Southern Cooking in Queens
In a world of fast everything which includes food, it is good to know that some things are worth waiting
for and good tasting, plate piled high Southern food is one of them.
New York is the show case capital of the world including Corporate Businesses, Broadway Theater Plays
and Great Southern Style Soul Food.
The “Southern Girls Soul Food” Restaurant has now joined that very short list of Great Tasting,
Plates piled high, and Reasonable priced places for food in Queens, New York.
Harlem still remains the largest concentrated area where good tasting Southern food can be brought, but
in Queens the list was very short until Southern Girls came along.
When was the last time you had good old, Southern cooking?
If the answer is a equivocal shrug then you haven’t tried Southern Girls Soul Food.
The South has traveled to Queens and is entrenching itself on Merrick Boulevard.
- Sasha Austrie - "South East Queens Press"
Veronica Washington
It’s not only the women folk who’ve pitched in.
Veronica Washington said her husband; Keith “Rock” Washington was instrumental in the look and feel of the restaurant,
a welcoming feeling that is reserved strictly for home. There is one small table paired with two chairs in
the corner of the restaurant, adjacent to it is a faux fire place with a basket of wood chips.
“If it wasn’t for him I don’t think this would have happened,” Washington said.
“This is Rock’s vision inside and out”. She added that her father,
Louis Hoskins, and father-in-law, Lenwood Washington, also
Helped bring her vision to fruition.
Working as a Family makes it work
"It’s a family business and it allows us to work for ourselves.
Everybody has a job. Everybody gets paid and we don’t have to worry about
being laid off or getting fired."
- Codelia Stilley – Veronica Washington’s Cousin
Veronica Washington’s Dream
A small store front restaurant bringing the best soul food to this area of Queens.
“I love the food and I just enjoy meeting people” Washington said
"Cooking is something that comes to me naturally".
The kitchen is populated with Washington’s mother, cousins and aunts. Cooking is their tradition.
Washington’s mother, Janie Hoskins, said their down home style of cooking comes straight out
of her mother’s kitchen in Washington, NC.
“There was never a time when we weren’t cooking.” Hoskins said.
“My mother always had a house full to feed. Everybody stopped by to get Mamie’s food
and everybody grew up knowing how to cook.”
