New Boston and Bowie County residents have fond memories about a small, brick building on Front street where they used to flock for lunchtime, when it was the home of Shirley’s. Well, that same location is now home again to the down home, Southern foods that made Shirley’s famous, as local chef Roshonna Stewart and her husband Kion have opened The Lion’s Den-Southern Dining.
Roshonna has been cooking pretty much her entire life. As a child, she spent weekends, holidays, and summer breaks with her grandparents on their farm in Foreman, Arkansas, where her grandmother Willie Mae Crutchfield taught Roshonna anything and everything pertaining to Southern farm life.
“We baled and stacked hay, picked pecans, cooked, cleaned, and shelled peas - we did anything you could imagine on my grandparents farm,” she remembered fondly. “During the holidays, I always helped in the kitchen, from a very young age. We basically grew up Southern kids.”
Roshonna began working at age 16 at a local bakery/deli, and after graduation from New Boston High School, continued to work in the food service industry.
But she always dreamed of something more.
