I went back in time yesterday.\u00a0 Just for a little while—long enough for breakfast.<\/p>\n
The scene was a favorite hangout in my old neighborhood, a deli that used to be one of a type easily found all over town.\u00a0 You know the kind I mean:\u00a0 Speckled vinyl tabletops with chrome trim, shiny booths with a crack here and there in the deep upholstery, a full glass sugar shaker on every table, perched next to matching glass salt and pepper shakers.\u00a0 Not so many years ago these joints bustled all over any city or even small town, just pick a street corner.\u00a0 Now, in Nashville\u2019s exploding metro area, you have to look hard and know where they remain, if at all.\u00a0 With the flush of migration toward the South enhanced in the post-COVID world, a population swelled by tourism accompanied by a tsunami of commercial investment, our community has been overrun by chain restaurant \u201cconcepts\u201d (whatever that means) most of them based elsewhere.\u00a0 Expensive, gourmet selections only, menus on QR codes\u2026la di dah, la di dah.<\/p>\n
The local joints, the kind where you know the wait staff, where the favorites stay consistent and never disappoint, where someone actually acts happy you came\u2014those are getting few and far between.\u00a0 I am lucky enough to know the best one in town for breakfast, and there I decamped yesterday, in search a dose of the familiar and the comfortable.\u00a0 And I was hungry.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, the corned-beef hash and eggs (cooked perfectly, actually as ordered) and warm, crisp rye toast (still hot when served) set me right and adjusted my attitude after a long week.\u00a0 And\u2014remember this part?—they bring your coffee to the table, and pour it into a white ceramic cup.\u00a0 No massive countertop coffee urns for self-service if you dare, an acre away from your table.\u00a0 If you are looking for the exotically roasted, this place is not for you.\u00a0 They pour the old standard, black-magic fluid that will stand your hair on end and rev you like a Grand Prix driver on the final lap.\u00a0 Even more miraculous, they come by the table to pour your refill without waiting to be asked, using one of those glass carafes with a wide plastic pour spout.\u00a0 Like I said, it\u2019s a trip back in time.<\/p>\n
While the hash has no equal in town\u2014I think it\u2019s their corned beef\u2014the real soul magic here is served up by my old friend, the waitress whose station I always request.\u00a0 She\u2019s been pouring my refills, remembering to crisp up my bacon, and checking on my grandkids for more years than I can recall.\u00a0 Every time I return and request her tables, not as often as when I lived just around the corner, I stiffen my back against the eventual probability that she will someday retire, her feet or her back will give out, and my breakfast will never be the same.\u00a0 Yesterday was not that day, and my heart warmed to hear the hostess confirm we were heading to an open booth in her station.<\/p>\n
Her name is Jamie, and her age I have never known or inquired.\u00a0 Her blonde ponytail now features a couple of grey streaks, but otherwise, she has not changed in all the years I\u2019ve known her\u2014thick bangs, bright blue eyes, petite frame, black work costume, ubiquitous smile.\u00a0 Yesterday she approached the table from behind, beginning her customary, bright, \u201cHow are you this morning..\u201d before she realized the woman in the straw fedora hiding my Saturday hair was familiar.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s YOU!\u201d she exclaimed, reaching into the booth for a big hug.<\/p>\n
How are you?\u00a0 I asked, and earned her unwavering answer, the blue eyes as wide as ever:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m wonderful.\u201d\u00a0 Over the years, over the clunking of countless warm plates of hash or French toast and a steady rhythm of those coffee refills, I\u2019ve heard bits and pieces of Jamie\u2019s own story.\u00a0 And like the story of anyone who can see reality with both eyes open, there are lots of un-wonderful bits.\u00a0 There was the unexpected death of her sister, and an unemployment stint for her long-time partner, referred to as \u201cmy old man.\u201d\u00a0 More recently, we wondered if the restaurant would survive the COVID restrictions.\u00a0 Staff hours were cut, service hours reduced, takeout promoted.\u00a0 She and the \u201cold man\u201d moved still further away from town to cheaper quarters, hanging on and scraping by like so many millions as those nightmare months stretched on.<\/p>\n
And yet, she is wonderful.\u00a0 Day in and day out, year after year, shift after countless shift, cheerful customers and jerks, on her tired feet, punching in orders and juggling plates and hot pitchers and looking after other people.\u00a0 On the second coffee refill this visit, she paraded the steaming glass pot to the table and executed a little two-stepping dance maneuver in the aisle before she stopped to pour.\u00a0 The breakfast traffic having slowed a bit, she plopped into the booth across from me and asked for more news of my grandkids, who often came with me to breakfast when I lived in the neighborhood.\u00a0 I produced a photo showing the older of the two, at 12 now taller than his grandmother.\u00a0 \u201cWhen did they get so BIG?\u00a0\u00a0 You need to bring them back to see me soon.\u201d\u00a0 I played her a brief video of the kids delivering a toast at their mother\u2019s recent wedding, and she turned toward me, her eyes filling with tears.\u00a0 And then she was gone again. Time to pour refills at another booth.<\/p>\n