It's been a mother-F-ing ride, people. You're aware, if you've been following us. Or, frankly, if you've been awake for any part of the last 14 months. The rage, doubt, soul-crushing anxiety, shame, guilt, and surrender have subsided enough to allow audacious hope and gritty tenacity to bubble up just enough for us to decide: IT'S TIME. WE CAN DO THIS. MAMA IS COMING BACK.

If you’re interested in hearing, we’re happy to share in the spirit of radical candor: Here’s the story... our meditations and lamentations and commiserations...

Reopening MAMA was not a decision we made lightly. Honestly, many moments of the last year were filled with a dismayed, shameful desire to light a stick of dynamite and blow the whole thing up. Because, in case you hadn't heard, running a restaurant is hard. IT'S REALLY F-ING HARD. The margins are stupid-slim, to the point of being foolish. Staffing is a nightmare, because between the cost of rent and products and insurance and maintenance and the low ceiling on what you can charge guests without them throwing a fit, it's a major struggle to pay your team well enough to keep them healthy, happy, housed and sane. Not to mention, owners rarely take a paycheck or a vacation until investors are paid back... if at all. We knew this when we opened MAMA in July 2019, but we had worked hard to find a rent we could afford in a neighborhood we loved (obvi) and with a concept that emphasized minimal waste and quick table-turns, allowing for more reasonable margins and therefore theoretically better wages and benefits for our team.

Anywayyyyy... the first nine months of MAMA were stressful, to say the least. Then March hit, and the world went totally upside down, and "stressful" became "totally fucking impossible." The point is that somewhere mid-pandemic-summer of 2020, the easiest and most common-sense choice would have been to throw aforementioned dynamite stick into the already-flaming-pile-of-poop that was Summer 2020, and just wave: PEACE OUT. We would move to Montana and live on a farm and pretend our former life never happened.

Meanwhile, Mama herself (my--Stevie's--grandmother) was dying. Alone. In hospice care and prevented from seeing visitors. WTF. There was this nagging, relentless, very prideful heartstring tug that said, "You cannot close the restaurant."

Not only was it about the legacy of MAMA Oakland, it was about Mama herself--about what Mama Maria taught us about hospitality, about welcoming people and making them feel safe and loved. It was about: What is our society if we do not have restaurants that offer their communities a safe and welcoming place to gather? It was about our life's goal: To raise the next generation of hospitality professionals--to change the way our industry works on a fundamental level. To raise up questions about our humanity and the social contract between guests and those who serve them. It was about a persistent belief that we are here to shake shit up. We had to at least TRY. Frankly, we have no interest in running a restaurant that only makes money, or that only gets positive Yelp reviews, or that only bends over backwards to run a business that is not at all sustainable for ourselves or our teams.

All of this to say: We thought long and hard about whether we could reopen MAMA. In the end, we hired our friends to run the place! Literally, our dear friends from the Hi Neighbor group in SF (Trestle, Corridor, The Vault) have been industry peers, some of our closest confidants, and mentors to us for many years. We have seen them build one of the most successful, sustainable and forward-thinking/team-first groups in our industry. We've had conversations around the above through the whole pandemic. Our values align, our work ethic aligns, our personalities (see photo below) align. AND, having them in charge of day-to-day operations frees up our energy to do the work around diversity, equity, inclusion, sustainability, responsibility and mentorship within the restaurant and our broader industry as a whole. It's dreamy, frankly.

IT ALSO REQUIRES YOU. This is the very serious part. When our guests have complimented us in the past, we've always replied with, "It takes two to tango." By this we mean that our kind of business cannot exist without guests who CARE about our kind of business. YOU, dear guest, have an obligation to come visit us regularly if you want places like ours to succeed. You have an obligation to tell your friends to come visit us. An obligation to pay appropriately--even generously--for our products and our teams' services that nourish you and/or bring you joy and a feeling of community and belongingness. To treat us with respect and gratitude (after all, we are serving you, which is pretty damn humbling for us and pretty damn awesome for you). To not post nasty things anonymously online but instead to come to us as a fellow human being when you have a problem. To show grace and compassion and gratitude for getting to share space with us and your friends and neighbors. If you do not do this, we do not get to be the kind of business we want to be (and we believe you want us to be). If you do not do this, we will not survive.

MAMA will be back in mid-June with the same overall vibe and menu format (three-course, affordable prix fixe, inspired by dinners at Mama's house). There will be sugo! There will be meatballs! There will be excellent wine! There will also be an option to add a "secondi" protein course for the table to share. There will also be a higher ticket price. The bottom line is literally... well... the bottom line: We need to make more money (a bigger bottom line) in order to pay ourselves and our teams what they deserve, including benefits, time off, and professional training. If you get these things at your job, you should recognize that our teams should get them at theirs. As owners, we're doing all we can--and we are not lining our or our investors' pockets with cash (seriously). We need you to chip in, too. Absent a state-wide and Bay-focused shakedown of rent prices (subject for another day) or a government-makeover involving universal healthcare and childcare (definitely subject for another week), small restaurateurs do not have many options for making ends meet beyond charging guests more. We've already maxed out employee efficiency and F&B costs, and while we're very ahead of our industry curve, it's still not where we want it to be. So we'll raise prices slightly and pray you realize the value of our food and our service. We'll add a service charge so we're not beholden to the rather yucky history of tipping. We'll add menu add-ons for you in case you're feeling splurgy. And we'll take reservations with caps on how long you can stay at your table... because with limited capacities due to Covid, we've got to get the guests behind you into a safe space, too. We know this is brave (maybe even audacious), but the time to shake shit up is now. The world is a different place now than it was 14 months ago; if we do not respond, or if we foolishly do not do what it might take for us to survive, then we deserve to go out of business.

We hope you'll take us up on this social contract. We know it's been rough out there for all of us. We believe that we're stronger together and that "we get by with a little help from our friends." It's an honor and a privilege to have you as our friends. Thank you for reading, thank you for allowing us this space to be honest and vulnerable, and we hope to see you at dinner at The Vault on May 23... or for dinner at MAMA next month!

With gratitude and humility,
Stevie, Josiah and the whole Bay Grape and MAMA Oakland families