For years, the crowds lined up at the Bijou Café in downtown Portland to get a taste of Sister Moffett’s home cookin’. In January, Sister Moffett brought her kitchen skills uptown to the Boise neighborhood with the opening of the Back Porch Café on Williams Avenue.
"She loves to cook," says Sister Moffett’s daughter, Rose Hunnicutt, who owns the café along with her partner Charles Lott and Sister Moffett. "We made her dream come true."
The Back Porch is a dream come true for soul food lovers as well. The menu features fried chicken, fried catfish and other seafood, burgers, barbecued chicken and ribs, along with Southern-style sides like greens, yams and fried okra. Desserts include sweet potato pie, banana pudding and peach cobbler. The restaurant serves breakfast all day. Menu items include conventional items such as pancakes and omelets as well as fare unusual in Portland but classic in parts of the South -- such as chicken and waffles and the "Ragin’ Cajun Breakfast," which consists of deep-fried catfish, scrambled eggs and grits.
The restaurant features cozy table seating, accepts phone-in orders and offers items to go. Hunnicutt says the café plans to add an espresso machine in the near future, and to open up the back this summer for outdoor dining -- a real back porch.
Originally from Amarillo, Texas, Sister Moffett has lvied in the Boise neighborhood for some 35 years, where she raised a family that includes five children and 10 grandchildren. In addition to her stint at the Bijou, her food-service career includes work as a caterer.
So far, the response to the new restaurant has been good, Hunnicutt reports. "I like it here. I like the neighbors. Everyone in the community is supportive," she said.
The Back Porch Café, located at 3940 N. Williams Avenue, is open seven days a week: Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.