Meet Chef Rainey
Julie Rainey has been cooking since she was nine years old — the little girl in a kitchen full of women, who wanted a taste of everything that hit the pot. Today she pours that same love into every plate at Rainey's Soul Food.
Chef Julie Rainey
Owner
Roots
Born & raised in the Bronx, NY
Cooking Since
Age 9 — three generations of women
Moved to Virginia
2015, to be near her grandkids
As Seen On
The Hampton Roads Show
"I grew up with my mother, my grandmother and my great-grandmother," Rainey remembers. "I was basically the taster — anything that dropped, I wanted it." Those women, and their kitchens, shaped a cook who has never stopped feeding the people she loves.
A New Yorker at heart, Chef Rainey moved from the Bronx to Virginia in 2015 to be closer to her grandkids. She kept catering, and started selling her all-natural beverages — including a beloved non-alcoholic ginger beer — at the Buckroe Beach Farmer's Market. Before long, her family encouraged her to plant roots of her own.
She describes her cooking simply: soul food with a Caribbean flair. The menu changes with her mood and the market — she wakes up and decides what she'll cook that day. But some things are always worth the trip: her fall-apart oxtails and her smothered turkey wings have a following all their own, and earned her a feature on The Hampton Roads Show.
With a degree in social work, Rainey sees the restaurant as more than a kitchen. "Having a restaurant is like having that neighborhood beauty shop," she says. "You get the social in." She runs it with her family, and dreams of one day hiring local students to learn the business.
"When you walk in, you'll feel the comfort of home. You will be reminded of your childhood, or your grandmother's kitchen."