Some truly wonderful, "stick to yer ribs" fare was to be had at Vern's.
Great food, great prices, they were kind to my wife, and doted on my children.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/072409dnmetvernskitchen.71fda8a7.htmlVern's Kitchen in Deep Ellum closes after 40 yearsThis is an obituary for a restaurant.
It is survived by Suvern "Vern" Freeman Simmons, 80, who opened her first restaurant in the 1960s.
Over the decades, she ran the business, cooked the meals, mingled with the customers, while also raising her 10 children. She's proud that she never went on welfare and that all her children were educated. And she admits that she worked hard — really hard — in her lifetime.
A story in the Morning News about the restaurant's 35th anniversary began this way:
Vern's hopes hung on a prayer.
She was a mother of seven children, living in the West Dallas projects, and her husband had just left her. She prayed for help to take care of her children.
Indeed, she did find a way to feed her children — and thousands of other folks too. God "solved my needs for these children," she says. "This is the reason I'm here."
Looking back today, she says: "We had it rough, but with the help of the Lord, we made it."
Simmons grew up in Oklahoma and moved to Dallas as a young woman. Two of her sisters had restaurants and taught her to cook. She opened her own restaurant and within a few years moved into a building at Main and Exposition Avenue, where Vern's Kitchen remained for decades.
Customers pulled up to that blue-and-white building, parked in the gravel lot and went inside to have their plates loaded with the day's specials. At times, folks would show up a half hour before she was ready to serve lunch and the rush would continue until 2:30. "I was cooking for lots of people," she said. "Sometimes I had good business. Sometimes I didn't."
She said she didn't advertise, instead focusing perfecting her stews and peach cobbler, to draw people in. And she knew how to work the room.
"Everybody loved me because I had a good personality among my customers. I didn't care what color they were or how old they were. I treated everyone like I wanted to be treated."
Then, two years ago, Simmons said, the landlord hiked the rent and she had to move. That little building sits vacant today with a for-sale sign out front.
Simmons retired after moving Vern's to a storefront at 2807 Elm St. She handed the business over to her granddaughter, Gina Pier, but continued to drop in. "I was going and sitting and talking to the people," she said.
Some of the regulars followed them to the new location about a half mile away. But many faded away.
Christine Gianadda of Casa Linda Park said she used to hit Vern's for lunch several years ago when she did volunteer work for the Science Place. She liked the food and loved the people.
"Everything came together there. It was a great mix of people partly because of the location. It's East Dallas and a funky little place, not quite Fair Park and not quite Deep Ellum," she said. "You'd get the Lakewood people and the kind of proper people and the Munger Place people and the Fair Park people, and the bus drivers and the cops and the Deep Ellum freaks. It was just hilarious to eat really great food and people watch."
She said that when Vern's disappeared from the corner of Main and Exposition, she assumed it went out of business. Others likely did too.
Ms. Simmons said higher rent and poor economy also taxed the business at the new location. And now she mourns for her granddaughter, who exhausted her savings trying to keep the place open. "I said the best thing to do is let it go," Simmons said. "She tried. She tried."
Simmons plans to spend her days at her home in Southeast Oak Cliff, cooking for her husband of about 30 years, Robert Simmons, and her grandchildren when they stop by.
Her message for her customers: "Just tell them I loved them and I stayed as long as I could."
