Momma Drama

When Whispers heard Momma Dean’s Soul Food Kitchen, a popular Southern comfort food eatery that closed last fall, is one of the companies signed on to open up shop in a new food truck court on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, we were a little surprised.

Owner Meneria Morrison and manager Terry Morrison were taken to court by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration several times for non-payment of state taxes, including more than 10 times between 2008 and 2010.

However, most every time Momma Dean’s has settled up in the end.

The business, opened in 2007, was given a closure order in December 2009 but resolved the issue. It actually closed for a few days in October 2010 on another closure order, but the owner was given thousands of dollars by an anonymous donor to reopen.

The final closure order came in July 2013 and Momma Dean’s closed in August.

In the middle of these financial woes, Momma Dean’s was giving away a free meal for every meal sold in the store, through a program that was launched in 2009.

Whispers cannot definitively tell if it is the same Terry Morrison, but there are charges of failure to pay income taxes filed under that name (albeit for trivial amounts) dating back to 1998 and 2005.

The latest information (dated April 2014) from the Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission shows the restaurant has settled its city tax debt. And, according to the secretary of state’s website, the restaurants catering business, Momma Dean’s Soul Food On the Fly LLC, is in good standing with the state.