DETROIT — On September 27, a strange 30-second movie appeared on Eminem’s YouTube channel: not a music video teaser, or the first few verses of a new rap single, but a fast-moving ad.
In the video, boxes full of marinara sauce spin hypnotically on checkered tablecloths. A voiceover rattles off vague Italian dishes: spaghetti, spaghetti and meatballs, and a ‘sghetti sandwich’ – a ball of pasta squeezed between two pieces of buttery white bread. Dressed in a thin gold chain and an aubergine-colored flight jacket, Eminem holds what the viewer can only assume two middle fingers up, their message censored by double takeout containers with the phrase “Mom’s Spaghetti”.
Marshall Mathers, the man who took white working class fear to the top of the charts, opened a restaurant.
Mom’s Spaghetti is named after the famous first verse of “Lose Yourself,” a single written for the movie “8 Mile,” which sold over 10 million copies and earned Eminem a couple of Grammys in 2004. -or-die fear: Our protagonist is locked in a bathroom, drenched in sweat, washing up a regurgitated wad of pasta clinging to his hoodie. “Knees weak, arms heavy, there’s vomit on his sweater already, Mama’s spaghetti.” It was only a matter of time before the lyrics became a meme.
Nearly two decades later, the restaurant seems to be embracing Eminem’s way of embracing the joke—or one-off.
During a visit to Mom’s Spaghetti in December, three months after the first fanfare, the place didn’t immediately register as a shrine to a rapper’s career. Instead, I found myself in a small counter restaurant tucked down an alley next to Little Caesars World Headquarters. (Yes, the pizza chain.) I checked the abbreviated menu and placed my order with an outside cashier. Almost as soon as my credit card was cleared, I was handed a steaming carb-laden paper bag through the window.
Then I was escorted to a gastropub called Union Assembly, which prepares all the food served at Mom’s Spaghetti, to a small series of tables and bar stools where customers can eat.
This is where the Slim Shady aesthetic becomes apparent: most of the “E’s” on the menu and packaging are turned backwards, and the kitchen is made to look like a street corner bodega. I hid in a cubicle, already overwhelmed, preparing for a long night in the afterlife of Eminem’s cultural empire.
Curt Catallo, 54, is the owner of Union Joints, which operates several Detroit restaurants, including this one. He described Mom’s Spaghetti as a “true joint venture” between his company and Eminem. The restaurant first appeared as a pop-up shop in 2017 and has been a fixture at the rapper’s various festival appearances ever since. (During the pandemic, Union Joints and Eminem’s Shady Records supplied the paste to frontline medical responders.)
mr. Catallo said the restaurant’s busiest times are “postgame and pregame,” where staff harvest customers from the pedestrian traffic that flows through Detroit’s professional sports district. Spaghetti isn’t usually used for takeaway – noodles take a while to cook – but Mr. Catallo’s staff make all the pasta a day ahead and then heat the product up in a couple of woks. He believes that method blesses the spaghetti with a delicious home texture.
“Today’s spaghetti is better tomorrow,” said Mr. Catallo.
I had ordered the spaghetti with meatballs, which was served in an oyster bucket and topped with a snowy layer of Parmesan, as well as a ‘sghetti’ sandwich. This isn’t Italian cuisine, and it doesn’t try to be. Instead, it’s best described as… well, downright maternal. The greasy slop of the pasta, the sweet taste of the red sauce; it’s the spaghetti that pops out of your pantry the last night before a grocery trip. Mr. Catallo said the noodles contain an unfathomable residual chemistry. He means that as an endorsement, and he should.
Eminem isn’t here, and he shouldn’t be expected anytime soon. Ian McManus, 22, who runs the Trailer — a merchandise shop above the dining room — told me the rapper has stopped by the restaurant a “handful” of times since it opened. “He’ll let a few of us know when he’s coming,” Mr. McManus said. “And he only lets us know the day of the day. If he comes by, I’ll find out when I’m on my way downtown.’
A couple of pint glasses, Eminem-themed T-shirts and sneakers filled the room, but the real piece de résistance was in the back: the Robin costume from the music video for “Without Me,” encased in glass. The sound was the soundtrack to the year I turned 10; seeing a remnant of it up close, felt like being in the Louvre.
Eminem has been famous for a long time and continues to be famous, but it’s also been eight years since his last number 1 hit. Maybe that’s why he kept himself in a mini-museum. The rapper is entering that nasty post-prime era that inevitably preys on every hugely successful person. How should Eminem structure his third and fourth companies? Preferably with some humor and some grace. If Paul Newman can sell salad dressing and enjoy his golden years, maybe Marshall Mathers can do the same with spaghetti.
After all, the Eminem brand is still strong today. Misty Jesse, 49, and her 15-year-old son, Romeo Jesse, who dined at Mom’s Spaghetti that December night, told me they grew up with Eminem, which sounds confusing but is honestly quite plausible when you do the math. “I saw him live at the old Detroit Tigers stadium,” said Ms. Jesse, who made the trip to the restaurant from the suburbs of Dearborn Heights so Romeo could buy some Eminem gear. “It’s crazy how it’s all spinning again.”
“She was surprised that he was one of the first people I started listening to,” Romeo said. “She’s happy we were able to bond with his music and sing along to it in the car.”
The Jesses are locals, which makes them outliers here. Most everyone in the restaurant, except the employees, visited Detroit for business, pleasure, or a combination of both. A trio of Atlanta auditors crowded around a table glazed with spaghetti sauce; they had only been in town for a few days, and they had arrived at Mom’s Spaghetti out of passive curiosity—the same gravity that draws New York City tourists to Madame Tussauds in Times Square.
Morgan Martin, 28, said Eminem’s 2010 album “Recovery” got stuck in her car’s CD player when she was in high school. For ten years she listened exclusively to that record as she drove through Georgia. Her friends claim the experience gave her the ability to rap with an almost perfect Eminem cadence.
“Since then I got a new car that connects to Bluetooth,” said Ms. Martin, “so now I’m learning more about his work.”
For her, Mom’s Spaghetti was a destination. “When I heard we were coming to Detroit, I knew where we were eating,” she said.
Her boyfriend and dinner date, Caylen Hemme, 27, was unaware of that plan. “I didn’t know this was Eminem’s restaurant,” she said across the table. “I just saw they had vegan meatballs.”
John Farran, a 32-year-old Orlando service technician, had dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant the previous evening. The experience, he said, paled in comparison to what Mom’s Spaghetti had to offer. “Their sauce was like soup,” Mr. Farran said, “plus they didn’t give you bread.” He then gestured to the caramelized piece of starch half-dipped in the noodles. “It pretty much made the whole trip for us,” he said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have had anything to look forward to.”
“Not offensive to Detroit,” Mr. Farran said. “Great city.”
Mr. Catallo, the restaurant manager, said Mom’s Spaghetti plans to expand its menu. Soon there will be Bolognese sauce, after a recipe that Mr. Mathers had tested for taste. I imagined the rapper, whose career was once marked by anger and controversy, letting a meat sauce linger on his palate for a moment before giving it his stamp of approval. Could Eminem become a modern-day Jimmy Buffett, taking Mom’s Spaghetti to tourist districts across the country? He declined to be interviewed for this article, so I can’t say for sure.
But I can tell you for sure that one cold night in Detroit, after I burned off a pound of pasta, I felt changed. Knees weak, arms heavy.