Most Popular
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Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Movie Pirates
That couple in the back row — they're making out big time, but not in the way you think
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It's Hip to Be Square at Masraff's
Continental cuisine is over, so why would anybody want to eat at this retirees' hang-out on South Post Oak Lane?
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Barack Obama and Me (257)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (24)
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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What's the Problem Houston? (6)
The city's skuzzy alt-rock scene thinks it is dying
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (8)
All This Useless Beauty
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X-Clan's Brother J Drops Some Knowledge (4)
Revolution Through Evolution
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Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
-
A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Movie Pirates
That couple in the back row — they're making out big time, but not in the way you think
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The Judy's Come Back
Just in time for SXSW, the Pearland New Wavers brush off the mothballs
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Slideshow: Chuy Benitez's "Houston Cultura"
06:06AM 03/25/08 -
Drenched in Blog: Emilio!
02:19PM 03/24/08 -
Rockets-Kings: The Art of Adelman
09:35AM 03/25/08 -
David Wildbur's Sage Decision
06:06AM 03/25/08
What we are writing about
- Altar Boyz
- Backroom at the Mink
- Cactus Music
- Chantal Akerman
- Continental Club
- Cuban immigrants
- Erykah Badu
- Frozen
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- Meridian
- Ornament as Art:...
- PlayStation
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- Roger Clemens
- Rudyard's
- Sig's Lagoon
- Sound Exchange
- southwest Houston
- Sugar Bean Sisters
- The Menil Collection
- There Will Be Blood
- Vinal Edge Records
- Walter's on Washington
- Warehouse Live
- Wii
- Young and Fertle
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National Features
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Village Voice
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Mama Ninfa and her Comeback Kids
Continued from page 4
Published: August 6, 1998Ask Morgan what Roland is up to (nobody really thinks of El Tiempo as Dominic's restaurant) and he acknowledges that Roland told him during the bankruptcy of his plans to open El Tiempo.
Roland says, "I just don't think he thought it would be so soon."
Morgan says, "I think Roland probably would have been smarter, in the sense that it'd have been a more certain success, if he'd opened another Ninfa's and been a licensee."
But ask Morgan if he's got a problem with the goings-on at El Tiempo, with regard to the non-compete clause, and he's diplomatic: "We've satisfied ourselves in terms of the overall relationship that that's not going to be a problem, that whatever problem that is, we can live with it." Would you want to take on Mama Ninfa, one of the city's most beloved icons, in the court of public opinion?
Tell him how often Mama Ninfa's been on El Tiempo's premises, and his chuckle moves from embarrassed to something slightly more awkward, as he asks, "Oh really?"
Meanwhile, the family Laurenzo keeps on doing what it apparently knows best, running a family restaurant as a family, and failing to discourage suggestions that what's happening now at El Tiempo has almost eerie parallels to the early days of the original Ninfa's on Navigation. Aside from those family members who have chosen to license back the name that was once theirs and continue operating Ninfa's locations, the Laurenzos were pretty much out of their jobs once Ninfa's was sold. They need to make a living to support their families, in much the same way that Mama had to find a way to support hers. "That's exactly what it is," says Roland. "In my eyes, if there's anything in my life that it reminds me of, that's what it reminds me of."
And those eyes: Are there any more stars in them? If El Tiempo takes off, may Houston expect expansion?
"Not gonna do it," says Roland. "We're real firm on that." And then, without even a pause for breath: "If we do it, it'll be in Chicago. Or Los Angeles, whatever. One store that a Laurenzo is going to run."
Which seems a plausible denial, don't you think?
E-mail Brad Tyer at brad_tyer@houstonpress.com.
