Walking the Line
Cafeterias evoke mixed feelings
By Deborah Salomon
I was standing in line at Aldi when the man behind me held out a box of frozen White Castle burgers and said, “I can’t believe that these taste the same as when I was growing up on Long Island.”
How did he figure I’d know what he was talking about?
My instant response: “My mother wouldn’t let me eat hamburgers out. But do you remember Chock Full o’Nuts (luncheonette chain) frankfurters with the fancy mustard?” Those she allowed, probably because they weren’t called hot dogs.
After writing about food for 30-plus years I can attest to its deep, sometimes bittersweet impression on our psyches. Mine go beyond New York bagels and Carolina biscuits. The location holds sway: cafeterias, especially the S&W in Asheville, and many Horn & Hardart Automats in Manhattan. I’ve seen grown men cry at the mention.
Besides, cafeterias taught people-watching, a skill that has served me well.
In the line of duty I have eaten at four-star restaurants in the U.S. and abroad. What, I don’t remember. But if I could resurrect anything it would be baked beans, liverwurst on rye, scallops, Harvard beets, chicken a la king and huckleberry pie from the Automat, especially the one across from Radio City Music Hall, the one with the hot chestnuts vendor outside the glass front.
Second best, S&W of the 1950s, a bastion of Southern manners and cuisine. The Asheville location, famous for Art Deco architecture, eventually made the National Register of Historic Places. I knew it well, since my mother shirked cooking. She’d use any excuse to hit the S&W — also because she loved pie, especially pecan, but never baked and couldn’t bring herself to buy a whole one. However, with it right there, flanked by lemon meringue and apple . . .
At breakfast, John Grisham attorneys and wheeler-dealers let busboys carry their trays upstairs to “reserved” balcony tables, soon engulfed in Lucky Strike smoke. They tipped 50 cents instead of the customary quarter. Smiling women traybearers — “Hi honey, how’re you doin’ today?” — wore starched yellow uniforms with hankies fanned out like flowers growing from their pockets.
I shudder, then blush to recall that these polite, cheerful employees were the only African-Americans visible.
Round family tables filled fast on “maids’ night out” Wednesdays.
The best part was seeing the food arranged on steam tables, under bright lights, which made it glisten. What you saw was what you got. Customers slid trays along a shelf made from chrome pipes. Cutlery came wrapped in cloth napkins. First the salads (mostly tossed and gelled), then the meats, the vegetables, desserts, cornbread, biscuits and tea over crushed ice. Breaded fish and Salisbury steak never tasted so good. Creamy mashed potatoes, fluffy rice, stewed tomatoes and okra, shiny beans, fried chicken, carved roast beef (for special occasions), limp greens preceded achingly sweet caramel layer cake.
True, you had to stand in line, so little old ladies wearing flowered cotton dresses and sometimes hats arrived “before the rush.” Nobody wanted to sit at tables along the line where standees stared down hungrily.
Then, everything changed: fast food, pizza, all-you-can-eat buffets, “family restaurant” chains. The Asheville S&W closed in 1974 to reopen as an uppity steak house, which faded fast. Other locations operated until the mid-1990s.
I’ve tried J&S in Asheville, K&W in Chapel Hill. The fish is tasty, the cornbread hot and authentic, the desserts tempting. But there’s a microwave to warm things up and hot sauce in the condiments rack. Old folks still arrive early, “to avoid the rush.” Most succumb to dessert. The modus may be intact but, sad to say, the esprit is gone.
When Mellow Mushroom closed on U.S. 15-501 I imagined a K&W — great idea given the demographics. On second thought, probably not. Some institutions cannot be resurrected. Better they survive only as aromatic memories.
I still appreciate a sum-of-its-parts cafeteria meal. Nothing fancy, just plain Southern food typical of an era when restaurants advertised “home cookin’” because home cooking was the gold standard. When folks ate dinner at noon. When country-fried steak meant smothered in cream gravy and nobody ate kale raw. When every table had an ashtray and desserts weren’t shared.
When cholesterol was for spelling bees and doctors advertised Camels. Gone forever. But once in a while, I sure could use a sliver of pecan pie. PS
Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.
