Lady J’s offers up soul food downtown
By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press
A lifelong dream has been fulfilled for Jacquelyn Lamkin-Coefield and it has taken shape at 212 S. 2nd St. in downtown Copperas Cove.
Lady J’s Soul Food Buffet has been open approximately a month, and word is starting to get around.
“I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life,” said Coefield. “I told my momma when I was little, I’d have a chain of restaurants, I just didn’t know how I was going to get there.”
The theme of the restaurant is family, and it is indeed a family affair, from the corporation’s name – Lady J’s A Family Affair – to the décor in the restaurant as well as its food.
Coefield and her mother do the cooking for the restaurant and serve up a menu called “Everyday Favorites”, from fried chicken, baked chicken, cornbread, collard greens, beans and rice, mac ‘n cheese, baked potatoes, fried catfish, baked fish, and more. The menu can change, Coefield said, depending on what she’d like to cook and serve that day. Assorted desserts every day can include cheesecake, peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, pecan pie, as well as “Lady J’s inspirations.”
The road to opening Lady J’s has been more than 20 years in the making, with Coefield having received culinary training via a U.S. Navy program in San Francisco, then working on Captiva Island, Fla. for about 20 years. Life brought her home to Texas and family, where she has also worked as a cook and done front of the house work for Cracker Barrel and management at Golden Corral.
For Coefield, when it was time to open her own restaurant, things quickly fell into place after she saw the vacant restaurant space on South 2nd Street.
“This is definitely a family affair,” Coefield said, adding that her family are the ones who help her with running the restaurant, bookkeeping, along with the legal side of the business. They also replaced the tile floor in the space, painted, and family also donated the tables and chairs sets in the dining room, with Coefield’s church family also helping by donating plates and more. A contractor friend built the custom countertop where guests pay for their meals.
The all-you-can-eat buffet has several rules, one of which is that diners are expected to be members of the “clean plate club.”
“Please do not waste my food. There are too many hungry people in this world,” Coefield said.
Lady J’s keeps the family theme in the décor, with Coefield’s grandmother’s glass punch bowls on display and a soon-to-be-added print of her great-great-great-great grandmother’s 110th birthday celebration.
Coefield’s mother, Joyce Lamkin, owned the former Downtown Country Kitchen in Killeen, where as a young girl, Coefield learned some of the business.
“My mother has been in the restaurant business all her life; I had my first job with my momma,” Coefield said.
Of her own restaurant, she believes in having a good time while she works.
“This is my love; I love it, I love what I do,” Coefield said. “I even cook like this at home. I’m used to cooking for my family. When you’re growing up and you have a big family, and all of a sudden you have a smaller family, you still cook this big.”
Coefield said her ultimate goal is to open another restaurant as well as having a cooking school where she can train the next generation of cooks.
On Sunday, Mother’s Day, Lady J’s is offering a special buffet for mothers to eat half-price. Those diners who want food to go can pay for their meals by the pound. Monday through Thursday prices are $4.95 per pound, and Friday through Sunday buffets are $6.95 per pound.
Friday buffets include seafood all day, with Saturday buffets including barbecue such as chicken, pork, sausage, or beef brisket. Buffet prices include choice of sweet or unsweetened tea, tropical punch, or lemonade, along with dessert. Monday through Thursday buffets are $10.88 for adults, $5.88 for children 5-10. Friday through Sunday buffets are $13.88 for adults, $7.88 for children 5-10.
Lady J’s is open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. and Sunday from noon until 5 p.m.