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Homestyle Cooking at its Best |
Aunt Berta's Kitchen |
Reviews and testimonials about Aunt Berta's Kitchen
Please read what some of our customers and food critics have to say about Aunt Berta's ...
COURIER–POST Thursday, March 31, 2005
By TAREN CAUDLE
For the Courier-Post
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CHRIS LACHALL/Courier-Post
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The Girl Scouts of Camden County honored 10 community leaders at their 2005 Women of Outstanding Achievement Awards on March 9 at Tavistock Country Club.
Award recipients included Sandy Capell of Mantua, community services manager at Subaru of America; Tammy Colquitt of Burlington City, a worker with the nonprofit group Image and Attitude; Dr. Phyllis Dellavecchia of Blackwood, president of Camden County College; Alberta Ferebee of Haddon Township, owner of Aunt Bertha's Kitchen; Debby Hammock Nocho of Voorhees, vice president of PNC Advisors; Judi London of Cherry Hill, president of South Jersey Tourism Corporation; Wendy Owen of Lincoln University, Pa., vice president of communications at Lockheed Martin; Terry Ricca of Hammonton, a registered nurse for Virtua Health, and Deena Sherman of Cherry Hill, head of the JCC Camps.
The recipient of the 2005 Bessie Davis Award was Opal Stockwell, registrar of the Haddonfield Chapter of The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
The Bessie Davis Award recognizes individuals who have provided "extraordinary lifetime service." Stockwell, of Cherry Hill, has been a Girl Scout troop leader for many years, a camp nurse and has traveled to Girl Scout centers throughout the country.
"It was really a joy to see all the people I had worked with over the years," said Stockwell of her honor. "Some of the girls from previous years had come out."
The dinner included a speech by actress Denise Borino-Quinn, who has a role in the HBO series The Sopranos.
After receiving 20 submissions for the awards, a committee had to narrow the list to 10.
"We are all truly wealthy for having such individuals among us, individuals who speak to the true heart of Girl Scouts through their tireless community efforts, their intelligence and their drive to succeed," said Mary Connell, CEO of the Camden County Girl Scout Council, of the honorees.
The women nominated ranged in their dedication to the community, from helping children with needs to giving jobs to the disadvantaged.
Dellavecchia was honored for her work with young adults at Camden County College. Sherman and Ricca were honored for their work with younger children, Sherman with JCC Camps and Ricca with Virtua's women's and children's health programs.
Colquitt and Ferebee were cited for providing economically challenged people in their community with jobs and hope.
In addition to work in the community, women were honored for their struggle on the way to success in their companies.
Hammock Nocho, Capell and Owen held modest positions before achieving high positions in their company.
London was honored for striving to make South Jersey a tourist destination.
The Girl Scouts of Camden County have presented the awards since 1983.
Reach Taren Caudle (856) 486-2434 or cpfeat@courierpostonline.com
NJBIZ - Family Business Service and Success
By Brian Quinlan - 10/24/2005
Family-owned businesses are the backbone of the economy; they provide essential jobs, services and other forms of support to the community.
So said James Barrood, executive director of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies, in his address to more than 230 family-business owners and employees at the 13th Annual New Jersey Family Business of the Year Luncheon. Barrood, whose Madison-based organization sponsored the award ceremony at the Somerset Double Tree Hotel, said that 65% to 85% of all businesses are family owned.
“Family businesses are the economic engine of the state and the country,” Barrood said.
The awards were split into two categories: businesses with sales of under $10 million and those with sales of over $10 million. There were a total of five finalists and 10 semi-finalists. The winners: Aunt Berta’s Kitchen in Oaklyn won the $10 million-and-under category; Crystal Plaza Caterers of Livingston took the over-$10-million category.
Winners were selected based on the quality of their business and how well they have overcome challenges. But just as important, Barrood said, was how much they gave back to the community.
Karen Vander Lee knows first hand about the charitable side of family-owned business. Six months ago, when her husband died suddenly from a heart attack, Alberta Ferebee—owner of Aunt Berta’s Kitchen—left a catering job to bring her a large spread of food. Vander Lee lived on the leftovers for the next month.
Aunt Berta’s offers in-house dining, catering and takeout, and serves up everything from ribs and chicken to Cajun turkey wings. Aunt Berta’s Kitchen is in its ninth year and puts a premium on serving the community.
Another caterer took top honors for the $10 million-in-sales-and-over category. Crystal Plaza Caterers, based out of a turn-of-the-century mansion in Livingston, has been in business for 96 years in one form or another, says CEO Allan Janoff. Crystal Plaza Caterers now employs 21 cooks, who prepare meals of all ethnicities, including Italian, Jewish and Indian.
