Yvette Bidegain thought she knew what Californians wanted to eat. Okra and catfish weren’t on the list.
Four years after opening Saucy Mama’s Jook Joint in Guerneville, they’re her two best-selling dishes.
“I used to sneak catfish to my friends’ table because they really wanted it,” she said. Other diners noticed and started asking for it, too. Eventually, the farm-raised catfish earned a permanent place on the menu.
Saucy Mama’s is equal parts soul food restaurant, neighborhood hangout, birthday destination and post-river stop, wrapped in a barbecue-roadhouse-meets-New Orleans aesthetic…