Bloom-Winter2014:
1/17/2014
1:19 PM
Page 18
As all Grilled Cheese Mania offerings are named for family, the sandwich that has pesto, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and hot sauce is called the “Mama Mania,” in honor of Kathleen’s mother.
I
n true Italian fashion, Kathleen Mania-Casey relies on her hands to tell a story; often, they’re flailing, but this particular morning, from a twochair window table at the Mr. J’s closest to her Harrisonburg home, the Valley transplant reins them in close to her chest. “Through this whole thing,” she says, perpetually in the middle of a sentence, habitually mid-thought, “something was very, very clear to me. I felt like I was in the palm of His hands.” With her left hand cupped, the sister hand finds its home cradled in that makeshift container. “I felt like this was God and I was right there, like He had me,” Kathleen continues. “Everything was going to be alright. ... ‘I trust you,’ that’s what I would say. ‘I don’t see it; I don’t get it. ... I’m hurting. I’m losing everything that I love, but I trust you.’ ” She pauses, but at her rapid-fire pace, it’s barely noticeable. “Now, I feel like I’m coming alive again.”
Grilled Cheese Mania
Positioned behind the two-pane window
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Bloom
Winter 2014
of the bright red food truck she opened a year ago Oct. 15, Kathleen looks like a picture. Frequently sporting a warm yellow shirt with “ARE YOU A MANIAC?” emblazoned in block letters across her chest, Kathleen talks to customers as if she already knows them, as if she genuinely cares about them beyond the few dollars they’re dropping off at her business — because she whole-heartedly does. Though her time in the food industry spans decades, from working in her dad’s IGA supermarkets to operating the deli she and her husband owned — Casey’s Corner Deli in Saddle Brook, N.J. — for 13 years, Kathleen has a new outlook on most everything, including business. “I just feel like God’s hands are all over this,” she says refering to the food truck that serves seven hot, cheesy sandwiches, as well as other comfort foods. “It helps me to appreciate it all. Years ago, in Casey’s Corner Deli, it was about the money.” Now, that’s just not the point, she says. Rather, she sees it this way: “Yes, my mother taught me to cook, and my father owned his own business and that’s
… in my genes, but I wouldn’t have that if God didn’t give that to me.” However she views it, there’s no mistaking the fact that Grilled Cheese Mania has been a quick success. “The first week [after opening,] we were really, really busy,” said Emily Marsh, a 24-year-old Harrisonburg resident who has worked for Kathleen since a week before the food truck opened. “From right off the bat, I realized that, ‘OK, this is going to be successful.’ ” While on a rare break from duties at the truck, Kathleen sits outside the mobile rectangle at one of the picnic tables she purchased for the budding food court the truck calls home. She explains how she was able to draw customers from day one. “I really created a buzz for Grilled Cheese Mania before we were open that I wasn’t consciously doing,” she said. On a whim, Kathleen brought sandwich samples to Larkin Arts while handing them out to other downtown businesses. Shortly thereafter, she had her first gig for the art store’s grand opening, during which the food she donated simul-