her restaurant could move from its location in the former School for the Deaf cafeteria into its new sun-filled space in 2020, but Briannah has the flavor handled.

“I’m the spice and sauce boss,” Briannah giggles. “I know everything good has to have some season and some sauce.”

Nearby, Briannah’s mother Gladys Harrison rolls her eyes as she makes Soul Food Croquettes – a mixture of cornbread stuffing, finely chopped collard greens, cheddar cheese, seasoning and “pot licker” (the juice from cooked collard greens) – which she pats together and bastes with an egg wash before baking. 

She cracks the eggs and separates the yolk one-handed. 

“And Big Mama used to say my mom didn’t know how to crack eggs,” Briannah said.

“Well look at me now,” Gladys cackles, cracking another hard against a metal bowl.

The nutty scent of biscuits mingled with the earthy musk of the wood-burning stove. As a girl in the late 1940s, this was how Patricia Givens – who’d one day become Big Mama to her family – learned to cook from her Grandma Lillie in a North Omaha home.

In the years that followed, Patricia would face turmoil and change, but the biscuit recipe would remain a comforting constant. She grew up in segregated Omaha, when signs posted on café windows read, “We Don’t Serve Any Colored Race.” Still, there was vibrancy in her North Omaha community, with its many Black-owned businesses. Patricia served in the Navy right after high school. Later, she raised four daughters, Donna, Debbie, Delena and Gladys, and worked in corporate telecommunications. As a side hustle, she catered parties from her home kitchen. Instead of an easy retirement, in 2007 at the age of 65 Patricia opened the restaurant Big Mama’s Kitchen at 45th and Bedford Streets in the old Nebraska School for the Deaf cafeteria. 

She decorated with her signature bright yellow and animal print flair. Today, her family members still accessorize in homage to Big Mama – donning a leopard headband or a cheetah face mask.

Patricia served crowd favorites, like oven-fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato pie ice cream, as well as occasionally offering her most personally beloved dishes that took others a little more courage to try – like beef tongue with butter beans.

Her restaurant received national attention with several appearances on The Food Network, including a pilot for a show that wasn’t picked up. Once, Patricia talked the host of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives Guy Fieri to chomp into a pig ear on a bun, despite his initial misgivings. It was hard to say no to Big Mama.

She combined her toughness with an expansive generosity. A tenant of the Christian faith found in the Gospel of Mark, “For the last shall be first,” guided her outreach to provide employment opportunities – and community college scholarships – to formerly incarcerated people looking to transform their lives.

Cornell austin is enjoying the late-afternoon sun on his porch in North Omaha after finishing his shift cooking for the homeless. He’s the head cook and kitchen manager at a local nonprofit. He grew up on this block in his grandmother’s old house down the street. His brother and sister-in-law live there now.

Cornell was one of eleven children. The family didn’t have much, but Cornell loved food from a young age. As soon as he could reach the table, he considered how to transform the family’s meager rations into something delicious.

After high school, he cooked to support himself, but he became addicted to alcohol and drugs.  He was arrested in Milford, far from his family. “Drugs and alcohol take you places you never thought you’d be,” Cornell said. 

While serving time in jail, he saw a television commercial for Big Mama’s Kitchen and said to himself, “I’m going to go work for her when I get out.” That’s what he did. “And my life hasn’t been the same since.”

Big Mama made it widely known that she gave second chances. She told Cornell she believed in him and his ability to change and thrive. He got sober and has stayed that way for the past decade with the help of a 12-step program and church. He worked for several kitchens after he left Big Mama’s; each job had more responsibility and higher pay. He earned his associate degree in culinary arts and is now working toward a bachelor’s degree in business. He has plans to launch his own catering business someday.

“Big Mama believed in me before I could believe in myself,” Cornell said.

Sometimes believing had to be enough to keep moving forward in the face of difficult odds.

Construction tasks were underway for the new space when Big Mama received a cancer diagnosis in late 2016. She shared the news with family, including her youngest daughter  Gladys.

Gladys had served as Big Mama’s General Manager since her mom opened the restaurant in 2007. She was her mom’s righthand woman. Gladys was used to multitasking and working under pressure, but facing the prospect of caring for her mother’s failing health, running a business in one location and building out its new space felt overwhelming. Still, canceling the plan to move into a better space wasn’t an option. They’d outgrown the old space; and Patricia was desperate to be part of the exciting new things happening on North 30th Street.

