Customers who walk into Verna Mae’s—the New Orleans-inspired restaurant that opened in Cypress in January—are greeted with a photograph of the woman the restaurant is named after, apron on, dancing in her kitchen.
Don and Susan Ballard, the restaurant’s owners, said they want everyone who comes in to know who Verna Mae was and the role she played in inspiring the food they serve.
Verna Mae Guidry Ippolito, Susan’s mother, loved to cook and serve food to her family of seven in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, Susan said.
“We were born in a time when you didn’t go out to eat four times a week,” she said. “My mom was in a kitchen preparing three meals a day and served a hot meal for dinner when Dad rounded the corner from work.”
