Carol's Home Cooking

The joys of traveling down an unfamiliar road through an unknown town are realized at times

like this. Our morning started early, being awoken by a mix of our nerves from our night’s stay in the Williamston motel and our excitement over that day’s itinerary. Carol’s Home Cooking, although not on our itinerary, was the ideal place to stop to suppress our grumbling stomachs, even though we’d been driving for only about 25 minutes. It is places like this that inspired our original motivation to create a lenient itinerary. It was essential to leave ample time for potentially undiscovered or unwritten about establishments that we knew would tempt our attendance, and Carol’s Home Cooking was just that.

This one-story, washed-grey shingled building appearing originally to be a home to a small

family had a neon OPEN sign on the front window and a sign out front reading “Carol’s Home

Cooking*Eat in or Take Out.” After nearly passing the restaurant since our eyes couldn’t read

fast enough, our car screeched as we pressed down on the break pedal making sure not to

miss the parking entrance. We hesitated at the sight of the white van out front with capital red

letters that read Pit Cooked Barbeque, thinking, maybe they are not serving breakfast at nine

o’clock in the morning if they are, in fact, a barbecue restaurant, but the OPEN sign gave us

hope. We also promised each other that, despite our breakfast food craving, we would eat

barbeque for breakfast just this once, because we could not pass up a place like this. Clearly, if

this remotely located restaurant was still standing in the middle of the miles of straight, single-

lane highway roads and cotton fields that led us into Robersonville, there must be something

remarkable inside. The aromatic smells of hot-off-the-griddle cooking that filled our nostrils the

moment we stepped inside only solidified that assumption, and our bellies grumbled again.

We were greeted at the door by a soft-spoken woman with a generous smile on her face. She

brought us over to a red circular table on the far side of the square shaped room, placed the

menu in front of each of us—an eight by eleven piece of paper, which listed the breakfast items

each in a different pastel color—and took our drink orders. Taking a look around before deciding

what to order, my eyes were drawn to the framed piece of paper which stated (in rainbow

italicized font): “Notice!! Good food is not Cheap & Cheap food is not good. Please note, we here at Carols cooks our food to order, if you have a limited time for lunch call ahead. Freshly

cooked food is what we thrive for. We are not the average fast food restaurant, we care

about how long your food sit out!!”

The sign brought a gentle smile to my face and I turned back to the menu in front of me.

Brittany ordered first, kindly stating, “Can I have Herring?” The woman responded, “She doesn’t

have any of those today.” This response caught my attention, as it is not everyday that I hear

one refer solely to the chef rather than to the restaurant as a whole. This again alluded to the

uniqueness and authenticity of this restaurant, and the important role that Carol holds in the

establishment. I then ordered a pancake, which was listed on the menu as “Pancake ($2).”

Watching my budget, I was pleased with this price list, and also assumed I would be getting one

pancake for two dollars, which seemed more than reasonably priced to me. But I was wrong.

Moments later, but enough time to have whipped up the batter and poured the freshly made batter on the griddle, my two pancakes were served to me with a side of maple syrup poured in a small, silver metal cup along with a small container of gold packaged butter. The smell was overwhelming, while the heat lifted off the pancakes and warmed my cheeks. I took a bite. I hesitate to say they were better than my mom’s homemade pancakes, but there is undoubtedly some serious competition (I hope she doesn’t read this). The lightly crisped, soft brown edges perfectly complemented the fluffy, moist inside that melted on my tongue with each bite. I tried to pace myself but kept wanting more, and was immediately grateful that I was given two pancakes!

Sad to see my two pancakes disappear, we packed up our things and walked up to the front to

pay our bill. I took out a five-dollar bill, in anticipation of getting one dollar back to leave on the

table as a tip. I saw a green neon $2.00 show up on the cash register, and waited a moment for

the number to increase. “Two dollars,” our waitress said to me. Shocked, I happily handed her

my five-dollar bill and received far more change than I initially expected.

Carols Home Cooking is a diamond in the ruff. Directly off the un-trafficked Highway 64,

on the left hand side if headed west, Carol’s Home Cooking is located amongst the large

expanse of cotton fields. It is no surprise that people travel all the way from Rockymount

(nearly forty minutes away) just to eat here. Carol’s Home Cooking far surpassed my already

high expectations of the restaurant on all accounts—in taste, cleanliness, friendliness of staff,

service, & pricing. It is places like Carol’s that one learns to appreciate randomness and happen

stance, and places like this that quantify the value of field study opposed to that done by mere

internet research.

---Phoebe Hyde