Mount Airy NC and the Mayberry Days Festival

nocarolina


I enjoyed my breakfast here very much, despite the fact that it came from a multi-state franchised operation. IMHO, good food is where you find it. I probably should mention that I got well into the meal before I remembered to get out my camera; don't want you to think that WH serves measly portions.  

NC,

I had breakfast at a waffle house a couple of days ago.  The country ham was better than the the dried out junk I had in Cherokee NC a few days earlier.  I hate to even say that.  But I have had some bad breakfasts at waffle house as well.  But at least when eating at Waffle house, you don't feel so bad because it does not break the bank.  I have had bad food at places the claimed to have great food only to find that I could have had much better food at half the price somewhere else. It's hard to screw up eggs but its funny how many places can.

You are right though, its fun to watch your food being prepared right in front of you. Reminds me of the chain in the Milwaukee area called "George Webb."  The king of great cheap eats....    

http://www.georgewebb.com/

I guess I've been pretty lucky. In almost three decades of Waffle House breakfasts during my southern roadtrips, I can't remember ever having a disappointing one. Some have been better than others, of course, but never a bad one. I had breakfast at the George Webb in Burlington WI this past summer. It was pretty good, but not Waffle House-good ( George ain't got no country ham! ) 

nocarolina


I guess I've been pretty lucky. In almost three decades of Waffle House breakfasts during my southern roadtrips, I can't remember ever having a disappointing one. Some have been better than others, of course, but never a bad one. I had breakfast at the George Webb in Burlington WI this past summer. It was pretty good, but not Waffle House-good ( George ain't got no country ham! ) 

 

The Waffle House is the one place to go when you want breakfast for dinner. Usually its one of the local diners for breakfast when I want to eat out in the morning. But when I want eggs, bacon and hashbrowns for dinner its time for the twenty minute drive to the Waffle House. 

George Webb's looks like a fun place. The founder seems like a real neat guy. I found this article about them:
http://www.onmilwaukee.com/market/articles/askomcwebb.html

Here at OnMilwaukee.com, we pride ourselves on being Milwaukee experts. Since it's literally our job to eat, sleep and breathe Brew City, naturally we get lots of questions from our readers.

In this new series of articles called "Ask OMC" we take your questions, big or small, and track down the answers. So ask us anything about Milwaukee, and we'll hunt it down, track it down and find out the skinny. That's what we do.

Q: Why are there two clocks on the wall, right next to each other, at George Webb? 

A: This simple query has confounded customers at counters and in booths for decades. (It's particularly confusing for those patrons already seeing double after bar closing time). 

There are many theories as to how the two clock tradition began. The most common, and the one offered by a patient waitress during a recent visit, goes like this...

Years ago, local law prohibited business from being open 24 hours a day. George Webb (yes, there really was a George Webb), announced that his restaurants were open "23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, seven days a week and on Sundays!"

In order to avoid closing at all, the restaurants had two clocks installed with the time set one minute apart. Technically, the restaurant was closed one minute per day on one clock, but open on the other.

The founder also loved baseball and the Brewers and they have a promotion during the season where you can get 6 hamburgers for $5 every game that the Brewers score 5 or more points, win or lose, home or away!

nocarolina


I guess I've been pretty lucky. In almost three decades of Waffle House breakfasts during my southern roadtrips, I can't remember ever having a disappointing one. Some have been better than others, of course, but never a bad one. I had breakfast at the George Webb in Burlington WI this past summer. It was pretty good, but not Waffle House-good ( George ain't got no country ham! ) 

Yep, George aint got the country ham.  I wish it had in the past  based on the fact that I have had tons of it since moving down here to your old stomping ground!  Read it and weep my buddy because I am now where you grew up and you are now in the area where I grew up!!!   I love the country ham here!  But it is an aquired taste for us yankees.  Quite a bit salty.  Had some from the store the other day.  Loved it but a bit salty.  I grew up on sausage in the Milwaukee area.  Ham to us was one of those big ones with a bone in you would get at your local grocery store from a local purveyor.  Country ham is a whole new animal to me.  But I love it. 

nocarolina


I guess I've been pretty lucky. In almost three decades of Waffle House breakfasts during my southern roadtrips, I can't remember ever having a disappointing one. Some have been better than others, of course, but never a bad one. I had breakfast at the George Webb in Burlington WI this past summer. It was pretty good, but not Waffle House-good ( George ain't got no country ham! ) 

Thanks for the update NC....Keep the reports coming. If we could ever meet up in the Milwaukee area, I could show you some incredible cheap but good places to eat.  You will not get Carolina BBQ type places though.  I have plenty of them here.

And when I say cheap, I do not mean poor quality by any means.  Just good value.