The nomination, Janoff says, is “an exclamation point. It shows our hard work is worthy of being noted. We feel like winners just being involved.”
Virginia Bauer, secretary of the New Jersey Commerce, Economic Growth and Tourism Commission, told attendees that family businesses must be resilient, flexible and courageous to survive. The state, she said, will continue to support such businesses since they create 80% of its new jobs.
“Not only have you provided revenue and employment opportunities to your communities and neighborhoods,” Bauer said. “In many cases, you have provided great humanitarian support.”
E-mail to bquinlan@njbiz.com
From Ben Garvey's blog bengarvey.com (2/20/05)
Aunt Berta's Kitchen
Damn, if you live in South Jersey and haven't been to Aunt Berta's Kitchen you don't know what you're missing. They have amazing fried chicken, ribs, turkey wings, and pork chops along with the standard home-style sides like macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, collard greens, etc. It makes Boston Market look like your high school cafeteria.
It's on the White Horse Pike in Oaklyn.
New Jersey Monthly - November, 2000
Finalist, Family Owned Business of the Year (Under $10 Million)
When the people of Oaklyn crave fried chicken or pork ribs, they head to Aunt Berta’s Kitchen. The family-style restaurant seats 36, but the largest slice of its revenue comes from takeout and catering orders. “We call it home-style cooking at its best,” says owner Alberta Ferebee. She employs her daughter, Estella, niece Táwanda, sisters Sarah and Irene, grandniece Jasmyne, and grandnephew Sidney. “We’re outgoing people,” Ferebee says. “We have very good customer-service skills.” She also hires ex-convicts and parolees who are having a tough time finding work. “Just because someone made a mistake doesn’t mean that they don’t need a chance,” she says. —Michelle Kahan
COURIER–POST Wednesday, March 17, 2004
 AVI STEINHARDT/Courier-Post
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By JUDITH W. WINNE
Courier-Post Staff
Aunt Berta's Kitchen in Haddon Township sells ribs, fried chicken, corn bread, collards, sweet potato pie, slaw and such.
This is down-home eatin'.
You can dub it soul food, although Aunt Berta's owner and namesake, Alberta Ferebee, calls it "home-style cooking at its best."
Asked for a definition of soul food, Ferebee thinks a long while.
"It's like a comfort kind of food," she says finally, batting the question over to Estella Gale, a daughter who works with her.
"It's home-cooked food," says Gale. "It makes you think of family and togetherness."
Like Italian meat balls with grandma's gravy or Jewish chicken soup with fluffy dumplings, soul food speaks to tradition.
The 54-year-old Ferebee had cooked since girlhood, first for her dad and brothers, later professionally. As a teen she worked in an Italian restaurant, starting as a dishwasher and working her way up to head cook. For years, she worked in food service as a supervisor.
And then, while planning a catering job, she told a stranger in a party goods store she wanted to open a restaurant. She had the talent and will; what she lacked was a space.
The man owned a property in Haddon Township adjacent to his seafood store. Soon, Aunt Berta's Kitchen was born.
"I think it was the divine intervention of God," says Ferebee, an ordained minister.
The restaurant has expanded since its start six years ago. The seafood store is gone and Ferebee has bought the property. She has a 24-seat restaurant with flowered tablecloths and a main selling area whose focus is takeout, the biggest part of her business. She also caters meetings, parties and get-togethers.
The menu has had a few changes, too. Salisbury steak, for example, turned out to be a more popular choice than meat loaf.
And Cajun turkey wings took off.
"That's a signature dish for us now," she says. "It's very unique the way we do them. It's a spicy kind of sweet sauce, and people love it."
While mac and cheese and stuffed pork chops are hardly health food, Ferebee says her years working in hospitals, as well as nutrition classes, taught her the elements of healthful eating, strategies that have influenced her cooking.
"We don't load it up with a lot of salt," she says. "We don't load it up with a lot of grease. It's fresh."
The collard greens, for example, are cooked with smoked turkey, not pork fat.
Some items are an acquired taste.
Every third weekend from October through May, from Thursday until as long as they last, staff at Aunt Berta's sell chitterlings, that beloved soul food staple. Cleaning the chitterlings is a time-consuming process.
"We do 120 pounds of chitterlings, and 50 pounds of hog maws, and it's a lot of work . . . People call up and say, `Is this chitterling week?' "
Ted Levy of Cherry Hill, an Internet consultant, says Ferebee has a vast repertoire of menu items. Levy, 57, met Ferebee at a business networking group. He has sampled her food at meetings, parties and the restaurant and praises the fare.
"The food there goes beyond the usual," says Levy. "Her Cajun turkey wings, mac and cheese, okra, corn and tomatoes, for example, are outstanding."
