One family, one kitchen, a whole lot of Laos.
Family Kitchen isn't a chain and it isn't fancy. It's one woman's recipes, cooked with the same care every single day.
The shop today — same red brick, same kitchen, same cook. If you drove past it, you might not notice. Most of our regulars didn't, at first.
Meet Mae
Bounmy Phimmasone — everyone just calls her Mae, “mom” in Lao — grew up in a small town outside Savannakhet, Laos, where her mother ran a food stall by the market. From the time she was tall enough to reach the mortar, Mae was pounding papaya salad and tasting broth off a wooden spoon.
She came to the United States in the early 2000s with a suitcase, a handful of recipes kept only in her head, and no plans to open a restaurant. She cooked for her family. Then for friends. Then for friends of friends who kept “happening” to stop by around dinnertime.
In 2016 she took over a little red-brick shop on a side street in Woonsocket — the kind of place with cheap rent precisely because nobody walks by. She hung a small sign, fired up the burners, and started cooking the food she grew up on.
“I don't cook to impress anybody. I cook the way my mother cooked. If you leave full and happy, that's the whole business.”
Word got around the way good food always does — quietly, and then all at once. Today Mae still runs the kitchen with her son and daughter, simmering broth before sunrise and pounding every papaya salad to order. Nothing comes out of a bag. Nothing is rushed.
We're still hard to find, still a little shop off the main road. But the people who find us tend to become regulars. We'd love for you to be one of them.
From scratch, always
Broths simmered for hours, herbs pounded fresh, curries built from whole spices. The slow way, because it tastes better.
A family, literally
Mae cooks alongside her kids. When you order, a real family is making your food — not a factory line.
No pretense
We're not fancy and we're not trying to be. Great food, fair prices, and a warm welcome. That's the deal.
Taste what Mae's been cooking.
Order pickup or delivery, or just find your way to the little shop and say hi.