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Grab and go meals make eating good food easy at this mom and pop joint.
John Park
What do you do when the thing you’re best at is wearing you thin? How do you stay in an industry you love but is beginning to feel more stifling than expansive? If you’re Myles Wallace and Karen Ayyildiz, you choose the expansive way, and one with your hometown in mind.
Wallace and Ayyildiz were both born and raised in Roanoke. Both graduated Cave Spring High School. Both heard the restaurant’s call early in their lives. After high school, Wallace went straight to culinary school. He attended Johnson and Wales in Providence, Rhode Island, where he was classically trained in the French chef brigade. Ayyildiz tried the college route, but hated it and came home. She earned an associate’s degree from Virginia Western, and made waitressing her career.
While the two knew of one another from high school, they didn’t officially meet until years later, while working at the same restaurant in Vinton—Ayyildiz worked lunch, Wallace worked dinner. They met in passing one day and started talking. Next thing they knew, they’d been married 17 years, and over 40 years combined experience in the dining industry.
After nearly two decades, the couple became increasingly worn down by the grind of restaurant life. They decided to take a step back and spend time assessing what they truly loved about the food world. It was in this time of honest reflection that M&K Food Shop was born.
“My inspiration is a challenge and something new,” says Wallace, when describing how M&K keeps his chef cup full. “I’ve never cooked a certain style of cuisine. My take on food is classic with a twist…[taking] a new food application to an old recipe. My inspiration is ultimately to do the best I can.”
For Ayyildiz, M&K was an opportunity to explore her fascination with prepared foods. She says she’s always had a love for grocery stores, especially those upscale stores that offer customers unique ingredients and prepared food options.
“The first time I stepped into a Wegmans (an upscale grocery store) I nearly passed out,” laughs Ayyildiz, describing one of her early encounters with the prepared food concept.
The couple also drew inspiration from their visits to Manhattan and Charlottesville where grab-and-go food shops abound.
John Park
Myles Wallace and Karen Ayyildiz
“The M&K concept is everywhere around us,” says Wallace. “But Roanoke didn’t have it. To-go food at restaurants doesn’t necessarily travel well. So, we thought, ‘Well, let’s corner the market with the to-go food. Make food that’s easy to take home and heat up when you want it.”
M&K has been open four years now. The couple proudly call themselves a mom-and-pop joint, citing the intimacy created with their freedom to honor customers’ specific requests. Customers can come in with a favorite dish or dietary request and see that request often honored on the next week’s menu. This has created an incredibly loyal and ever-growing fan base the couple didn’t expect.
Of course, it helps that Wallace–and Ayyildiz, too, for she’s responsible for several of M&K’s staple items–are masters in the kitchen. True to Wallace’s professed chef-style, M&K’s food doesn’t adhere to any particular genre, rather it’s traditional food with a twist. Like meatloaf made with chuck roast rather than ground beef, mashed Yukon potatoes and rutabaga and Turkish green beans (a head nod to Ayyildiz’s Turkish heritage). Or, Southwestern pie—a spin-off of traditional quiche (one of my favorites). Or, chicken salad that’s heavy on the chunked chicken, light on the dressing (thank you!), with the perfect zip of dill. Their pimento cheese is addictive (it barely lasts a weekend at my house). So are their twice-baked potatoes and banana pudding. And I deeply appreciate their constant supply of freshly prepared salads I can stock up on for lunches. Easy. Healthy. Satisfying. Home. These are the nourishments that fill me when I eat M&K’s food.
Wallace and Ayyildiz say they hope to expand M&K in the future; create a market space as well as add beer, wine and small plates to their menu. They especially want to make better use of their front porch and deck space outside.
“We have this beautiful space we want to share,” Wallace says, pointing to outside M&K’s walls. “Of course, we want to expand, but not for the money. We want to see more people. We want people to sit outside and enjoy that deck.”
“My customers are my friends,” Ayyildiz adds as a pronouncement, spoken as true and wholesome as their food.
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