Mama's Gets A Thumb's Up: Ferak Food Column

JOLIET, IL - When I was a little runt, my parents often drove downtown Joliet on the weekends. If we weren't at The Olde Keg for pizza, we often ate fish or chicken at the famous Stefanich's Family Restaurant & Lounge. I remember being dwarfed by the crowds. Tons of hungry people packed into Stefanich's lounge like sardines.

Dine-in or carryout, it didn't matter. The people came here in droves for decades. The food was legendary.

On Wednesday, I visited Stefanich's, but, obviously, it isn't Stefanich's anymore. In February, it reopened as Mama's Family Restaurant.

After eight years on Ruby Street near the Six Corners intersection, the operators of Mama's decided it was time to move. And that's how they ended up at 457 North Scott Street, just behind the towering St. Joseph Catholic Church, located at 416 North Chicago Street.

I did not know what to expect at Mama's. And the nostalgia of being at the Stefanich's building only goes so far with me.

If the food isn't good, if the service isn't of my liking, then I'm not going to waste my time producing a restaurant review in the Joliet Patch giving your restaurant my stamp of approval.

I walked away impressed. I definitely want to come back and bring along my family.

What did I like about Mama's?

There are a lot of entrees to choose from.

I also liked the fact that Mama's offers several daily specials. In fact, their daily special sign along the sidewalk is what caught my eye.

There was a $7.99 special involving eggs and Italian sausage. I don't ever recall eating that combination during my life. And so that's what I got. It came with buttered toast, plus hash browns. My meal came out of the kitchen in barely five minutes after I ordered. Everything was fresh. I liked the eggs especially, but the Italian sausage was terrific. It's actually much, much, bigger than it appears in this photo.

Is Mama's Restaurant a place I would invite my parents to dine? Absolutely. In fact, I really want to go back in the coming months for dinner. The staff told me that their steaks, especially their skirt steak, is apparently quite tasty.

Mama's offers a lot of everything. They offer Greek food, Italian cuisine and Mexican. My waitress pointed out that their porterhouse steak was $13.99. The T-bone steak was $12.99.

There are plenty of selections on the dinner menu available for $6.99.

Mama's Restaurant is open daily, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. This week, Mama's went before the Joliet Liquor Commission in hopes of getting a license to sell beer and wine. The Joliet City Council will vote on the matter in the coming days.

"We're best known for our breakfast. We've always been a big breakfast place," my waitress told me. "Almost everything is homemade. Almost everything is made to order, so nothing just sits under a heat lamp."

If the liquor license gets approved, which is likely, Mama's plans to stay open until later in the evening.

All in all, it's a nice addition to the north edge of the downtown. I hope it does well.

From my inbox: After last week's food column on Big Pauly's Pizza in Plainfield, I received this comment from one of our regular readers who saw my column about Pauly's: "Hey John we had Big Pauly's Pizza today. Thanks to your reriew. So good!"

If you missed it, here's last week's Joliet Patch/Plainfield Patch review of Big Pauly's Pizza.

Images via John Ferak/Joliet Patch Editor