Signature Dish: Norma's

Welcome to the Q’Stoner food feature, Signature Dish! Once a week we check in with Queens restaurants and ask the owners about the all-time favorite dishes they serve. If you know of a dish you’d like to see featured here, please email emily@brownstoner.com.

The Spot: Norma’s, 59-02 Catalpa Avenue, Ridgewood.

The Deal: Norma’s is a Ridgewood coffee shop and bakery that specializes in the homemade and local, down to the homemade flavored syrups for the coffee, locally roasted by Kitten Coffee. Crystal River Williams and Denise Plowman opened in the shop in 2012, and while both have extensive pastry baking experience neither, you may notice, is named Norma.

Instead, the café is named after the owners’ grandmothers. Williams’ grandmother, Norma, influenced her love of cooking and community but unfortunately passed away eight months before the shop opened. Plowman’s grandmother, Romana, has also influenced the restaurant, from the ubiquitous hummingbird décor to the “abundance of spice,” as Williams says. Many dishes feature Plowman’s homemade salsa such as the jalapeno biscuits and the Mexican chocolate chip cookies.

The Dish: Norma’s commitment to local and homemade can be clearly seen in the spicy bacon New Yorker. “It’s our take on the classic bacon egg and cheese sandwich,” says Williams.

Each ingredient can be traced to a local purveyor—even next door! The bacon comes from Morscher’s, just a block away. The final product is then served on a homemade biscuit, a potato onion dill roll from Amy’s Breads, or a Bagelsmith bagel.

And that abundance of spice? The bacon is coated in white and Cayenne pepper before being baked until crispy.

From the spicy bacon to the homemade biscuits to the locally sourced bacon, the food at Norma’s embodies the beliefs of the café’s owners: local and with love.