Bridgeport woman serves up her family’s comfort food recipes with new chicken restaurant

By Kaitlin Keane, Staff

Morphing “soul food with fast food,” Sarah Brooks of Bridgeport, pictured here, is serving up her family’s recipes at her new chicken restaurant Ms. Dot’s Hot Chicken.

BRIDGEPORT – Whenever she’s following her family’s recipes for collard greens and macaroni and cheese, Sarah Brooks said goes back to when she cooked alongside her grandmother and mother.

 “I just remember the times we spent in the kitchen, cutting up greens and the whole process of cooking,” said Brooks, of Bridgeport. “People don’t spend time like that anymore … I just like to have that feeling come out in the food. That’s what I think about, that’s what I remember and that’s what I want people to feel when they eat it.”

Brooks paid homage to her late mother Vivian Tompkins-Brooks through her first eatery, Aunt Viv’s Homestyle Cooking, which she ran as a food truck for a decade, and then as a restaurant on Huntington Turnpike for three years before closing during COVID-19.

She also feeds the community every other Saturday through her nonprofit Kingdom’s Kitchen, which is held in the kitchen of Full Gospel Pentecostal Church in Bridgeport.

Brooks will now serve up her family’s soul food recipes at her new restaurant, Ms. Dot’s Hot Chicken, named after her late grandmother Dorothy Tompkins.

Ms. Dot’s Hot Chicken celebrated its grand opening at 1492 Stratford Ave on Monday. The restaurant is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and closed Sundays and Mondays.

With fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and fish and grits on the menu, Brooks said her restaurant is “morphing soul food with fast food” and offers takeout only.

“You still have the good comfort food, but you can have it in the comfort of your own home,” she said.