Mama Tina’s

I was extremely excited to read that Marshall had a new soul food restaurant. But after eating there a few times, my excitement has subsided. It’s worth having as freshly cooked vegetables are as scarce as hen’s teeth in most towns, including Marshall, these days. But the across the board quality just isn’t there like it was at the much lamented and no longer open P&J Lunchroom.
As a general rule, veggies seem to be a bit better than the main courses. Fried chicken is pretty reliable, while the other meats occasionally disappoint and never inspire. But, I’ll still eat there twice a week since there are so few alternatives in this segment of the market.

JG score of ⁴⁄₁₀ (+1.5 for food, 0 for atmosphere, +1 for price, +0.5 for can Diet Dr Pepper only, 0 for typical service and +1 for we would try it again)
The food is home cooking/​soul. It is good. Some items are very good and some we have had much better. Our first meal here was the chicken spaghetti with greens and macaroni and cheese and hot water cornbread. The chicken spaghetti was okay to good. The greens were good but needed more seasoning and flavor, the macaroni was very good itself and homemade= we have eaten at a lot of these places and have noticed quite a few use box mix macaroni= well not here. The cornbread had a great taste but could have had a little more crunch on the outside. Overall it was a good meal… looks like each day there will be 3 main course items to choose from and maybe half a dozen side items… other entrée options our day were Fried Chicken or Pork Roast. The dessert options were enormous and they gave you 4 choices or so. Our day featured pecan pie, 7up cake, German chocolate and one other.
The atmosphere is spacious. It is not a cramped place at all but is crammed into the «L» shaped old complex shopping center off Pinecrest. Plenty of seating and a large eraser board up front state the choices both for that day and the next= a clever idea. There is a line and this is a cafeteria type line up with servers. The speed is reasonable. P. S. 2 TVs are located on the ends of the place.
Our price was about $ 10 for the meal and a drink.
They have Diet Dr Pepper in a can only. An added bonus is 2 types of Kool-Aid…usually we see only one.
The service was friendly and typical. One young lady helping us said that she was the owner’s (Tina) goddaughter. She told us Tina had been cooking this food for a long time and selling it out of her home but the whole family got together and decided there was a need for this type of food in Marshall so that is why they started this place.
We will go back sometime.