Around the World at Mama's on Ball Street
Paul Newman asks, “How can I make your day delicious?” whenever he answers the phone at Mama’s Kitchen Deli and Café, at 100 Ball St.
“I want to take people around the world with food—German one week, Italian the next,” said Newman, who lives in Greenville. He gives his 25-seat room more spaciousness with wall-covering murals of sky and mountains. “I want to roll my experience with service, presentation and food into my own place.”
He has been doing food service of some kind for 29 years. On the day of this reporter’s visit, his specials were pork shoulders pernil, curry chicken and empanadas. He has a full breakfast menu, a kids’ menu and Mexican dishes to please customers who ate there when it was a Spanish bodega. Bathroom limitations restrict the venue to takeout, but the round tables are sociable.
He had hung out in that neighborhood for an hour or two every day for two months while considering whether to open Mama’s. Would what he saw fit with what he wanted to do?
“I started this work because I love doing customer service,” he said. “When I began, there would be a 45-minute breakfast wait list at Denny’s. I like getting to know the regulars, what’s going on with them.”
While deciding about Mama’s, he would sit in his car by the storefront, doodling possible interior designs for it and talking to people walking by. What he found was a small town kind of street populated by people from a mix of cultures and races. They were, he said, pursuing a dream like he was, although some were on public assistance.
“Some families have lived here for generations, some in the same house,” he said.
He was told that many previous businesses had failed at 100 Ball St. and was often kept awake late at night by indecision. He had lost his hotel job at the Double Tree Inn in Mahwah, NJ, when the pandemic closed it in Mid-March and was on unemployment for two weeks. Then he took a job as baker at Price Chopper making donuts, bagels and breads, working 2-11 a.m. After six months there, one of his regulars told him about 100 Ball St., and he began his visits to assess it after work every day. He knocked on a tenant’s door and talked to the landlord. The place needed work.
“I took Denny’s and Appleby’s from zero to profit for a corporation. Why not do it for myself?” he thought and crunched the numbers. “I wanted to put my knowledge into this place. I can cook, do management. I know labor and sanitation laws.”
He couldn’t bear the idea that he would some day drive by and see that someone else had made the place a success. He opened Mama’s on June 14.
He had grown up in Middletown after moving from the Bronx when he was nine. He gradually made friends and adjusted to not being able to go places on buses and trains as he had in the Bronx. In his teens he worked at Lloyd’s grocery while attending Sullivan County Community College hotel and restaurant management program.
“It was built in the 1960’s, when New York City elites traveled to the Catskills to see big entertainers,” Newman said. “The school was meant to keep the Catskills thriving with workers.”
However, Newman wanted something else.
“I wanted to get into Hyatt and Sheraton corporations and have a chance to travel the world, two years here, two years there,” he said. “But I loved doing customer service and went from Lloyd’s to Chili’s. Port Jervis is different. “
“In this small town, I look forward to getting to know the regulars and what’s going on with them,” he said.
While deciding about Mama’s, he would sit in his car by the storefront, doodling possible interior designs for it and talking to people walking by. What he found was a small town kind of street populated by people from a mix of cultures and races. They were, he said, pursuing a dream like he was, although some were on public assistance.
“Some families have lived here for generations, some in the same house,” he said.
He was told that many previous businesses had failed at 100 Ball St. and was often kept awake late at night by indecision. He had lost his hotel job at the Double Tree Inn in Mahwah, NJ, when the pandemic closed it in Mid-March and was on unemployment for two weeks. Then he took a job as baker at Price Chopper making donuts, bagels and breads, working 2-11 a.m. After six months there, one of his regulars told him about 100 Ball St., and he began his visits to assess it after work every day. He knocked on a tenant’s door and talked to the landlord. The place needed work.
“I took Denny’s and Appleby’s from zero to profit for a corporation. Why not do it for myself?” he thought and crunched the numbers. “I wanted to put my knowledge into this place. I can cook, do management. I know labor and sanitation laws.”
He couldn’t bear the idea that he would some day drive by and see that someone else had made the place a success. He opened Mama’s on June 14.
He had grown up in Middletown after moving from the Bronx when he was nine. He gradually made friends and adjusted to not being able to go places on buses and trains as he had in the Bronx. In his teens he worked at Lloyd’s grocery while attending Sullivan County Community College hotel and restaurant management program.
“It was built in the 1960’s, when New York City elites traveled to the Catskills to see big entertainers,” Newman said. “The school was meant to keep the Catskills thriving with workers.”
However, Newman wanted something else.
“I wanted to get into Hyatt and Sheraton corporations and have a chance to travel the world, two years here, two years there,” he said. “But I loved doing customer service and went from Lloyd’s to Chili’s. Port Jervis is different. “
“In this small town, I look forward to getting to know the regulars and what’s going on with them,” he said.
As far as he knows, he is the only Black business owner in Port Jervis, and he hopes to show the way for Black youth. Meanwhile, among his specials plans are lasagna, rigatoni and penne a la vodka, which, he says, is an Italian American dish, created in the U.S. by Italians.