A community staple holds fond memories
Today is the last day that Lavender’s Barn will be open. There may be a few people who don’t know about Lavender’s, but it’s been in the same place for 45 years, so we have to think most folks are aware of it and have eaten there once, twice or hundreds of times. That’s some 16,000 mornings of fried eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits and hot coffee, followed by 16,000 lunches of Southern food — the likes of which cause truck drivers to go hours out of their way to savor.
People who have worked there have raised their children in the restaurant, and those children have grown up to work there. That sort of thing can happen if you hang around for almost a half century.
The owner, phone answerer, order taker, kitchen helper and table cleaner, Charlotte Hardin, said she’s getting to an age where she wants to do something else, like travel with her husband, T.C. Although she laughed and said there’s a good chance he will get on her nerves before they ever get past the city limits.
Working at a family business like this means working — a lot. Hardin said that either she or her husband is there at the restaurant every day, and that that’s more work than most people want. She’s probably right.
There’s something about a restaurant — some restaurants anyway — that creates a bond with its customers. The food might not even be that good, but it’s good enough, and dropping by for a bite is a way to connect with friends and with the employees who have become friends — the ones who know you want your cheeseburger bun toasted, extra mustard, onions and sweet tea. In a world where everything changes, it’s nice to go in a place where nothing has changed and the food tastes just like it did last year and last decade. That’s Lavender’s.
We recall other dining haunts that have passed from the scene. There was John Noah’s over on Sixth Avenue, where it was always tough to get a table, especially so on Sundays. Someone just the other day was asking for their fried chicken recipe, so if anyone knows, holler. And then there was Jones Cafe out on Highway 65. What an institution that was. Plate lunches and homemade pie. More recently, there was the Sno-White Grill, which put a little dab of slaw on your burger.
Places like these never seem to open for business — sadly, they’re always closing. Hardin said the era of such restaurants in Pine Bluff is becoming a thing of the past. Again, she may be right, which is sad for a foodie who likes Southern comfort dishes like your momma or grandma used to make. Sad because there aren’t that many places left that serve such food.
If you haven’t been by to tell the folks at Lavender’s so long, you can do that today and get breakfast or lunch with your goodbye. And you can go tomorrow, as well, when there will be a reception for customers from 10:30 to 2:30. The only problem there is that the food will be catered, which means it won’t be nearly as good as if Flora Price had cooked it. She’s been the heartbeat of the kitchen for almost as long as the restaurant has been in business.
Either way, they’d love to see you. And after Friday, well, they’ll lock the doors and walk away, and we’ll all remember when, and then the lore of Lavender’s will be swept into Pine Bluff history like so many other fond memories of people and places.