Soul food returns to Reading Terminal Market with Ma Lessie’s

Southern-style soul food will soon return to Reading Terminal Market, seven months after KeVen Parker’s Soul Food Cafe closed following Parker’s passing.

The new business ― expected to open by the end of August — is Ma Lessie’s Chicken & Waffles, occupying Parker’s former spot on the market’s 12th Street side.

Perry Ison, who managed for Parker for nearly a decade before leaving in 2019 to open Ma Lessie’s as a food truck, is partnering with his cousin Stacy McCarthy.

“Ma Lessie” is Ison and McCarthy’s grandmother, Ma Lessie Collins, who also inspired the recipes.

Ison said the menu will be similar to that of Parker’s, with fried and baked chicken wings, collard greens, smoked turkey, and peach cobbler. Expanded menu items include deviled eggs topped with salmon; egg rolls with such fillings as turkey, mashed potatoes, and collards, served with a gravy dipping sauce; and a waffle ice cream sandwich. In addition to a traditional mac and cheese, Ison said they will offer a seafood version.

“I hope to make him proud,” Ison said of Parker, a fixture on Philadelphia’s social and culinary scenes, whose death from cancer in January was a surprise to even his closest associates.

Ma Lessie’s will join Tambayan — Kathy Mirano’s Filipino breakfast-and-lunch counter — as a summertime newcomer in the historic Center City market.