Gerry Faber, 51, of Cherry Hill is an Aunt Berta fan.
"The thing I love the best is the warm atmosphere and the feeling of family and, of course, the food is great," says the lawyer.
Faber says his family adored the beef brisket Ferebee catered for his family's Jewish New Year dinner.
Aunt Berta hosts a Sunday buffet with everything from Virginia baked ham and top round of beef to candied yams and sweet corn.
A $10 "belly buster" lunch feast, offered the first Friday in October through May, is a groaning board of chicken, turkey, beef, ham, mac and cheese, yams, greens, corn and rice.
Ferebee, who works with two sisters as well as her daughter, has big plans. She hopes to open another Aunt Berta's soon in Philadelphia, she wants to sell some of her products in supermarkets and hopes, one day, to franchise her restaurant.
"I really do believe this is a vision given to me by God," she says. "I have a lot in me that's going to come out."
IF YOU GO
- Aunt Berta's Kitchen is at 639 White Horse Pike, Haddon Township. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Call (856) 858-7009 or visit www.auntbertaskitchen.com
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COURIER–POST Friday, January 1, 1999 TGIF
Soul Food
Judging from the flavors and aromas coming from Aunt Berta’s Kitchen in Oaklyn, soul food truly comes from the soul. An intimate setting with whispers of Gospel music in the background, Aunt Berta’s serves up heaps of classic Southern foods at low, low prices. For as little as $8, soul-food seekers will enjoy fried chicken, barbecued beef or pork ribs, ham, macaroni and cheese, cabbage, collard greens, okra and sweet potato pie. Aunt Berta’s offers both takeout and eat-in services.
During a recent Sunday visit to Aunt Berta’s, my mother and I were captivated by the warm smiles of the staff and the wide variety of foods.
On Sundays, Aunt Berta’s offers a buffet. For $9.99, my mother was served two mouth-watering platters filled with fried chicken, barbecued chicken, roast beef, baked ham, green beans, sweet corn, collard greens, candied yams, garden style rice, baked macaroni and cheese, corn bread, potato salad, sweet potato pie and a beverage.
Since I am a vegetarian, I ordered a $6 vegetable platter with green beans, seasoned collard greens mixed with cabbage, candied yams, sweet corn, richly-textured macaroni and cheese and a slice of lemon pound cake. To say the least, my meal was heavenly. However, my mother’s savory meat dish made me rethink my meatless existence.
At the end of the meal, my mother and I leaned back in our chairs — feeling stuffed, satisfied and rather sleepy. “Good soul food always makes you sleepy,” my mother, Evelyn Myers said.
If you’re looking for down-home southern food, look no further than Aunt Berta’s Kitchen.
“This is the way black folks cooked way before TV dinners and microwaves,” my mother said. “In our busy world, people don’t have the time to devote to putting their soul into cooking — let Aunt Berta’s do the cooking and go about your busy day.”
Aunt Berta’s Kitchen,
639 White Horse Pike, Oaklyn.
858-7009
— LISA ANN MYERS
If you like home cooked taste, without actually doing the cooking yourself, try Aunt Berta’s Kitchen in Oaklyn. The newly renovated dining area is quaint and homey, but the real sight is the food.
Aunt Berta’s offers so many choices it’s hard to choose what to feast on. They offer two kinds of chicken and ribs, as well as pork chops, seafood, sandwiches and more. They also offer more vegetable choices than you can think of. My favorite dish happens to be their mouthwatering ribs, which have an incredible BBQ sauce, and are so well cooked that they fall off the bone!!!
They offer Family Meal deals, Individual Meal deals, and a superb Sunday Buffet that gives you a t
aste of all their offerings. An individual Six-Rib Deal comes with two heaping side dishes and a roll for $11.95. Their Sunday Buffet options range from $10.99 to $15.99 and include an entree, sides, side salad, roll, beverage, and dessert. Speaking of dessert ... all of their desserts are homemade and sumptuous.
All of their choices are available to eat in or take out. Their dining area is available for business meetings and Aunt Berta’s even does catering. They catered my husband’s 30th birthday and were very professional. Of course, everyone raved about the food.
Aunt Berta herself can normally be found cooking and the rest of the staff is friendly and courteous. They treat you like family and feed you like family. Aunt Berta’s Kitchen really is “homestyle cooking at its best.”
Valerie Zediker
Collingswood, NJ
Estella & Alberta,
Thank you & your staff for making my birthday/housewarming party a great success. All of my guests loved the food and took lots of it home.
- Danista Hunte
Thank you again.
From the City of Camden Department of Health & Human Services
Camden High School - Leon Huff Salute