Cheesehead, I dearly wish that I was from North Carolina, but I'm a lifelong Chicagoan. It was my late father who was born and raised in Mount Airy, where he went to grade school with Andy Griffith. He came up to Chicago job-hunting after getting out of the army in 1949, and it was here that he met my mother, who was raised on a farm near West Liberty KY and had just arrived in Chicago herself. One thing led to another, and the results were wedding bells and yerz trooly.

After breakfast, I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and do some more picture-taking around town. Just about a block or so from the playhouse and museum is a short stretch of street named after Andy Griffith's father.

Mount Airy is the corporate home of Spencer's Inc., a longtime manufacturer of infants and childrens clothing. The company is one of the larger employers in Surry County.

This giant milk carton has stood alongside the Andy Griffith Parkway ( US 52 ) ever since the 1960s. Originally it bore the "Coble" brand name.

After about three hours of doing my photography thing, I was hungry again, so I started looking for a non-chain place for lunch. As a number of roadfooders have found out the hard way, finding an independent restaurant in the southern states that's open on Sunday can qualify as an episode of Mission Impossible. My first attempt at finding lunch took me to Odell's Sandwich Shop on W. Pine Street. Odell's is an old-fashioned drive-in, complete with carhops, that probably dates back to the fifties.                    

When I arrived at Odell's, I found exactly what I expected to find: I'd been travelin-manned. Immediately, visions of a lukewarm, overcooked burger from Sonic started dancing in my head. No, no, no... there's gotta be something better in town that's open today. And then it hit me...

Shoulda just called 786-4246 for convenient carry out service

Too bad they were closed, it looks like a good spot...and those prices can't be beat...burger, fries and shake for under $4!!!

The Dairy Center has been on W. Lebanon St. since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, or at least it seems like it. I didn't really expect it to be open on a Sunday, but I lucked out with this place. The only time that I'd ever been here before was an ice cream stop years ago, so I wasn't sure what to expect food-wise.   www.choppedonion.com/id9.html

Dairy Center's menu lists an item called a ground steak sandwich. Over the years I've heard a number of references to this sandwich when visiting Mount Airy, but I've always assumed that it was just local jargon for a hamburger. This place, however, lists the ground steak sandwich separately from the burgers, so of course I just had to find out what this was all about.

Here's the ground steak sandwich, and it wasn't what I was expecting at all ( actually I'm not sure what I was expecting. ) It's similar to the loose meat sandwiches sold all over Iowa by Maid-Rite in that it's ground beef... excuse me, steak, that is not in a solid pattie form, but unlike a loose meat sandwich, the crumbled meat has such a high moisture content ( grease? ) that it clings together instead of spilling all over. It's certainly different but I did enjoy it and would order it again.

Bob, you directed me to a Maid-Rite in DeKalb, Illinois earlier this summer.  It wasn't a bad burger, but it wasn't all that tasty, either.  I gave it another name: a crumbleburger.  I hope the ground steak sandwich was better.  It looks it!

nocarolina

Wow, hard to beat those prices!  That "ground steak" sandwich looks good and at $2.05, how could you go wrong?

nocarolina


Here's the ground steak sandwich, and it wasn't what I was expecting at all ( actually I'm not sure what I was expecting. ) It's similar to the loose meat sandwiches sold all over Iowa by Maid-Rite in that it's ground beef... excuse me, steak, that is not in a solid pattie form, but unlike a loose meat sandwich, the crumbled meat has such a high moisture content ( grease? ) that it clings together instead of spilling all over. It's certainly different but I did enjoy it and would order it again. 

Mmmm that looks tasty! Did it have mustard mixed into the meat or is that cheese?

I ordered it with mustard and dill pickles, which, by coincidence, is the same way that I order my Maid-Rites. No cheese.    

After lunch, I picked up my aunt and we headed down to the city of Winston-Salem to visit our family members there. From Mount Airy to Pilot Mountain, it's necessary to take "new" four-lane US 52, but at PM you can get onto old two-lane 52 which passes through the towns of Pinnacle, King and Rural Hall on its way to Winston-Salem ( Winston and Salem were neighboring towns until their merger in the late 1890s. ) The highway parallels the track of the Yadkin Valley Railroad along much of this route. The YVRR is a shortline railroad that has two lines, one of which runs from Mount Airy to Rural Hall, which is where I photographed this locomotive...

nocarolina


I ordered it with mustard and dill pickles, which, by coincidence, is the same way that I order my Maid-Rites. No cheese.    

So they mix it into the meat when they cook it as it looks to be interspersed with the meat.

Curious:-)

ALRUI

nocarolina


I ordered it with mustard and dill pickles, which, by coincidence, is the same way that I order my Maid-Rites. No cheese.    

So they mix it into the meat when they cook it as it looks to be interspersed with the meat.

Curious:-)

The mustard wasn't mixed into the meat. It just looks that way.

My aunt and I spent a few hours visiting with our relatives, and then we made the trek over to the Healy Drive location of the K&W cafeteria chain, which is based in Winston-Salem. This is another long-time tradition of ours, and one that I always look forward to.