The name of C.D Hollins’ new Longview restaurant pays homage to the woman who helped raise him and who taught him to cook. He and his siblings called his grandmother, Lillie Gates Ramey, “Madea.”
Madea’s Famous Kitchen is at 1609 E. Marshall Ave., where Dudley’s Cajun Cafe previously was.
“That’s what we always called her,” when he was growing up in Bastrop, Louisiana, but Hollins said he didn’t know why.
He said his mother was murdered when he was 4.
“My grandmother taught me how to cook,” he said, along with his father.
Eight years ago, Hollins owned five restaurants around East Texas. Then, he became seriously ill in 2022.
Hollins also teaches at Wiley College in Marshall and preaches at New Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Marshall.
After his illness, he said he was done running restaurants while also teaching.
Madea’s Famous Kitchen is his first restaurant since his illness.
“I love cooking. It’s one of my passions,” Hollins said.
The menu for Madea’s Famous Kitchen in Longview.
His restaurant features soul food favorites, including side dishes such as black-eyed peas, green beans, red beans and rice, dirty rice, macaroni and cheese, yams, collard greens and fried cabbage — all made fresh from scratch, he said.
“It’s the African-American culture. It’s a lot of the foods that our ancestors cooked many, many years ago, and we just continued to cook it,” Hollins said.
The regular menu also includes several kinds of hamburgers, catfish platters, shrimp, meatloaf, hamburger steak and pork chops.
On Soul Food Sunday, the menu also includes Southern-style dressing, seafood dressing, smoked turkey legs and stuffed turkey legs.
The restaurant has seating for for a couple of dozen people, and it was packed on Friday.
“I want them to experience good, home cooking, with that soul food taste,” Hollins said. “We cook with our soul.”
Madea’s Famous Kitchen hours are 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.
Nathan Le finishes he nails of longtime customer Lauren Braswell. (Jo Lee Ferguson/Longview News-Journal.)
Nail business opens
Nathan Le has opened his own nail salon after working at other salons in Longview for about 24 years.
Le opened Oh My Nails! with his fiancée, Kim Pham, at 1721 W. Loop 281, in the North West Village shopping center. The full service nail salon also offers waxing, and Le said they are also looking for a lash technician to join the business.
Le said his father was a Vietnam War refugee who assisted the U.S. Army. That’s how his family was able to come to the United States. He was 11 when he arrived in the country in 1994, he said. While he moved around some, he graduated from Longview High School.
His sister gave him his introduction to the nail business, and he has stuck with it ever since.
“I cannot stop doing nails. I have to do them,” he said.
Some of his customers started using his services when they were children and have continued ever since.
“A lot of my clients followed me from place to place,” Le said.
The salon is decorated in shades of pink because Le said his customers like it.
He plans to stage karaoke events in his salon as well.
Oh My Nails! is open seven days a week — 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.
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