Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 16, 1994 TAG: 9411160093
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GLASGOW LENGTH: Medium
"I was rotund," the 57-year-old says frankly. "My daughter told me, 'Mother, if you don't get out of this blue chair, we'll have to bury you in it.' ''
McGuire has lost 25 pounds since she and Anne Davis, also a former house-mother, embarked on their latest feeding frenzy last month: A restaurant that offers homemade soups, meatloaf and mashed potatoes - with a spiced-up gourmet twist.
It's not a typo, it's Tomata's.
As in, going "To Mata's," where Mata McGuire may be shedding pounds - but you're likely to gain them.
As in, no address necessary. Just look for the giant red tomato out front - courtesy of oddball sign man Mark Cline, the same guy who stops Bedford County traffic with his giant red apple and rhinoceros.
Tomatoes may be the novelty theme here - you see them on the dining-room curtains, on the entranceway-table centerpiece, even hanging from the cords of the ceiling fans and window blinds.
But Tomata's is "really about people's indoctrination into 'mother food,' '' Davis says. "That's comfort food. The kind of foods that make you feel better - even when you think that's not what you want to do."
This is good news for Rockbridge old-timers, who remember McGuire as the matriarch of Lexington's White Column Inn, where she tended the masses before she tended the frat boys. Where she schmoozed with the regulars, drove them home when they were a "little under the weather," and then served them her trademark ham-cheddar-pineapple sandwich the next day.
"We used to call that the HCP, but my ex-husband decided to rename some of the sandwiches," McGuire explains, adding that her ex did the menu-typing as well as some of the financing ("I call it my ex-wife appreciation money," Mata says).
And so the HCP ($3.75, with slaw and chips) is now the Waikiki. A White Column favorite called the Ivan - a roast beef sandwich with cheddar, sliced green olives and Russian dressing ($3.85) - has found a spot on the new menu, too.
And her homemade soups - corn chowder, sausage-bean, potato and French-onion (95 cents per cup, $1.35 per bowl) - are daily features, decided upon each morning via strict procedural guidelines: "She walks into the freezer, stares for a while, emerges with her arms loaded up with different things, and then they turn into soup," Davis says.
Tomata's caters to a wide audience. There's the vegetable-plate-and-chopped-sirloin crowd. And there are those who call their spaghetti pasta.
Vegetarians like the Greek salad with feta, Kalamatas olives, cukes, tomatoes, dill-yogurt dressing and a variety of fancy greens, plus lunch salads served in a tomato. And sweet teeth crave her homemade cheesecakes and bread pudding a la mode.
What she doesn't do well - "I'm not a great pie baker," for instance - she either orders, or does without.
"TLC not MSG," the menu says, describing her philosophy for both food and life.
"People aren't cooking anymore, and I don't understand it," she says. "To me, feeding people is the biggest part of nurturing. There's nothing I like better than feeding someone with a great appetite massive quantities of food."
She also enjoys introducing the young locals who work for her to foods like garlic, basil and scallops. "We had scallops last Friday, and I sauteed some up in butter and lemon for them and said, 'All right, eat.' They started grumbling. So I said it again, 'Eat.' They ended up loving them."
While Glasgow isn't as hopping or sophisticated as Lexington, Mata says the town "provides a pleasant temperament for my old age. We've got a new laundromat and a new grocery store, and the bank is putting in an ATM machine," she says. "And we've got this beautiful 360-degree view of the mountains."
The day McGuire and Davis erected the giant tomato sign out front, people driving by on Virginia 501 nearly wrecked. "The skyline of Glasgow will never be the same," she deadpans. "Now that's something I could never get away with in Lexington."
To Mata's: From U.S. 11 at Natural Bridge, take Virginia 501 north to Glasgow and look for the tomato (across the street from the new Grocery Express). Hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; Sunday buffet from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. ($7.95 adults, $3.95 kids); closed Monday. 258-6282.
by CNB