- Got the last spot in the parking lot at 9:15 on a torrentially rainy Wednesday morning.
- The car next to me was a genuine farm vehicle. How could I tell? Because the back seat and floor boards of the Toyota Corolla were covered in loose hay and it was sporting an after-market trailer hitch.
- The biscuit joint is located in a gas station. The line snakes back to the energy drink cooler over gray tile that wore down to the subfloor when Nixon was president. There is no ambience, and if you start to think there’s some, it’s the fumes. While I wait, I am free to peruse a revolving rack of “Discount Books,” most of which are about The Lord. (Locals call this place “Jesus Biscuit.”) I reach for the one entitled “It’s Your KID, Not a Gerbil!” before noticing the thin layer of fried bologna grease and motor oil on the cover and changing my mind.
- Listing out the biscuit toppings requires a board of the size that you might see in a high school football stadium. Bacon, ham, chicken, steak, five kinds of sausage AND fatback. My Pop would have thought he had died and gone to heaven. Alas, he has died and gone to heaven. Before anyone starts clucking about the dangers of cholesterol, that man ate fatback every time he could catch it and he died at 103. If you don’t know what fatback is, this is probably not the list you were hoping for. I’ll write about kale next week.
- Folks in line are not mulling over the menu or reading nutrition information. When they make it to the counter, they bark out “Bologna and fried egg biscuit” or “double red links on white toasted, side a grits and gravy.” The man in front of me ordered “two boloney on white, no toast, lettuce and tomato” and all the woman said was, “Is that it?”
-
Not only is fried bologna an option, each piece has that little notch cut out of the edge so it doesn’t pooch up while frying. Makes me miss my grandma. She used to cut a little x in the middle of bologna so it didn’t curl up like a sombrero. - The women working the counter are friendly and efficient. Two of the five people in front of me only had to nod and smile at her to get their orders because they were regulars.
- The woman at the counter repeats each order and simultaneously calculates the price in her head while scribbling it onto a brown paper sack. She ain’t got a calculator, but she’s got a neck tattoo. So does the woman working the griddle. Making a living off of gas station biscuits is not a gentlewoman’s game. These ladies have done some living and they got game.
- I feel like a dumbass when I say “to go” after my order. “Really, princess? You ain’t gon eat it standing here by the cash register so we can all clap when you’re done?”
- Giant flaky buttermilk biscuit with fried bologna and a fried egg=$2.39. The yella mustard was free.
If you’re in Athens, Georgia, stop by the Bread Basket inside the Chevron station on the corner of Boulevard and Chase Street. It’s all kinds of good!
Where’s your favorite biscuit joint?
JoJo’s Biscuit on #441 in Dublin, GA. Flat biscuits so you don’t get too much biscuit to overwhelm what’s inside. They are the size of your hand, not just your palm, mind you, your entire hand. Real country ham, not the lunch meat stuff. The kind that makes red eye gravy if you take the time, and JoJo does. The entire slice would have had a little round bone just off center. Link sausage, split in half. Fried chicken. Country fried steak that melts when you take a bite. Yeah. It’s good eatin’.
YES! It’s the thinness of the biscuit that counts when you’re filling them with stuff. I like a big fluffy biscuit with butter and jelly. YUM.
When I was in graduate school in Decatur I ate biscuits at Evans at the corner of N. Decatur Rd. and ?? every Saturday. Place was packed with older Decatur natives and grad students. I could eat breakfast for less than a dollar; then I would go to the laundry mat. Best biscuits ever.
I’d have to go to the laundromat to wash the jelly off my shirt!
This isn’t about biscuits, but I have to tell you about the sandwich my ex invented. Fried bologna, CINNAMON RAISIN BREAD, toasted, and lots of mayonnaise. I know. But it was salty, sweet heaven. Not on my eat list now–my biscuits are made with almond and coconut flour–but thanks for the delicious memory.
You had me until the mayo!
Good biscuits are hard to find here in Rho Die Lind, but fried baloney was my daddy’s contribution to Saturday breakfast. I can’t look at Pac Man without thinking of him and that salty meaty taste of love. Thanks.
I think of PacMan too! And by the way, “Salty Meaty Taste of Love” would make a good name for a 70s band.
Biscuit Express out on 129 past ACS.
The tenderloin is good enough to
make a heart attack worth it.
Ohhh…I never go out that way. Might be worth a special trip and get some Fresh Air BBQ for lunch!
Biscuit Barn and Strickland’s,
I haven’t made it to Strickland’s yet!
My daughter said my biscuits would make good hockey pucks, so where is the Biscuit Barn?
I think the Biscuit Barn is out towards Crawford, past the Wal-Mart on the east side about 7-8 miles easterer than that!
Praise Jesus, how I love the south! The Golden Pantry in Covington used to be like this until a QT built across the street and Newton County came into the 21st century. Mores the pity.
Oh I do miss my Golden Pantry biscuits. We called them Friday biscuits cause my coworker would pick us up one on Fridays. The paper that wrapped them was translucent from the grease. You have flung a cravin’ on me and why am I talkin’ so southern? Ashley, I am one of your fellow PKs and I am going to finally meet you tonight at the President’s reception. I’ll have on an orange sweater so look for me!!!!!
Hey, my new friend Holly! I’m so glad I got to meet you Friday.
Pingback: Links of the Week – April 17, 2015 | A Long Run
Well in Jacksonville, it’s a bit swankier, and has a few “foodie” options like Goat Cheese and Spinach, but it’s a damn good biscuit. Maple Street Biscuit Company.
The mere fact that they have goat cheese at hand disqualifies them from being a “biscuit joint!” They sound more like a brunch place.