Longtime Lake Norman Mexican restaurant owners expand with a new culinary ‘adventure’
Longtime Lake Norman Mexican restaurant owners Antonio and Katie Reyes branched out this week with an entirely new culinary “adventure,” as Katie Reyes described it.
On Tuesday, July 25, the Mooresville couple held a soft opening for their Mama Katie’s breakfast and lunch spot in the former Black Eye’d Pea restaurant on Brawley School Road in Mooresville.
Black Eye’d Pea owners John and Carleen Savvides wanted to retire, and the Reyes are their close friends.
Katie Reyes said she and Carleen Savvides bonded because of their “mirrored lives,” married to immigrant restaurateurs from large families, while the women are from small families.
Antonio Reyes is from the state of Jalisco, Mexico. John Savvides is from Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea near Greece.
The Reyes have operated restaurants for 21 years, starting with one they no longer own in Lenoir and now, for nearly two decades, one in Mooresville at Lake Norman.
Their 18-year-old El Cerro Reyes Mexican Restaurant is just down Brawley School Road from the 49-seat Black Eye’d Pea, and Katie Reyes said she, Antonio and their three daughters have enjoyed breakfast and lunch there for years.
Their daughters are Emily, 17; Julie, 14; and Katie, 11.
The couple also opened 3 Reyes Mexican Restaurant at 247 E. Plaza Drive, Unit B, in Mooresville in May 2020.
“That was a challenge,” Katie Reyes said about opening a restaurant during the COVID outbreak. “But we were very blessed by the community.”
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Katie Reyes is focusing on Mama Katie’s and her husband on El Cerro Reyes. Antonio’s oldest of two brothers, Rigo, and Rigo’s family manage 3 Reyes. Antonio’s other brother, Lalo, helps run El Cerro Reyes.
“Katie, I would love for you to take this over, because you’re family,’” Carleen Savvides told Reyes.
“All of their customers are family,” Reyes told The Charlotte Observer at Mama Katie’s on Friday as she and Antonio readied for the opening. “Anyone who comes here, that’s what they’re treated like. And that’s what it’s been like at El Cerro Reyes over the years.”
And former Black Eye’d Pea patrons will see the same menu items and recipes, she said.
Same grits, omelets and fresh, hand-prepared Chicken Fried Chicken. Same fruit cup and recipes for Carleen Savvides’ chicken salad — along with the same batter for the Black Eye’d Pea’s most popular item, the French toast.
Reyes added an avocado cobb salad and is developing a gluten-free menu, she said. She and one of her daughters have Celiac disease, a chronic digestive and immune disorder and can only eat foods free of gluten.
And Mama Katie’s expects to have an ABC permit in a month or so, she said, enabling the restaurant to host small evening events.
If someone books an evening gathering and wants Italian food catered in, Steven Hackett, owner of Rocco’s Pizzeria & Spirits in the same retail center, will provide the selections, Katie Reyes said.
As for the name Mama Katie’s?
That was the “cute, endearing” moniker that kids called her when her daughter, Katie, then 6, began attending preschool dance at Academy Dance Center on Brawley School Road, Katie Reyes said.
Mama Katie’s
Location: 862 Brawley School Rd Suite 107, Mooresville, NC 28117
Cuisine: American, breakfast, lunch
Facebook: Mama Katie’s.
