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.”
The restaurant specializes in New Orleans favorites, including gumbo, etouffee, fresh salad, freshly made meatballs and po’boys made with bread from Gambino’s Bakery in Kenner. The majority of the dishes are prepared with a batter made fresh every morning and fried to order, said Susan’s daughter, Christy Kyzar, who helps her family run the restaurant.
“We’re not modeled after any cuisine of New Orleans,” Susan said. “We’re putting home cooking on the table.”
In the first nine months of being open, the family has already made connections with other New Orleans natives who live in the area, Don said.
“People can come and see us and ask for any of us by name from the time we open to the time we close, like how it was back home in Louisiana,” Don said. “You talk to people. It’s great to be able to offer that in a community like this.”
The restaurant’s boudin balls come with a homemade remoulade that is made from a recipe that originated with Susan’s father, John Ippolito.
These days, John can be spotted in a booth at Verna Mae’s feasting on a roast beef po’boy. Verna Mae died in 2015, but Christy said she can still feel her presence in the restaurant.
“She’s here today with all of us in this place,” she said.
16010 West Road, Houston 832-674-4976 www.vernamaes.com Hours: Tue.-Thu. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.- 4 p.m., closed Mondays
