Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
I’m distracted as the car comes to a stop. I peer through the car window at the restaurant’s iconic bright yellow and black sign.
“Waffle House?” I ask, turning a smile on her.
“You said you didn’t need it to be fancy.” She shrugs and grins. “And I did promise I’d take you to an Atlanta institution. Have you ever eaten at one?”
“No, but I’m starving so let’s do it.”
She is the perfect blend of highbrow and hood-brow. At ease socializing and negotiating deals in rarefied air with the world’s wealthiest, but then completely comfortable in a Waffle House dressed down on a Saturday night. She moves between wildly different spaces, never pretending to be anyone but herself. Her level of authenticity is rare and compelling. She’s as at home in her own skin as anyone I’ve ever met.
She hops out of the SUV before I can help her down.
Of course she does.
“We’ll be maybe an hour or so,” I tell the driver Bolt arranged for me while I’m in the city.
“Yes, sir,” the driver says. “I’ll wait here.”
Here is a parking lot with cracks in the asphalt. It looks like it could use a facelift, contrasting with the black Bentley Bentayga and its tinted windows and costly rims.
“You’re not coming in?” Hendrix asks the driver. “Matthew, was it?”
Surprise flickers over the driver’s face momentarily before he schools it into the professional mask. “Um, yes. It’s Matthew.”
“You’re not hungry?” Hendrix persists.
“I’ll be fine,” Matthew says. “Thanks for checking. Unless you need me, Mr. Bell.”
“No, you can wait here,” I tell him. “Thanks, though.”
As soon as we enter, the smell of fried… everything slaps me across the face. It’s past eleven o’clock, and the place is packed. There’s one empty booth at the very back, which the hostess, a woman I put maybe in her early sixties, shows us to.
“Come on, babies,” she coos at us, shuffling past the packed booths. But then she tramples the “somebody’s grandma” image by hurling a stream of cuss words at the cook behind the grill.
“Motherfucker get on my damn nerves,” Ms. Pearl, according to her nametag, mutters as we sit. “Slow ass. Y’all know what you want?”
“No, ma’am,” Hendrix replies, lifting her menu. “Well, I do, but it’s his first time. So I’ll let him look.”
“Can’t go wrong with the hash browns,” she tells me. “Try ’em all the way at least once before you die.”
“What’s ‘all the way’?” I ask.
“You get ’em with hickory-smoked ham, melted cheese, and jalapeño peppers,” Ms. Pearl says. “And some grilled mushrooms and diced tomatoes.”
I frown. “Oh, that sounds—”
“Sausage gravy,” she continues, “grilled onions, and then top it with chili.”
“And have a paramedic on standby,” Hendrix jokes. “I think we should ease him in. Give us a sec.”
Pearl shuffles back to the kitchen, yelling at the cook and leaving a trail of obscenities in her wake.
“So what do you recommend?” I ask, scouring the menu for some item my chef wouldn’t judge me for. No such luck.
“Well, you do have to have the hash browns,” Hendrix says, her expression absolutely serious. “I think a good initiation for you is the All-Star. You can’t go wrong with that.”
“What’s the All-Star?”
“You get eggs and toast, a side of grits. You can choose between hash browns and a tomato, which… duh. You getting the hashbrowns. I suggest scattered. It comes with a waffle. Try pecan.”
“Is that what you’re having?”
“No, I’m getting a waffle sandwich. You take your eggs and bacon and smush them between two waffles. I’ve had just about everything on this menu at least once. Been coming here since college. We used to hit it after the club all the time. Absorb some of the alcohol,” she says with a wink.
A sound at the front of the store distracts me from the menu. Someone turns on music. A group of teenagers or maybe they’re in their early twenties. Two of the girls stand up in the booth and start dancing. Their friends stay seated, but sing along with a Tyler, The Creator song.
The dingy dining room is like something out of a movie. Every area of the restaurant seems to have its own tableau. The dancing music corner. A fight breaking out behind the counter between two employees. A spades tournament spread across three tables, plates of food interspersed with stacks of cards. It’s colorful and animated and electric.
“It’s like this all the time?” I ask.
“The later, the better. ’Bout two a.m. is the best.” She rests her elbows on the battered tabletop. “You know Atlanta has the highest concentration of Waffle Houses in the country. Can’t throw a stick without hitting a Waffle House around here. Their headquarters are in Norcross. This one is my fave. We’d drive past three to get to this one.”
“College Park?” I ask, remembering a sign on the way in.