Slowing Down in South Augusta

South on Peach Orchard Road. Over the railroad tracks.  And down McDade Road.

Those are the directions Felicia, a trusted source on all things Southern, gave me to find a place she simply called “Frank’s,” a spot in South Augusta that she suspected would be right up my alley. A quirky little out-of-the-way joint with meat cooking on a barrel drum grill in the parking lot.

So I drove south on Peach Orchard Road. Over the railroad tracks. And down McDade Road. And back up McDade Road. And back down again. I passed Smokey Road, which I thought was quite auspicious for someone on a hunt for a parking lot grill puffing great clouds of gray smoke into South Augusta’s skies. But like Smokey Road, my adventure was a dead end.

I stopped at the terminus of McDade Road to ask for directions at Celebrity Video, Tanning and Deli and, as the name promised, it was all that. Chicken wings on the left, movies in the middle and tanning beds on the right. A fine example of service diversification.

After three tentative “hellos,” I got the uneasy feeling that I might discover the clerk bound and gagged behind the counter. But she eventually emerged from the deli side of the house and, like a mouse peering from a hole in the wall, eyed me as if I were the resident house cat. I quickly took my hands out of my jacket pockets (and on second thought, the purple suede was probably a bad choice for this escapade) and asked if she knew anything about a place called “Frank’s” on McDade Road.

She scampered into the tanning wing and when she returned announced flatly, “Nothing on McDade Road but houses.” I even called my school chum, Yvonne, who lives out that way—only a few short miles from dear old Hephzibah High, our alma mater. Didn’t ring a bell with her either, but maybe it was the way I described what I was looking for. I thought I heard her ask her husband if he knew a guy named Frank who lived on their road and cooked barbecue in his front yard. We’ll have to clear that up at the reunion this spring.

It wasn’t until I got home and typed “Frank’s” and “Hephzibah” into Google maps on my iPad that I discovered Billy Franks’ General Store at the intersection of Old Waynesboro Road and Brown Road, not McDade.

I trust Felicia’s judgment, particularly when it comes to food. She lives in the neighborhood where I grew up, just up the hill from my folks. She taught me what the Easter snap is all about and what “taking the butter down” means. So after a high mileage failed first attempt, I got back in the car and drove south on Peach Orchard Road. Over the railroad tracks. And down Brown Road until I arrived at the intersection at Old Waynesboro Road.

I peered left. And right. And left again, but no Billy Franks’ General Store. No hand-painted signs. No whirligigs. No meat cooking on a barrel drum grill in the parking lot. No nothing really, with the exception of a grim gas station manned by two dour Asian ladies. If you find yourself on Brown Road in need of a container of gerbil feed, a three-inch wide spiked dog collar, a bottle of supersized perfume or a couple of losing lottery tickets, this is the place. In response to my inquiry about Billy Franks’ General Store, the head proprietress pointed to a small brick building across the intersection and simply said, “Closed.” 

The building is now home to New Found Territory Ministries and, according to the cherub-flanked banner over the doorway, they’re dishing out abundant servings of “healing and deliverance” every Sunday at the hands of Bishop Eddie M. Fenyang Fryer. While the door to the Lord’s house is open to one and all, the door to Franks—alas—is not.

Not to worry. If you want to slow down, meander and smell the pork rinds frying, I have two other recommendations for you—ROZ and 2 Ced’s Winghouse, Seafood and More at the Corner of Wheeless and Milledgeville roads and Sug Wright’s BAR-B-Q Resturant [sic] on Barton Chapel Road across the street from Broadway Baptist Church. When you see the church’s flashing LED sign that reads, “We need your holy spirit right now!”  you’ll know you’ve arrived.

ROZ and 2 Ced’s

I have a checkered history with Wheeless Road. I once crashed my car on one of her shapely curves, successfully avoiding an opossum mother and her offspring, but unsuccessfully avoiding a tree. And many moons ago, I was issued a speeding ticket on Wheeless Road on Halloween night while wearing a California Raisin costume. I no longer listen to the Pointer Sisters while driving. I’ve also given up dressing as a raisin.

Consequently, when I’m on Wheeless Road, I’m usually focused on getting off Wheeless Road lest I add some other curious vehicular incident to my record. A few weeks ago, I decided to stay on Wheeless and pulled into the dirt lot in front of ROZ and 2 Ced’s Winghouse, Seafood and More. After racing by more times than I can remember, I finally decided to give this colorfully painted roadside food trailer a try. How long, after all, can one resist the siren song of a chicken leg airbrushed on metal?

So I pushed the bell for service (just like the small sign instructs) and ordered a salmagundi of specials to take home for dinner—some PIT BBQ (love, love, love those hand-painted signs), fried shrimp and a cheeseburger with fries.
Since ROZ and 2 Ced’s, according to their menu, doesn’t believe in “letting food sit under a light for hours hoping someone gets hungry and buys it,” I settled into a spot on the bench and passed the time watching two patrons of the flea market across the street attempt to secure a king-sized mattress atop the roof of a compact car. A solitary pleasure until a dreadlocked young man pulled into the parking lot in a dark green Cadillac with sparkling rims that kept spinning even after his car had stopped.

