RESTAURANTS: Phood on Main serves customers for one last time this year before closing business for bigger ideas.
By Jonathan Whang, Staff writer
Phood on Main is a restaurant in our very own city of Riverside. The location offers freshly baked goods, sandwiches and a variety of other foods. Despite the restaurant’s popularity, Marla Cohen (co-owner of Phood) made the final decision to shut down the restaurant.
Cohen is the mastermind behind the line of spices that will soon take priority over her Phood on Main business. The line is called “Chef Marla’s Super Shit Spices,” and covers everything from “Cow Shit” for a buttery flavor to “Jack Shit” for a Monterey Jack cheese taste. However, despite what the name might suggest, the brand name is just the result of Cohen’s sense of humor, actually referring to her Yiddish cooking roots. Just in case though, each bottle comes with a disclaimer, explaining that “Chef Marla’s great-grandmother cooked solely by the Yiddish ‘shit’ method, which translated means to throw a little of this and a little of that.” They also come with tiny stickers labeled “spice” to cover the word.
Cohen graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Her 28 years of culinary experience are enriched with various jobs, ranging from bakeries to catering services. Though Phood was voted “Best New Restaurant” in 2011 by Inland Empire Magazine, Cohen is still moving forward. With the help of co-founder and husband, Lyn Cloninger, she will be focusing on commercializing her spices. So far, things are looking good—orders for Cohen’s creations are always coming in through both Phood on Main and SuperShitSpices.com.
Begun in the basement of the Mission Galleria, Phood on Main has found its place as a popular restaurant in Downtown Riverside over the years. Fans of Cohen’s food will miss this great location, but they can enjoy its legacy through her future Super Shit Spices business which will hopefully impress many and offend few.
Photo courtesy of www.yelp.com