MAMA E's BAR-B-QUE - Fort Worth, Texas

By Shirley Everett-Dicko

Mama E’s Bar-B-Que & Home Cooking
Ernestine Edmond 
Owner/Pitmaster 
Fort Worth, Texas   

My smile started before we parked the car. When my son BJ opened the door to Mama E’s Bar-B-Que restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas and held it open for me and his sister Aiesha to enter, my smile burst into a full-blown wide-ass grin. I was grinning from ear to ear.  The restaurant reminded me of our Oakland Fruitvale Avenue location which opened in 1975.   

We walked up to the plexiglass covered counter and told the young Black girl, who turned out to be the great granddaughter of the owner and pitmaster, to give us a minute as we checked out the menu. We told her that it was our first time here, that we were from Oakland, California, and that we used Google to find her, and wanted to try her barbeque and support her during Black History Month.  

Ernestine Edmond, Hassan (BJ) Dicko, La'niyah, and Shirley Everett-Dicko, Photos by Aiesha Dicko

The older woman in the kitchen area heard us. She opened the door from the kitchen and came out to the lobby.  Automatic, with no hesitation, she embraced me, and held tightly on to my hand, my heart was full.  Ernestine Edmond introduced herself and her great granddaughter, La’niyah. She told us that she was 74 years old and was teaching her great granddaughter the BBQ traditions her mother had taught her, so she can pass the traditions on to the next generations.    

Legacy and a Black female pitmaster, I had hit the jackpot with my choice of adding Mama E’s Bar-B-Que to our tour of Texas BBQ restaurants in honor of Black History Month and my Birthday. Here in the male dominated world of Texas BBQ pitmasters I had found a Black Pearl, a real live, Bonafide, Black female pitmaster in Texas.  See, we are out there and serving some great BBQ. 

Ernestine said that she was born in Texas. Ernestine’s smoking method using a brick pit, some oak wood, and adding BBQ sauce on your smoked meat confirmed for me that our Black BBQ culture followed us from the south to the west coast during the Great Migration and on to Oakland, California. We ordered a combo of pork ribs and links, potato salad and beans, with mild sauce. The ribs were tender and very good, the links were tasty, and the hospitality and neighborhood Black history lesson Ernestine shared about her corner location and the surrounding neighborhood were priceless. Mama E’s Bar-B-Que & Home Cooking restaurant is a Historic Southside site. 

​We had to get our food to go because we had to meet a friend in Irving, Texas for brunch to celebrate my birthday. When I told Ernestine it was my birthday, she gave me one of her homemade mini cakes, which was delicious, and a t-shirt. I encourage everyone visiting Fort Worth to add Mama E’s Bar-B-Que & Home Cooking to your list. 

Fort Worth Magazine January 2018 - page 59