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Mom had dream for KC area comfort food restaurant. Now she’s doing it with teen daughter

Kansas City Star - 5/26/2022

Like many who love to cook at home, Belinda “Bella” Langford dreamed of having her own restaurant.

But she had a young family, so a job with a more reliable paycheck and insurance took precedence over any “goals or dreams I had of opening a restaurant,” she said.

She took up the idea again about seven years ago, but then her husband — her high school sweetheart — passed away suddenly of congestive heart failure. She still had four children at home.

Earlier this month, she made the dream come true for her only daughter.

She opened Bella B’s Kitchen at 6225 Blue Ridge Boulevard in Raytown, and will turn it over to La’Mia “Mia” Langford, 16, when she graduates. Langford adopted Mia when she was a toddler.

About two years ago, Mia started becoming passionate about cooking, spending time with her mom in the kitchen to perfect her skills. Langford had learned from her grandmothers — one had seven children, the other 14.

Mia also has been taking culinary classes at Raytown High School and hopes to get into the culinary program at Herndon Career Center when she is a junior in the fall. She works part-time as a cashier at Hy-Vee.

Langford also wants her daughter to go to college, at least to get an associate degree.

“She’s going to have a two-year internship at this restaurant. I don’t want to put too much on her and she still has school,” Langford said.

Langford said education is very important in her family. She got an associate of arts degree before working for a marketing firm. Then she earned a bachelor’s in social work and spent the last decade working with youth and those with disabilities.

Bella B’s Kitchen is a comfort food restaurant serving breakfast all day including the Bella B’s Stack (a stack of biscuits, meat and hash browns topped with gravy and cheese), breakfast sandwiches, biscuits and gravy or biscuits with peach gravy, shrimp and grits, oatmeal and cereal.

For lunch there’s brats, hamburgers, deli sandwiches, and chicken, tuna or turkey salad (or on a sandwich), and more.

Dinner is “manager’s choice” of two different entrees — perhaps shrimp, salmon, chicken or pot roast — with two sides. Sides include greens, sweet potatoes, green beans, cabbage, spaghetti, broccoli cheese rice, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, and mashed potatoes and gravy.

Sunday is a family-style dinner all day — three meat choices and all the sides. It also has desserts.

“It’s a lot of work but at the same time it is a lot of fun to serve other people. And getting my food out in the world is something I have always wanted to do,” Mia said.

Langford’s fiance, Demonte Rochester, is running the front end and handling advertising while she takes care of the back of the house.

“I love to serve my family and friends and now the community. I’m having an absolutely wonderful time,” she said.

As the family gathers in the dining room a second-time customer opens the door for a shout-out: “The food is delicious.”

©2022 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.