Cooking With Heart and Soul: Mountain Soul Cafe

Joe Moore and his wife, Mary Moore, have just opened up their first restaurant, right here in Stone Mountain Village. Currently a take-out, delivery and catering business, Mountain Soul Cafe offers a variety of fresh-to-order food, from hamburgers, smoked grilled chicken, fried chicken, potato salad and fried catfish, which is Joe Moore's favorite. And Mary Moore, who's also a police officer, makes a mean cornbread muffin, too. 

As Stone Mountain residents since 1995, the Moores had first started cooking for their kids. It then evolved into cooking for Mary Moore's workplace, and then to events such as reunions and birthdays. Joe Moore has said they still do a lot of catering, and they hope to expand the sit-down restaurant side of things once they're able to meet the city codes for restaurant seating. 

For this week, Meet the Owner concentrates on Joe Moore, he and his wife's cooking and how they've been doing in the restaurant business so far. 

Patch: How did you get into the cooking business?

Joe Moore: Well, basically cooking came from raising my kids. A lot of times they would want to eat out, and it wasn't always feasible, so I basically had to gear my menu towards things they would enjoy. A lot of trial and error got to the point where I created a couple of dishes, and it's just simple things. It's nothing you would call me master chef about. But just general things that would make more cooking at home and less eating out, which helps a whole lot when you're trying to raise kids. 

Patch: What made you decide to open a restaurant, since you started catering before the restaurant opened?

Moore: Well, basically, I've been a hair stylist of 25 years. I moved my salon to home for a certain period of time. Most of my clients came in the evening with picking their kids up. They come in and get their hair done. They had to eat, and I was at home, I was always cooking. Most of the time they would [say], "What is that I smell?" and so I would just offer it to them. After a period of time, I had more people stopping by to get something to eat than to get their hair done.

It kind of got to the point where I said, "Well, let me try something else." So I started sending lunches to work with my wife. It went from basically fixing her a plate to... I think that first real order turned out to be 21 plates, and then we worked from 21 plates to 40, 50 plates a week. 

Patch: Wow. Was that pro bono?

Moore: We kind of gave it a general price of $6. And that really helped because, of course, it paid for the food, but also paid for the gas and a few other things.

I really saw that, "OK, they're willing to purchase this much in a week, then let me try something else." That's where the catering came in. So, all of their parties, all of the things they had, I started submitting bids, and after awhile they just told me to stop bidding: I'm their caterer. So that worked out fine. Believe it or not, that worked up until the time my wife retired. And when she retired, we opened up this [restaurant]. We opened up this with the mindset of "if we're going to have that much business, we need something outside of the house."

We came up here because this kitchen was open, and we spoke to the owner of the plaza, and so that's how we got to being able to buy the plaza. But at that point, most of the catering had really expanded to so many different avenues: family reunions, office parties, real estate buildings. It's been working out pretty well. Catering is one of the things that's keeping us going now. 

Patch: What made you decide on locating in the Village?

Moore: Believe it or not, I remember when Mel's Diner was here. Mel used to sell mostly fish, and we used to come down here and get fish from Mel. Then, I believe Mel passed away, so it was empty for years. When my wife said, "Well, can you think of a location?," the first thing that came to mind was a location on Covington Highway that used to be an old barbecue grill. But we went by there and it seemed like the owner wasn't real receptive to us.

So we came down here [in the Village] and took a look at this one and a lot of things just opened up. So we said, "OK, we'll try this location." Plus, being in historic Stone Mountain, we figured if we could open our restaurant, that basically makes us an international restaurant with the mountain, because now we're a part of the National Registry. So whoever comes here, if they're looking for a place to eat, they'll see our restaurant. 

Patch: You guys have been open since March. How have things been here so far for you?

Moore: The business has been fairly well. I can't really complain about the business. We're still going through some things with the city, they're asking for some things that we still have issues with, but at the same time the people are receptive. The sooner we can iron out our differences with the city and we can have inside seating, I think things will turn a big corner. 

Patch: That's another thing I heard, too, about the dining hall and the banquet hall not being open yet. Is that one of the issues that you're having with the city?

Moore: The city said that we're changing our retail space into a restaurant, so we have to bring it up to code. Basically, right now, it's going to take a certain amount of money to get those things done. We have to kind of build up our money again to get to that point.

Patch: Is there an estimation on when it may be done?

Moore: No. It's kind of hard to [know when]. When we start talking about the numbers that it's going to take this building to code, it's going to take a while. So we're looking to do it section by section [in the restaurant] as opposed to doing the whole thing. What's really important is this area [in front] so that we can have seating here, and then we'll start working on the main dining hall. 

Patch: What are your specialty food items?

Moore: The smoked grilled chicken is what really puts us over. I get a lot of responses off my potato salad, also, but it's the grilled chicken that really put us where we are. When we first started catering, people always requested chicken. And people say the fried chicken is good, too, but it was always the grilled chicken that impresses people. It's juicy, has a different flavor, and has a very good barbecue sauce, according to what people say. I would have to say that our sides are pretty good. The coleslaw and potato salad are pretty good. Of course, the corn muffins, too. My wife makes the corn muffins, oh my goodness. 

Patch: How do you create new dishes?

Moore: My dishes are traditional. I really don't do a lot of new things, I just try to keep the traditions going. Fried fish has always been big in our family, so I keep the same basic recipe my mom used. The potato salad and the green beans, things of that nature, it's all traditional. 

Patch: You also have hot dogs, wings, homemade cookes...

Moore: It's not an extensive menu. It was really designed to be simple. We really didn't want to prep a whole of different things and inventory that was so "a little bit of this and a little bit of that." We wanted it to be a streamline menu, similar to something that would rival a Boston Market. We added the hamburgers and hotdogs basically for the kids. 

Patch: You said before that your wife is starting a new job as a police officer for Clayton County. Is she still going to be heavily a part of this business?

Moore: Oh, without a doubt. My wife is more so human resources as opposed to management of the business. That's why I'm here, because I'm more so fine-tuning of the business. She was here [Wednesday] morning, she just had to go. 

Patch: How was Fourth of July for you guys?

Moore: Fourth of july, that night, I put the chairs and tables outside like I normally do, but this time I put it all in the parking lot. I had a really good crowd. Right around 10:30 p.m., I had probably 10 to 15 people, and then it rained. 

Patch: Well, the fireworks went on around 9:45, 10 p.m.

Moore: And they didn't last long, either. I think the weather really did put a dent in the plans for that night, but once the rain went down, everybody just went out. It ended as early as the laser show this time, and I was really expecting it to hold out a little bit longer. The rain came and washed us all out.