By Kiara Doyal, The Seattle Medium
Finding tasty Southern food in Washington may be a challenge at times, but for Lillian Rambus and her mother, Barbara Collins, owners of Simply Soulful in Central District Seattle, opening their restaurant in 2014 was based on the simple notion of doing what they do best—satisfying the taste buds of people with their family’s traditional Southern recipes.
What started off small has turned into a lifelong dream of operating a restaurant in honor of Rambus’ grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Hammond.
“At the time, right before we opened up in 2014 at the Madison Valley location, my mom was retiring from a 30-year career at Costco, I was working for the State of Washington, and we both just kind of wanted a restaurant,” Rambus said. “It was always a dream of ours to have a restaurant, and so when we had finally decided in 2014 to move forward with it, my mother had actually retired, and we opened up Simply Soulful.”
“We kind of started out making some of my grandmother’s sweet potato pie recipes at the farmers market, and then we transitioned to just cooking all of our different family recipes and serving it to the public,” continued Rambus. “In 2014, we were at our location in Madison Valley, and two and a half years ago, we expanded and moved to our Jackson Street location and continued serving our family recipes.”
Located on a prominent corner of 23rd & Jackson in Seattle’s Central District, Rambus said that she wants people to know that they are a community space that not only serves authentic Southern food but highlights and uplifts local Black folks from the community.
“We are a true community space, and I like to say that we are a rotating Black art gallery,” Rambus said. “We feature local Black artists; we do live music events to highlight local jazz musicians from the Seattle area and just things like that—highlighting people from the community.”
Rambus said that Simply Soulful is a unique business that can stand out against other Southern restaurants because of the sense of family and love that goes into not only the food but resonates throughout the staff.
“I think we are unique because we use really traditional recipes, we are a mother-daughter duo, and we are family-owned and operated,” Rambus said. “We have three generations working in the restaurant now, and my son even works in the kitchen now too.”
According to Rambus, Simply Soulful recreates her grandmother’s kitchen and the welcoming nature that comes from transforming ingredients into dishes that feed both the body and soul.
“Serving my grandmother’s recipes to the public became kind of like a tradition and homage to her,” Rambus said. “My grandmother, who was the matriarch of the family, was always in the kitchen and always cooked her food every day. So, that is how I grew up, and we are doing that now for the community.”
With there not being many Black-owned businesses around, Rambus hopes that Simply Soulful can be an inspiration to other aspiring Black entrepreneurs in the community.
“It is so important to highlight Black-owned businesses because there are not a lot of us around. Hopefully, we can be an inspiration to the next generation where they too can be in business for themselves, be successful, and build something that they can include in their generation,” Rambus said. “And hopefully, continue to inspire and carry on something for the next two or three generations behind them as well.”