Company: Miss Fannie’s Soul Food Kitchen & Catering
Owners: Cheryl Spears, Fannie King
Location: 244 Broad St., Providence finishing
Annual sales: startup
In business, everyone’s role must be clearly defined. That’s never been a problem for Fannie King and her daughter Cheryl Spears, who have taken their culinary talents and turned them into a successful business venture.
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The mother-daughter duo will soon transform a vacant Providence building at 244 Broad St. into a soul-food restaurant. The restaurant, which will be called ‘Miss Fannie’s Soul Food Kitchen,’ will be an extension of an existing catering business that the two started about four years ago.
When the two are serving collard greens, fried chicken, sweet potato pie, corn bread, and black eyed peas to wedding parties or other functions, their roles are distinct: Fannie is the on-the-floor people person who mingles with guests and makes sure the food is all right.
Cheryl, on the other hand, is the behind-the-scenes master. She makes sure there is enough food, and that it is being prepared properly. Neither envies the other.
”I’m a people person, but not when it comes to catering,” Spears said. “I like to make sure everything is right behind the scenes.
”We know what she’s (Fannie) good at, and we know what I’m good at,” Spears said.
What they’re both good at is cooking soul food, although each arrived at her talent via a different route. Fannie, who grew up in Alabama, used to frequent her mother’s soul-food cafés as a child. It was there that she learned to cook. After moving to Rhode Island in the mid 1960s, Fannie continued to cook and entertain people on a regular basis.
Over the years, she quietly built up a reputation. People she had not seen in a long time would inquire about her potato salad or sweet potato pie. But while she had always dreamt of having her own restaurant, King did not think of cooking as a career until she received a special request for her services from her son, Donald W. King.
King, who graduated from Brown University in 1993 with a degree in African-American studies, was invited to be an artist in residence at the AS220 (Art Space) club on Empire Street in Providence in 1994. As part of his work there, he decided to hold a weekly performance workshop on Mondays. Food, he believed, should be part of the program. So he asked his mother to cook her famous soul-food fare.
”It was important to the energy and vibe, it was a main ingredient to everything we were trying to create on Monday nights,” said Donald King, who is now the executive/artistic director for the Providence Black Repertory Co. “It really was a major draw.”
People began showing up just for the food, Donald King recalls. People from the Holiday Inn and the Police Department would come, claiming they could smell the food, he said. The experience proved to Fannie that she could be successful cooking professionally.
Miss Fannie’s Soul Food catering was born. Soon, Fannie and Cheryl – who left her job to help her mother – were cooking for birthday parties and other functions, such as the state Department of Transportation lunches.
Fannie’s cooking style developed over many years. She does not measure out her ingredients, relying instead on instinct and experience.
”I learned from my grandmother and my mom,” Fannie said. “I was always in the kitchen as a little girl. I could be talking to you, I could be doing something, and the dish is still going to come out.
”My secret to good food is love – I love what I do,” she said.
Cheryl’s path was a little more jagged. She could always cook for herself and small groups, but cooking for large groups of people proved to be a new challenge. On a few instances she learned this the hard way, with dishes that did not turn out. But with each group she and her mother served they made notes on how to cook for different numbers of people
The task of learning to cook for crowds was made more difficult by her own high standards.
”It took me a year to make a sweet potato pie that I’m happy with,” Cheryl said.
Soul food, which originated in the south, is traditionally cooked with pork. Today, however, it is also cooked with smoked turkey, a bow to today’s dietary preferences. Miss Fannie will offer the food cooked both ways.
The people who will serve it will be dressed in jeans and a company tee-shirt. And many of them will be people who are making the transition from welfare to work.
”Our goal is to hire a lot of people who are trying to make the transition from welfare to the job market,” Cheryl said.
Cheryl and her mother have other plans as well. The building, which they acquired from the city, will receive $125,000 worth of renovations before its expected opening in June. The building also includes space for a banquet hall – which they will use for their catering business – and a jazz club, which will be run by Cheryl’s fiancee, Mark Smith.
Above the restaurant, banquet hall, and jazz club is open space that Cheryl and Fannie plan to rent out as commercial space.
