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BARNESVILLE - She swore when she sold Southside Wings in Thomaston many years ago that she was done with the restaurant business. But then, she had a heart transplant in 2023. It was very unexpected, and it changed everything.

That life event eventually brought her to a business in Barnesville, Georgia called Mama D’s Family, Food, and Fun.

Pike County Times spoke with Delaina Gresham last week, and one of the first questions that was asked was where the name Mama D’s came from. “The name came from my children’s friends,” she said. “I was THAT Mom.”

She laughed and said that people called her “D” because they couldn’t pronounce or remember her name. Then when her children’s friends came over to the house, they called her Mama D. And the name stuck! Now when she runs into those children as adults now, they introduce her to their kids as Mama D. This will come back around in her story.

From a Heart Attack to a Restaurant

The restaurant began years after a traumatic experience in her life when she thought she had bronchitis or a pulled muscle between her shoulder blades but was told by the doctor’s office that she was having an active heart attack. She was transported to the hospital where they tried to do stints, but they wouldn’t work.

She was transported to Piedmont Atlanta on June 16, 2023. And her birthday was June 21. Doctors were talking about sending her home on medication, but that didn’t happen because she flatlined.

Over the next course of the next 12 to 24 hours, her family told her that she was shocked back to life and put on a ventilator. Family was also told that she had less than a 1% chance of survival. She needed a heart transplant. Her brother had died the year before with the same genetic heart disease that they didn’t know that they had.

She said that doctors brought her off the ventilator long enough that she could say her goodbyes. “It was ok. I know who I am and who my Maker is,” she said. “If it’s time for me to go home, it’s time for me to go home.”

Doctors put her back under, and she woke up on June 30 with her son over her face telling her that she had a new heart. “It was nothing but God’s miracle,” D said.

Seven months after that when D was learning how to do everything again with a new heart, her husband got the news that he had to have his leg amputated. So now they were sitting at home enjoying life with a retirement, but she had a vision to open a small restaurant with something for the children.

Maybe like a miniature Dave and Buster’s with a monitored room for children to play because kids are always the first ones finished with their food at a restaurant. The room with the double doors was going to be the arcade.

She said that she and her husband talked about this vision for a restaurant for a year before she was scrolling on Facebook and saw something about the Jelly Jar (previously Maxi’s) and said, “This is it!”

They called and sat down with the owners of the Jelly Jar and told them our plans. A couple of days later, they got the call that the owners wanted to sell the place to them. “It was so… easy,” D said. There was no hesitation. The paperwork was signed. Then they bought a couple more fryers and fixed the place up like they wanted. Then her step daughter came up with the name, Mama D’s, because everyone knows her as Mama D.

The guy that was going to do the arcade backed out so they had an empty room, but they went ahead and opened on the first day of Buggy Days in September of 2025.

Mama D’s had been open for business and going non-stop for seven months since then. Until the fire that completely destroyed the business on March 2, 2026.

The Community Responds

“I have some great employees. Every one of them is sticking beside me,” she said. “Our plans are to reopen.”

Pike County Times asked about her employees. She said that some were ok because this was a second job for them, but those who needed a job were able to find work because a couple of food businesses in Barnesville reached out to Mama D’s to offer her employees a job until they can rebuild and reopen.

That is a beautiful example of the community coming together to take care of not just Mama D's, but other businesses and owners who were affected by the fire too!

Almost every person who walked through those doors knew Mama D, or met her or her husband, when they came into the restaurant. When people started coming back, her customers became like family.

Mama D said that on the back of her menu, she had the story of how Mama D’s came about. She said that she figured out the purpose of all this later on.

“I can’t speak in a large group of people like a church congregation because my anxiety goes crazy,” she said. “But I feel that the Lord blessed me with this so I can individually go to each table, and if they ask me about my story, I sit right down and tell them.” She laughed and said that she tells people sometimes if they don’t ask her. “I feel that this is God’s way of giving me something that I can testify.”

She said that she could help others who are having a bad day. Hearing her story about her heart transplant and her husband’s story about his leg transplant helped other people.

Mama D told stories about neighboring business owners and workers who would come by the Mama D’s on a regular basis for unsweet tea or the child who sat and waited for dance class while eating sliders and fries and playing with her grand babies who were at the restaurant on a regular basis too. Customers became family.

She got a note from the young lady who misses her afternoon time before dance at Mama D’s. A lot of other people have reached out with messages like, “I need my Philly. I need my hamburger steak. I’m going through withdrawals!”

Mama D has been thankful to impact the lives of people who came into the restaurant. She told her employees that the customers who came through the doors are family. They’re customers too, but they are family – treat them like family.

The Days After the Fire

Everything was usual on that Monday, and she was going to open on Tuesday morning. But the fire broke out on Monday night.

“It was like I lost my child,” she said. “I know it’s not a human, but that’s how I felt.” She thought maybe that she felt that way because the restaurant was a gift from God that she and her husband talked about for over a year before it they found this location and opened Mama D’s.

She said that she has found herself asking the same questions as she did when she had her heart attack. “Why me?” Walking through sadness and anger after the fire has been hard, but she said that it is getting better by talking to her customers because she was on the fence about rebuilding at first.

She has been bothered by the fact that her employees have nowhere to go and lost just like she is, and she is bothered by the fact that this part of history is gone and can never be brought back. But she has chosen not to wallow in her heartaches and sorrows. “I had to pick myself up because if you don’t, nobody else will,” she said.

There’s a song that has helped her in this time after the fire. It’s the song “Desperate” by Jamie MacDonald. The lyrics talk about being at the end of myself and being tired… hanging on by a thread to God and running out of hope but desperately needing a miracle from heaven.

Mama D pulled the car over to listen after the fire. “I am desperate. I don’t know where to go. The only way I know is to turn to You (God),” she said. “My family and my friends turned to You (God) when I was in the hospital on a ventilator, and You answered prayers.”

“My children, my family, my mother, my husband, and all of my friends were doing nothing but praying. And now I’m doing it too.”

Closing

While Pike County Times and Mama D were finishing up this interview in front of the Barnesville Library, a customer – aka family – came up and asked Mama D when she was going to have his favorite menu item ready for him. Mama D laughed and said that it would be ready as soon as she could get the place rebuilt and start cooking again.

Mama D had all of her employees over at her house a little over a week ago and caught them up to date on how things are going. This includes the plans to rebuild.

Plans are to rebuild and expand the restaurant with a bigger kitchen so Mama D can continue sitting down with customers – aka family – to tell her testimony and love on people in the community.

Click here to listen to Jamie MacDonald's "Desperate." https://www.jamiemacdonaldmusic.com/video/jamie-macdonald-desperate-official-lyric-video/#/

Live Music • Food Trucks • Community Support in Barnesville
Friday, March 20 Event Info

The Barnesville Community on Friday, March 20 from 5–9 PM at Ritz Park for a Community Benefit Concert supporting our downtown businesses as they recover from the recent fire. This special evening will take place during City of Barnesville, Georgia Food Truck Friday, bringing together live music, great food, and a community that shows up for one another.

All donations will support the Downtown Fire Recovery Fund through the Barnesville-Lamar County Chamber Foundation, helping our downtown businesses rebuild and move forward.

Melinda Sealey and the B Strings, Family Ties Band, and the Kats Band are on the schedule.

Come enjoy the music, grab dinner from the food trucks, and stand with the businesses that help make our downtown so special.

A special thank you to our Chamber Foundation Board and the Benefit Concert Committee for stepping up and working together to make this event possible for our downtown community.