MILLIANS: Food good for the soul

Published 9:00 am Saturday, August 10, 2024

Rick’s ramblings . . . on local restaurants that have closed . . . and a couple of soul-food restaurants I recommend. 

I hate to see restaurants close. It’s like losing a friend. 

I didn’t eat at Popeyes, Marco’s Pizza or Huff’s Market all that much, but it was nice to know they were there when the crave hit.

This summer, all three have closed.

It seems like just yesterday that Popeyes chicken sandwiches were all the rave. Cars were lined up out in the street waiting to go through the drive-thru. 

Popeyes had a great marketing campaign with taste tests comparing its chicken sandwich to Chick-fil-A and a lot of others. 

Now, there’s a sign on the front of Popeyes:

“To our wonderful customers: We apologize, but we are closed until further notice. We apologize because we know that y’all ‘Love that chicken from Popeyes.’ ” 

— Thank you, Management/Corporate

Well, I guess we didn’t love that chicken enough. 

The window in the old Marco’s location reads “FOR LEASE” in big, bold letters. 

That’s a shame. No more monthly half-price pizza deals when there was a full moon. 

And I especially feel for the Amerson family (Kensey and Dylan), who closed Huff’s Restaurant and Market at the end of July.

“We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to make our vision of a local market in Milledgeville a reality,” reads the notice on the Huff’s website. “Unfortunately, our attempts at creating a Georgia Grown market on Highway 49 has not worked out.”

They were known for their breakfast biscuits and chicken salad at lunch.

Now, let’s move on to some country cooking restaurants.

MAMA J’S

Located in the Town and Country shopping center, Deborah Griffin and Mrs. Scott have been cooking up country classics since 2013.

Griffin is not Mama J. It was what everybody called the mother of her former partner. 

But Griffin is like a mother to all of her customers. 

As the lunch crowd wound down one recent day, she sat near the front door speaking to those going and coming. 

“Goodbye, baby. Thanks for coming. See you soon.”

Or: “Hey, welcome, baby.”

“I’ve got some really dedicated customers,” Griffin said. “Some come every day. They feel like they are at home.”

They come for delicacies such as her baked chicken or peach cobbler. 

“People ask me all the time about my baked chicken recipe,” she said. “I cook like our grandmother’s used to cook. Everything is fresh. I don’t use nothing that’s canned, except peaches and that’s because they’re seasonal.”

She gets to work between 6 and 7 to get ready for the lunch crowd. If she’s got a catering job, she’ll get there even earlier.

I had the fried chicken (I’ll get baked next time), squash casserole and lima beans. Sweet potato souffle for dessert. 

Mama J’s address is 1057 S. Wayne St. It is closed on Friday and Saturday. Monday-Thursday, it is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday’s hours are 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

WEAVER D’S

It’s in Athens, at the end of East Broad, and opened in 1986, when it was just about the only business in a residential area. Now, the area is packed with apartments for students at nearby University of Georgia and other businesses.

It’s worth the drive for two reasons: the food and to see owner Dexter Weaver in action. 

Weaver works the cash register and calls out orders to the cooks in the back.

“Dominick, stir the sweet potatoes for me, will ya?”

“Dorothy, is the meat loaf ready?”

If you ask him for more tea, he says, “Automatic for the people.”

Ask him for some butter, same answer: “Automatic for the people.”

Yes, the group REM used to eat at Weaver D’s and named one of its albums “Automatic for the People.”

Ask Weaver how he defines soul food, and he says, “It’s slow cooked and made with love.”

I had the pork chops, mac and cheese and seasonal peas. Banana pudding for dessert.

By golly, it was made with love.

Weaver D’s address is 1016 E. Broad St. If you get lost, it’s in a bright green building. 

You can’t miss it.

—Rick Millians, a UGA graduate, worked at newspapers in Georgia, Ohio and South Carolina before retiring. Reach him at rdmillians@aol.com