一位单身母亲酗酒成性,一直没能找到合适工作。带着两个孩子在家境日渐没落的时候,洛兰塔来到密西西比的亲戚厄尔经营的"鸡味饭店"找到了适合自己的差事,在经历了种种磨难之后,在厄尔这样的一个大家庭最终从一开始的不相往来而重新走到了一起。Rosa Lynn sends her drug-addicted daughter Loretta and Loretta's children Thomas and Tracy away from the big city to live with their uncle Earl in the ancestral home in rural Mississippi. Earl puts Loretta to work in his restaurant, Just Chicken, while also telling them about the generations of their family, the Sinclairs, dating back to their time in slavery before the the Civil War.