Mama Dee’z Kitchen has officially opened for business at the FRESHLAB location inside of Eli Fish at 109 Main street in Batavia. The Genesee County Chamber of Commerce held an official Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting at the FRESHLAB on Saturday afternoon.
Mama Dee’z Kitchen owner, Dannielle Lumpkin, says she wants to bring more diversity to the food option choices in the city of Batavia. The new restaurant specializes in homemade meals, anything from Soul to Caribbean.
“We have a lot of Mulato families and mixed cultures, so I think that this will be a staple in Batavia because we can offer a different choice of food for different cultures,” says Lumpkin.
Lumpkin has been cooking for ten years and has been catering in the Batavia area the last 5 years. The business is family run with the help of her two older children, her God children, her husband and a friend.
Mama Dee’z Kitchen is the 5th restaurant to go through the FRESHLAB process at Eli Fish. Eat Well Grill and Eden have successfully relocated to another location on their own.
Matt Gray, owner of Ely Fish, was introduced to Lumpkin after BID Executive Director, Shannon Maute, brought Mama Dee’z catering and food options to Gray’s attention.
“Dannie called me looking to get a grant to open a business downtown,” says Maute.
“She came in and we instantly hit it off, we are best friends now. I told her, no matter what, I’m going to help you find a spot because of her personality and her drive and the food that we talked about.”
In the meantime, Lumpkin offered a stand for her food at the Italian Festival and then joined the BID Committee offering some different ideas to the group. Maute checked into grants first. Not finding any, Maute then contacted Matt Gray at Eli Fish about the possibility of using the FRESHLAB location.
After meeting Lumpkin, Gray was also on board with her idea and loved her diverse food choices.
“The food is fantastic, for a very small amount of money up front, they are able to come in and really go after their dream. Where normally it would cost upwards of more than six figures to buy your own equipment and everything that you need to get stocked up, here it’s very minimal and they’re able to come in for a shorter period of time, work out their business plan, work on what kind of food they really want to serve and what their guests are looking for. Then hopefully they make that leap to another brick-and-mortar location on their own” says Gray.
For more on Mama Dee’z Kitchen, the link to their Facebook page is below.