From Tiny Kitchens to Full Tables: How My Mother’s Legacy Led Me to the Restaurant I Never Planned to Own

Growing up in Northern New England, I spent countless hours watching my mother work magic in our tiny kitchen. She was a self-taught cook, the kind who baked not because she had to, but because sharing food with others brought her joy. Her baked goods showed up at church potlucks, on neighbors’ doorsteps, in the hands of anyone who needed a little sweetness in their life.

I remember her and our neighbor Cindy trading recipes over coffee, swapping stories along with craft ideas and kitchen secrets. They had that easy friendship that comes from two women who understood that food is just another language for love.

My Job Was Simple

While they worked, my job was to sneak cookie dough when they weren’t looking.

Shortbread cookies, to be exact. My mother’s shortbread cookies—the same ones I’d watch her roll out, cut into shapes, and bake until the edges turned golden. I wasn’t interested in helping back then. I was interested in that raw dough. (I know, I know—raw eggs. Don’t do what I did. But I’m still here to tell the tale.)

It wasn’t until my pre-teen years that the interest in actually cooking began to grow. Before that, I was content to watch and eat. The passion came later.

The Musician Who Wouldn’t Starve

I was raised as a musician. That was supposed to be my path. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Music Education, fully prepared for a life of… well, something involving music. But teaching didn’t call to me the way I thought it would.

Instead, I found myself in retail. Then coffee. I’ve always had a passion for espresso—the precision of it, the craft, the ritual. My dream was to own a coffee shop someday.

Life had other plans.

I ended up working as a server in a restaurant in Maine. The owner was a man who’d started his business with two friends back in 1976 in a popular New England ski town—a North Shore Boston-style roast beef restaurant with a devoted following. Over the years, he’d poured his heart into building something special. The business had moved locations, changed forms, even operated as franchises, but through it all, he maintained the vision: fresh house-roasted top round beef with BBQ sauce, a welcoming atmosphere, and the kind of place where people brought their kids, who grew up and brought their own kids.

He understood something important: food creates memory. A restaurant isn’t just a business—it’s a gathering place, a keeper of traditions. He’d spent decades perfecting this, creating an experience people never forgot.

I watched how he ran things. I learned. And eventually, we started dating.

“Back in the Day”

The business had moved out of the original ski town in the early 2000s, but the locals never forgot. They still talked about it—about “back in the day,” about how much they missed having that place in town.

When I found a tiny location available in that same town, something clicked. I told him he should open there again. Bring it back home.

He was already running the Maine location. “I can’t do both,” he said.

So I called family members I thought might want to take on the opportunity. Too busy.

And then I thought: Why not me?

In August 2012, I made the decision to become the host of a local restaurant. I had no managerial experience. I had a music degree and a dream and not much else. But I had watched my mother give of herself through food her entire life. I had watched this man build something that meant something to people.

I had my joke ready: “I had to open a restaurant because I’m a musician, but I won’t be a starving one!”

Building It Together

In the months leading up to opening, my parents were there. My mother helped us paint the restaurant, rolling brushes across walls that would soon hold the sounds of laughter and conversation. She helped me shop for small wares—the plates, the glasses, the little things that make a restaurant feel like home.

My husband worked alongside us in the renovation, bringing his vision to life. My father built the entire design that my husband created for the floor plan. Every measurement, every detail brought to life by his hands.

Their fingerprints are all over the current iteration of this place. When I walk through these doors, I see their work. I feel their presence.

The Week Everything Changed

We opened.

The same week, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

She made it over to see the restaurant once—just once—between treatments. She was very ill by then, quiet in a way that broke my heart. But I could see it in her eyes. She was proud. She knew what this meant, even if she couldn’t say it out loud.

Memorial Day Weekend

My now-husband and I were supposed to get married in September. But as my mother’s condition worsened, the doctors told us she wouldn’t make it that long.

Memorial Day weekend is the busiest weekend of the year in a ski town that transforms into a summer haven. The restaurant was packed. We should have been there.

Instead, our staff—our incredible, beautiful staff—took over completely so we could be with her.

We were married at my mother’s bedside at the nursing home, eleven weeks after we opened the restaurant. She was there for it. She knew everything would be okay.

She knew her daughter, who used to steal shortbread dough from the counter, had found her purpose.

The Partnership

My husband eventually sold the Maine location and joined me to bring his vision back home—to re-create the experience he’d built over decades, the one everyone had loved for so many years. This was his concept, his legacy, something he’d been refining since 1976. He brought his Suffolk business degree, his decades of managerial experience, and most importantly, the deep understanding of what made this place special in the first place. I brought my entrepreneurial heart and my willingness to leap without looking.

He’s logic. I’m more abstract. (Though he’s a musician too, so he understands the artistic side.) Together, we work.

Nearly thirteen years later, we’re still here. Our restaurant boasts a sizable outdoor courtyard in the summer where you can look out at the mountains and a historic railroad station. In winter, we offer cozy indoor seating and a warm bar where regulars still come back with their children and grandchildren.

We serve that same North Shore Boston-style roast beef with James River BBQ sauce. We make our onion rings from scratch. We offer fresh seafood and BBQ baby back ribs. And every single time someone walks through the door, we want them to feel what my mother understood instinctively: that food is how we say “you matter.”

What My Mother Taught Me

I never planned to own a restaurant. I was raised as a musician, maybe a coffee shop owner, certainly not someone working alongside a team through busy summer weekends in a bustling ski town.

But my mother showed me something in that tiny Northern New England kitchen, trading recipes with Cindy, baking for church dinners, rolling out shortbread cookies while I snuck dough when she wasn’t looking.

She showed me that feeding people is ministry. That sharing what you make with your hands is one of the purest forms of love. That a legacy isn’t what you plan—it’s what you give away.

And my husband showed me what it means to build something that lasts. This year marks fifty years since he and his friends started this brand. Fifty years of his dedication, his vision, his commitment to creating a place where people feel at home. Half a century of feeding people, creating memories, building community around a table.

And we get to carry it forward—his legacy and hers, intertwined.

I get to honor my mother every single day by doing exactly what she taught me: opening our doors, sharing what we’ve made, and making sure everyone who walks in knows it’s good to see them. And I get to honor my husband’s life’s work by helping preserve what he spent decades building.

Legacy isn’t always what we plan. Sometimes it’s what we inherit through shortbread cookies and tiny kitchens and the quiet pride in a mother’s eyes.

Sometimes it’s roast beef and BBQ sauce and a garden patio where families gather.

Sometimes it’s choosing to leap, even when you don’t know if you’ll land.

What legacy are you carrying forward? What kitchen taught you to love? I’d love to hear your story in the comments below.