Following the success of her namesake café, Loretta Woolley decided to open a new, full-service restaurant in the spring of 2003. She wanted to bring the flavors and tradition of her childhood in Louisiana to the small, but growing, mountain town that she had called home since 1992. She decided to name her new venture after her maternal grandmother, Mary Felonise, who had always been a huge inspiration to Loretta as a cook, and as a woman. When Mary was a young girl, the other students at her Catholic boarding school used to make fun of her name and tease her by chanting “Mary fell on her knees”. This eventually got shortened to Mayfel, a nickname she would go by for the rest of her life. And so, Loretta christened her new restaurant Mayfel’s.