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Eminem surprises fans at the opening of his 'Mom's Spaghetti' restaurant in Detroit

Eminem serves customers on the opening night of his restaurant Mom's Spaghetti in Detroit on Wednesday.
Scott Legato
/
Getty Images
Eminem serves customers on the opening night of his restaurant Mom's Spaghetti in Detroit on Wednesday.

Rapper Eminem's seminal song "Lose Yourself," from the 2002 film 8 Mile, has likely inspired many listeners and artists with its urgent, motivating lyrics.

And now it has also inspired a pasta restaurant, thanks to this memorable line:

"His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy / There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti"

A new restaurant called Mom's Spaghetti opened in the artist's hometown of Detroit on Wednesday.

The concept restaurant is actually the result of a partnership between Eminem's team and a local restaurant group, and it started as a pop-up shop in 2017.

Mom's Spaghetti has made appearances at several Eminem festival performances since then and has delivered food to front-line hospital workers and COVID-19 vaccinators in Detroit during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a news release.

Paul Rosenberg, Eminem's manager, said in a statement that the response from fans has been "overwhelmingly positive," calling the previous pop-ups "really a test for us to determine whether there was enthusiasm for a regularly-occurring Mom's Spaghetti spot that would be open all year long."

The brick-and-mortar space consists of a walk-up restaurant window and an upstairs merchandise and memorabilia store called The Trailer (in another nod to 8 Mile). The store is small and "limited to eight Stans" at a time, the release says.

The restaurant's menu is simple, offering spaghetti (plain, with meatballs or with vegan "rabbit balls") and 'sghetti sandwiches, all for under $15.

"We're proud of the fact that we created a scratch sauce that tastes like it's straight from the jar, and wok-firing the noodles gives it that leftover pasta snap," said Curt Catallo, co-owner of Union Joints restaurant group. "The walk-up window and small diner-like spot for people to eat add to the feeling that this is a homegrown, DIY experience."

A local commercial helped get the word out ahead of the restaurant's grand opening on Wednesday evening. The Detroit Free Press reports that many fans camped out all day for a spot in line, which later stretched for blocks.

And some lucky stans got more than just a takeout box of spaghetti. Eminem made a surprise appearance, serving the first 10 fans in line both food and selfies. The generally reclusive rapper and his entourage then piled into a pair of SUVs and sped away, the Detroit Free Press observed, "chased Beatlemania-style down Woodward by packs of fans."


This story originally published in the Morning Edition live blog.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Rachel Treisman (she/her) is a writer and editor for the Morning Edition live blog, which she helped launch in early 2021.