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Saturday, February 04, 2012
Feature: September 2008
Mom Knows Best
A mother hands down the family recipe for success
Story by Dan Darvishian
John Kane’s arrival surely felt like triumph to the gourmands of Nevada County.
As executive chef of San Francisco’s famed University Club, world-traveling president of the Chefs Association of the Pacific Coast, and a founder of the Bay Area’s Left Bank brasserie chain, Kane was an epicurean luminary who seemed destined, perhaps, for bigger things than life in quaint Grass Valley.
But to hear it from Kane himself, a strapping baritone whose voice is as pleasant as honeyed panna cotta, he had no choice: “I followed my heart. I followed Maria.”
That would be Maria Ramos, who seems to have the same affect on many people.
Restaurateur and founder of Maria’s Mexican Restaurant in Grass Valley, Ramos is also Kane’s “life partner” and co-owner of Kane’s Restaurant, a bustling ristorante and bar. Kane says both restaurants are multimillion-dollar businesses.
The couple met years ago while Kane, who is also a consulting chef for such companies as U.S. Foodservice, was on promotional duty. By then Ramos’ restaurant was well established. But a lot of hard work and heartache had gone into making the place successful.
“We used to live in a little trailer when I was younger,” says Gina Ramos, Maria’s daughter. Now co-owner of the bed-and-breakfast Bella Rosa Inn — a restored Nevada City Victorian home that she operates with her husband, Ben Wilson — Gina recalls growing up poor. “My mom cleaned houses, and we were barely making ends meet,” she says.
Originally from Sacramento, Maria, whose maiden name was Torres, married Henry Ramos. A returning Vietnam veteran, Henry took a job with the Army Corps of Engineers, which sent the couple to Visalia. They had children and a home, and Maria worked as a housekeeper. She cooked using recipes passed down from her mother.
“My mom was a really good cook,” Maria says, “and she was really stern. She would knock us on our heads when we weren’t doing things right. She really made us learn the flavors of the food, how to sauté onions and garlic and how to make salsas and tortillas.”
But 12 years later, with the economy in recession, Henry was reassigned to Smartville in Nevada County. The couple could not sell their Visalia home, though they managed to get it rented. They found a rental in Penn Valley, but Maria couldn’t find work. The corps was slow in paying a promised raise, and the family lost the home. They had to fall back on relatives. Finally able to buy a trailer, they moved to a friend’s property.
Maria was eventually hired by a pizza parlor in Grass Valley. She then landed a second job as a waitress at the Lake Wildwood Country Club in Penn Valley, working six days a week and many double shifts. After years of scrimping, the family had saved enough to lease a home.
Meanwhile, Maria’s work at the pizzeria had begun to include management duties. Gina remembers making pizza while her mother learned how to run the business. Once she had peered behind the curtain, Maria was changed. Yet the knowledge only seems to have alloyed an already renowned strong will and ability to plan ahead.
“She can see things,” says brother-in-law Jack Alvarez. “I mean, she can walk into a place and totally redesign it in her head, right down to the electrical sockets.”
Some say Maria’s driving ambition contributed to her eventual divorce. Others note that men around the Ramos women had better contribute to the project at hand or expect to move. “You don’t want to be some couch potato hanging with those girls,” says Mary Ann Mueller, president of the local chamber of commerce.
Ben Wilson, Gina’s husband, is a contractor. “I can’t tell you how perfect that is,” says Gina, who also co-manages Maria’s with her brother, Henry Jr.
From the pizza parlor, Maria moved into managing the country club’s restaurant. She built her first home and opened several “Mexican Kitchen” deli counters for Raley’s Inc. Finally, having mortgaged her home, she bought the run-down burger joint that would become Maria’s. Ironically, the place became successful too fast, and she strained to keep up.
“I would come home crying, thinking I would be the first business to last only three months,” Maria says. “But you keep doing it, and you keep getting better. You keep making improvements.”
