The commercials didn't seem very exciting and that should have warned me not to bother watching it. No chemistry, boring story, a lot of blah blah blah that went on and on and on. It didn't have a clear storyline. It's over saturated with flash backs and the main characters just didn't capture my attention. There wasn't much cooking, not that much food, a lot of very short overly dramatic problems that were resolved before you even understood the problem! Fine to play in the background while doing other things but not worth watching with your full attention.

This was a big miss. The plot made no sense. Mama left her restaurant to a woman she hasn't spoken to in years and who didn't even know Mama had died until after the funeral. And the chef of the restaurant apparently had no idea she had died, either, and she still owned the restaurant. Besides all that nonsense, the plot seemed stuck in neutral for the first half. They spent the first hour arguing about the menu (she wanted to change it, he wanted to keep it the same even though he was running the restaurant into the ground). Nothing beats doubling down on stupidity. Then after she finally convinces him to go back to Mama's recipes, she changes her mind and decides to go with his menu. You know, the menu that was scaring away customers? Just a big mess. And the exaggerated New York accents didn't help.

This is a sweet heartwarming story about the origin of an Italian American restaurant in New Jersey. The restaurant is called Mama's and as you can imagine the story starts with Mama and Papa. The contemporary story is about Frank and Amy...Amy who Mama thought of as a granddaughter inherits the restaurant when Mama dies and that is when she meets Frank the current chef at Mama's.

The story is a bit about taking in strays, creating a family, about trust, compromise and taking a chance on someone as a way to spread the love.

My favorite nugget is about writing a letter to someone and how precious that can really be.

This was a little different for a hallmark film, less emphasis on the wooing and more emphasis an the living, just being...and on friendship.