The family worked with the nonprofit group Seventy Five North to design their new restaurant. The nonprofit was leading efforts to develop the economically depressed area of North Omaha that had once been occupied by a public housing project. Seventy Five North was developing mixed income housing, educational facilities, and arts and amenities.

The nonprofit and Patricia and Gladys settled on a high-end food court concept for Big Mama’s Kitchen and Catering. Guests would order at the counter and take a seat at any table in the spacious main dining area or choose a place on the outside patio. Entering the foyer, a gallery wall of family photos and scenes from the original restaurant, as well as an oversized painting of Big Mama, would decorate a wall. Sun would pour through oversized windows. Yellow stripes on the ceiling would reflect Patricia’s favorite color – and represent the light she brought to people’s lives with her food and her faith in them.

But even as Patricia delighted in these plans, even as she thrilled at the culminating achievement of a life devoted to cooking and loving people, she was dying.

Patricia insisted on visiting the site as it developed until she couldn’t get out of bed by herself. She soon went into hospice. A nurse tried to reason with her. “You’ve had such a wonderful, rich life. You’ve had children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. What is it you’re still trying to do here?” I’ve got to see my restaurant get moved, Patricia responded. And, as long as they were talking about things she still wanted to do, she’d always thought Japan sounded like a lovely place to visit. 

One day, Patricia summoned her daughters to her bed. She was ready to stop her treatments. They were only prolonging the inevitable. She was tired and ready to let go. But first, she needed them to make her a promise.

Gladys pledged to her mother that she’d get the restaurant moved and keep it going, no matter what. She would honor her mother’s dying wishes to feed and radically love people in the historically Black neighborhood and to welcome everyone to Big Mama’s – whatever race, religion, or history. Assured that her daughter would stay true, Patricia “Big Mama” Barron died in March 2018. She was 76 years old.

Grieving her mother, and handling outstanding debts, Gladys anticipated the fresh start the restaurant’s new venue would provide. She opened in January 2020 to the restaurant’s strongest sales ever. Things were looking up for Big Mama’s. Nothing could stop them now.

Then the pandemic hit. Gladys navigated as nimbly as she could. She cut staff. She went to takeout-only for months. There was yet another blow when her sister, Delena Givens-Brown, passed away on the last day of the year. Delena had long suffered from sickle cell disease, but she’d brought levity and laughter to the family. She was a creative force who often ruffled oh-so-serious all-business little sister Gladys, just to smooth her out again with a joke or a warm touch. She made jellies and jams for Big Mama’s, which she sold at the restaurant, online and at farmers and craft markets. She loved pottery and painting. Like everyone else in her family, she found joy and purpose in entertaining people with good food and drinks.

A dj keeps the music flowing at Dena’s Place, located in the same space as Big Mama’s. There’s not an empty seat at the bar. Guests spread out at the surrounding tables. Owner Seneca Harrison works in tandem with another bartender, shaking, mixing and stirring colorful drinks. He generously garnishes his completed creations with freshly cut fruit.

Seneca is Big Mama’s grandson and Delena’s son. He named his bar after his deceased mother’s nickname, Dena. He is tall, broad and fit, with a deep voice and a genial smile. He whips through drink orders but not without taking time to connect to each person he serves.

“One thing I learned from my grandma is you befriend everyone. Everyone’s a friend,” Seneca said.

Seneca grew up in North Omaha and learned the trade of plumbing. Later, he became a serial entrepreneur. He owns his own plumbing business and co-owns a medical research company with his wife, Tricia. Seneca hopes the tag-team effort of the restaurant and the bar brings people back to North Omaha who left and attracts people who have never explored it. He knows among some the neighborhood has a bad rap.

What his family is trying to show  is that North Omaha is a great community, “a place where you can enjoy a meal and drinks and be with friends and family.”

After all, that’s what North Omaha has always meant to Big Mama’s family. 

As the night goes on at Dena’s Place, some patrons leave their tables to dance and mingle. The drinks are cold; the conversation is warm. For ambience, a bartender lowers the lights. But in the foyer, the portrait of Big Mama’s smiling face radiates a brilliant glow.