Mrs. Wilkes Eating Establishment - Savannah, Georgia

         

          Mrs. Wilkes Eating Establishment doesn’t take reservations, ever.  We’d been told to get there early if we wanted any chance at all of getting inside this quite famous eatery for lunch.  Since the restaurant opened at 11:30, we thought a leisurely stroll about half an hour beforehand would suffice.  We were so wrong!

          From nearly a full block away we could see the line snaking its way down the street.  Would-be diners were standing sometimes two and three abreast…some reading newspapers, others chatting or listening to music.  All were lined up before us to get a taste of Mrs. Wilkes’ cooking. 

          The restaurant is situated on the ground floor in one of Savannah’s beautiful old buildings.  Spanish moss dripped from the trees along the street and their wide canopies gave us shade as the temperature crept upwards and we stood and stood and waited and waited.  Every time someone was allowed entrance into the establishment there was a distinct sigh of relief as the line moved forward a foot or two.

We waited outside for 30 minutes - popular place!

          I don’t know what we expected once inside, but certainly not the two spacious rooms, each with three tables for 12 sitting side by side.  In our room, two of the tables were already occupied with happy diners passing bowls of steaming food to each other.  We were ushered to the middle table already filling with smiling strangers. 

          It is nigh on impossible to sit at a table and not greet the person sitting next to you or across from you.  So it was that we discovered a couple who had just arrived from England, another who was heading off to Canada the next day, others who were on their second or third visit to Mrs. Wilkes Eating Establishment.  Such was the atmosphere…complete nostalgia…a return to the Boarding House dining rooms of years gone by. 

          Unlike a haughty restaurant, where you want to start eating the menus unless someone soon takes your order, there are no menus and no snotty waitstaff at Mrs. Wilkes.   Within minutes of us being seated, food started appearing on our table.  Bowls of steaming mashed potatoes, jugs of gravy; lightly grilled yams and green beans; black-eyed peas, carrots, corn on the cob and freshly baked, hot out of the oven biscuits…all presented in lovely white dishes with serving utensils at the ready.  Then in came the southern fried chicken…huge platter after huge platter.  We were, quite literally in foodie heaven.

Tables for 12 and enough food for 100!

          As we munched and chatted, even as some surreptitiously reached down to undo top buttons on jeans and shorts, everyone agreed that this was a culinary experience that surpassed any other. 

          Minutes before we all started to push back from the table, one of our servers appeared at the door:

          ‘Thank you for visiting Mrs. Wilkes’ this morning.  We enjoyed your patronage…now, in the best tradition of boarding house dining rooms, please take your own plate, glass and utensils out to the busboy waiting at the kitchen door….we’re much obliged,’ she said with a big smile.

          Did it seem odd to be carrying our dirty crockery out to the kitchen?  Not at all.  At Mrs. Wilkes’ Eating Establishment it’s all part of the fun.