“Whatchu havin’?” he asked me.

“The chopped pork sandwich,” I answered.

He nodded. Silence. Then, “You gettin’ the special?”

“I am,” I answered.

Another nod. Another long, awkward silence. The only sounds are the hum of passing traffic and a steady beat of classic R&B flowing out of the food trailer’s speakers.

“What side you gettin’?” My new friend continued his line of inquiry.

“The potato salad,” I answered, looking over at him and smiling.

He didn’t look back. But he nodded again and after a few moments said, “That’s what I’m gettin’.” And then the window opened and my order was passed out by the largest pair of hands I’ve ever seen.

The PIT BBQ didn’t disappoint. It was smoky and spicy and piled high on a pillowy sesame bun with a snowball- sized serving of the most mayonnaisey potato salad I’ve ever eaten. And there, scrawled in red marker on the Styrofoam box holding Marian’s cheeseburger and french fries was this unfortunately misspelled identifier, “Buger F/F.”
You can’t buy that kind of deliciousness at a chain restaurant.

Sug Wright’s

“Is this where the magic happens?” I asked the gentleman tending the grease pot at Sug Wright’s little barbecue shack on Barton Chapel Road.

He stayed focused on the work at hand, methodically ladling crispy baseball-sized pork skins out of the cooker. “Some of it,” he finally answered, looking up briefly to smile and gesture with his chin to the bright red building behind me with yellow flames painted on its sides.

When you enter the tiny main structure of Sug Wright’s establishment, there’s no mistaking what happens inside. The walls are pink. Piggy bank pink. Porky and Petunia Pig pink. A porcine shade of pink that simply says pork. And that’s what I had my heart set on—a few piggy bank pink pork ribs. Despite my laser-like focus on  “the other white meat,” I asked a waiting customer for her recommendation. “I like it all,” she said. And that’s saying something in light of the fact that Sug Wright’s “throw-back Bar-B-Que” menu includes everything from ’que (pork, beef and chicken) and pigs’ feet to red velvet cake and sweet potato pie. Oh, and shoe repair. Did I fail to mention that? In addition to serving barbecue in the tradition that began on the family farm in Keysville more than 75 years ago, Sug Wright’s also will resole your favorite kicks. What’s not to love about a place like this?

 

I end up ordering the BBQ/Rib/Chicken Combo, some hash and rice, and a 32-ounce cup of COOL LEMONADE (again, a sucker for the hand-painted sign)—all the while wishing that I had brought my clogs and sandals with me, both of which are in dire need of new heels.

And while the food, just like the fare at ROZ and 2 Ced’s, was tasty, the real joy of a place like this lies in much more than what’s sitting on your plate. Sug Wright’s and ROZ and 2 Ced’s and even Celebrity Video, Tanning and Deli, the highly diversified shop I popped into on McDade Road, represent the type of homegrown dining experiences that fast food, the American highway system and our country’s increasingly homogenized appetite are pushing into extinction.

About a decade ago, eating at a certain ubiquitous fast food hamburger establishment was habitual for me. Okay, let’s not be coy. It was Ray Kroc’s culinary plague, McDonald’s. At least three times a week I’d mindlessly roll through the Golden Arches and order Extra Value Meal number 2. That’s what they called it back then, the one with two cheeseburgers and an order of fries. I don’t know what they call it now since I haven’t darkened the door of a Mickey D’s in more than a decade.

Maybe it was the guy pouring hot water out of a dirty bucket over the shake machine or the extraordinarily pregnant woman sloshing a grimy mop about three inches away from my shoes or the utterly soulless experience of placing my order by number with a completely detached teenage boy with no vested interest in the quality of what he was stuffing into my bag—but something about that particular stop in Lithonia, Georgia, more than 10 years ago made me quit cold turkey.

But this column isn’t an excoriation of McDonald’s. Morgan Spurlock did a fine job of that in Supersize Me. This column is about slowing down. About chance culinary encounters. About the gems you discover when you take the road less traveled.

A week after my sojourn to find Billy Franks’ General Store in Hephzibah, I again headed south on Peach Orchard Road—this time, to try the barbecued goat at Smokin’ Joes, a small restaurant I noticed on my last journey out that way. On my first few passes, I thought it was a tobacco shop. I pulled into the parking lot, hopeful and salivating. But my car was the only one in the lot. When I approached the door, I realized why. There, in the corner of the front window, a note: Closed Until Further Notice. Thank you very much, Smokin’ Joe.

Which leads to the moral of this story. When you see a place like Billy Franks’ General Store or Smokin’ Joes or ROZ and 2 Ced’s or Sug Wright’s Resturant [sic] and Shoe Repair, stop. Even if you’re not hungry, stop and pick up a little something for dinner or a gigantic cup of COOL LEMONADE for the road. Stop. Because places like this won’t be around forever.

Deb Barshafsky is pursuing a master of arts in gastronomy from Le Cordon Bleu and the University of Adelaide. But she’s not a food snob. Really, she’s not.