Little Mama’s opening Friday in SouthPark hopes to become a new favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant. Little Mama’s Italian Kitchen will serve classic Italian-American dishes of homemade pastas and mozzarella from the Porter Building at 4521 Sharon Road, across from SouthPark mall.

The collaboration of owner Frank Scibelli, operations guru Stephanie Kalish and chef Tom Dyrness, Little Mama’s is a nod to the Italian restaurants of the 1960s and ‘70s. It’s also a spin-off concept of Scibelli’s Mama Ricotta’s, which opened almost 30 years ago in Charlotte.