What’s Eating Norman

Gringo Girl

Tamales & Southern Eatery

Photo by: Mark Doescher

She may be new to the restaurant business, but Kim Fields has been bringing delicious food to the table for as long as she can remember.

“By the time I was in the third grade, I could put a whole meal on the table,” Kim recalled of her childhood in Wanette. “I grew up always cooking. My mother loves to cook, my grandma loved to cook, my aunts. My brother is one of the best cooks ever.”

Fields owns and operates Gringo Girl Tamales and Southern Eatery, located at 924 W. Main Street in Norman. In addition to growing up around the kitchen, she also learned early on the value of quality ingredients.

“Having a farm, my mom grew and canned most of what we ate,” Fields recalled. “We were so far out in the country we didn’t just get in the car the way that people eat out now.”

Although her restaurant is a fairly new addition to the Norman dining scene, Fields’ tamales are well-known. She has been a regular at central Oklahoma farmers markets for years.

“When we started (over eight years ago), we would sell maybe 25 dozen tamales,” Fields said, noting they would be packaged six to a pack. “By the time we ended, we were between 300 to 400 packs. We’d sell out in Norman and Moore within an hour and half of opening.”

Fields is also a veteran of the salsa and jam business, operating Monkey Salsa and Jams manufacturing for 10 years now. Those products are sold in her restaurant as well as stores throughout Oklahoma. She has also catered, making a restaurant the next logical step.

“We got to the point where we just couldn’t keep up,” Fields explained. “So, the next step would be to try and move everything into one building. By buying (the restaurant) I was able to continue the catering out of here, able to do the manufacturing company here and then the restaurant part of it too. We just kind of condensed everything.”

The menu at Gringo Girl Tamales and Southern Eatery reads as if your grandmother wrote down the week’s meals on a chalkboard in her kitchen. From nachos and loaded fries for starters to soups and salads and onto tamales, sandwiches, chicken fried steak, meatloaf, smothered hamburger, roast, shepherd’s pie and more, Fields offers a variety.

If you can’t find something on her existing menu, she’s been known to try to please customers with requests.

“We’ve had customers that come in and bring us a recipe and say, ‘my mother used to make this, but she died,’” Fields explained. “And I’ll say, ‘why don’t you come in on Thursday and I’ll have it ready for you.’”

Whatever she cooks in her kitchen, it’s done with fresh ingredients mostly purchased from local growers and suppliers.

“We try our best to stay with local produce,” Fields said. “Spring is here, so now we’re starting to get in microgreens and things like that for the menu. We’ll have locally grown stuff as much as we can.”

In addition to dine-in, the eatery offers family meals to go, including tamale and casserole options. She also serves homemade pies.

Gringo Girl Tamales and Southern Eatery is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Fields regularly posts about their specials on Facebook at GringoGirl Tamales including Taste of Louisiana and Burger Days. – BSM