BREAKFAST CLUB
Mcdonald’s meetup continues amid pandemic
For about 10 years, regulars at the Mcdonald’s on East Main Street Downtown were used to ordering their coffee amid a chorus of laughs from the two tables near the entrance.
It was the VIP section, so-to-speak, for an unofficial breakfast club of anywhere from six to 12 men, generally 65 and older, known to many of the customers. Some of them are related, but all are friends, and they met each morning — seven days a week, even on holidays.
“We cover everything from politics to the kitchen sink,” said Greg Brannon, 65, a member of the crew who lives in Olde Towne East. “I wouldn’t know what to do in the morning if I didn’t come down here.”
So, when the restaurant shut down the dining room amid the coronavirus pandemic, the elders hatched a plan: They could get their coffee in the drivethru and grab a seat on the short, gray brick wall bordering the parking lot. And that’s exactly what they’ve been doing since March.
The wall is like a hot seat; everyone who sits there must be able to withstand constant ribbing. On a recent morning, the men teased each other about their IQS and ages, and gave each other silly nicknames.
“Y’all don’t have respect for your elders,” Pete Wood, 80, of the South Side, said to the men at one point.
Wood, William Curtis Ellison, 73, and Robert Long, 78, are veterans of the group; they were meeting at a previous location until it closed. A decade ago,
Brannon saw the guys and introduced himself.
“Worst thing I ever did in my life,” Brannon said, laughing.
Andre Hill got to know the loyal customers when he took over ownership of the store from his mother, Gale Hill, in 2019. Even he does not escape the goodnatured jokes.
“They’re a lively bunch,” said Hill, 36, of Berwick. “They talk about me when I pull on the lot, and it starts my day off right. It’s like my morning cup of coffee. That’s what they are to me.”
And they are true friends to each other, despite the humor.
“We always make sure everybody’s making their doctor’s appointments and doing the things that they need to do,” said Jack Edwards, 71, of Linden. “If somebody gets low on money, we look out for one another.”
And if one of them doesn’t show up, someone from the group will get on the phone to make sure everything is OK.
“I’m fighting pancreatic cancer,” Brannon said. “And these guys have all either come by or called and checked on
me religiously.”
John Kubitschack, 66, met the other men a few years ago and has been walking over each morning from his senior living facility Downtown ever since. “They treat me right,” he said. “They act like I do, wild and crazy. That's how we are. I'm a jokester, too.”
Over the years, they've only lost one member of the crew, a World War II veteran who was in his late ‘90s when he died this fall. The youngest in the group is 42-year-old Anthony Alexander, who comes by the wall before his shift at Donato's across the street.
“(Pete) is like a father to me,” Alexander said. “He encourages me when I see him. You respect your elders and try to learn from them. He's got a lot of wisdom and so that's why I hang around him.”
When the group was indoors, they chose their tables so they could have a good view of all of the other customers.
“The ladies love them,” Hill said. “They're charmers.”
It's not uncommon for the men to chat about their wives, ex-wives and girlfriends, who have all visited the McDonald's — especially when they needed to track their partners down.
“I remember mine came in here, and I ran out the door,” Brannon said, laughing. “I was in trouble.”
Now, if the weather is bad, the guys line their cars up in the parking lot and roll the windows down so they can talk to each other.
And they are working out plans for when it gets really cold this winter; perhaps they'll bring a pop-up table and seating and a portable heater, they said.
But they're anxious to get back inside.
Reminiscing about their two tables, a couple of the men repeated a familiar phrase.
“There's no place like home.”