Randy Foster, right, and Christopher Shuford work in Mom’s Italian Villa last week. The longtime Market Street restaurant, known for its pizza, will close for good on Friday.My 8-year-old son is a bona fide pizza connoisseur. He even has a T-shirt that says “Pizza Every Day,” and he tries to follow that advice as often as possible
His original favorite pizza place was Mom’s Italian Villa, the lovely family pizzeria on Market Street.
I was saddened to hear the news that Mom’s will close Friday, a victim of changing times and, maybe, a bit of fatigue with the grind of family ownership.
In an iPad culture, Mom’s was a Pac-Man institution. It was true-blue Chattanooga, as much as anything Chatter Magazine could toss out. It was part of our fabric for half a century.
How “Chattanooga” is Mom’s? Well, I know first-hand that back in the day when Reggie White would bring his NFL teammates to town, they would make time to eat at Mom’s.
Back before this newspaper’s Best of Preps banquet started attracting some of the world’s biggest sports stars, the paper was happy to have almost anyone from almost any team, pro or college. One year, we had Keith Jackson, who was a great speaker, but amazingly the former NFL tight end was only the second most-famous Keith Jackson, behind the former college football announcing great.
One of the riders in Jackson’s speaking contract was I had to take him to Mom’s for lunch. We split a “wagon-wheel pizza,” as he called it. It was covered in a slew of toppings, and left very little table in sight when it was put in front of us.
Jackson told me that we were not leaving until it was all gone, and he quickly devoured his half. In the fundamental definition of the phrase “labor of love,” I finished mine, enjoying the quality while fighting the quantity.
The closing of Mom’s deserves pause and a nod this morning.
Yes, we will miss Mom’s pies and pasta, but are we losing more than just a viable lunch option within walking distance of TVA and the Times Free Press?
There are a number of silent staples in our town. Places like Mom’s or Nikki’s or Wally’s that are reliable, places where memories have been made.
Historic or recent, dated or debutante, we need to treasure the locales and the locals who help frame our memories.
Jay GreesonSure, Mom’s was old-school – a friend of mine bemoaned the fact that the restaurant did not take credit cards until late in its 57-year history.
That said, here’s a tip of the cap to the place that reminded us that cash is universal. As is good pizza.
Just ask my son.
So I’ll simply say thanks, Mom’s, for the pizza and the memories and the smiles.
You had character and made a mark, and in truth, how great an epitaph is that for a business, especially one that has been around since the late 1950s.
Let’s finish with this. Nelson Algren offered three pieces of advice in his novel “A Walk on the Wild Side”: Never play cards with a man called Doc, never eat at a place called Mom’s and never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.
Those are interesting and funny tidbits, and they jab at the folksiness of restaurant names.
It’s also clear that Algren never came to Chattanooga.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and follow him on Twitter at @jgreesontfp. His “Right to the Point” column appears on A2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.