Home-style History at J&J Cafeteria
By Becky Billingsley
J&J Cafeteria will mark its 60th anniversary in 2011, and the reasons for this Conway restaurant's longevity start with the food and the people who make it.
For years the eatery at the edge of historic downtown Conway was known as The Sandwich Shop. The building was previously a Greyhound Bus station before Jeff Edwards and his brother, Joe Edwards, bought it in 1951.
Jeff's son, Ernie, ran the business next, and now Ernie's sons, Bobby and Ernest Edwards, are the third generation to own J&J’s. Ernie is still a fixture on the buffet line filling up platefuls of food for hungry regular customers.
The restaurant was closed for three months in 2009 for an extensive renovation, and it reopened with a sunny new décor and more room. When you go in the front door there is a seating area and a brick-fronted counter with chrome stools where you can place orders. A new buffet is in the restaurant’s middle, and beyond that is a new large dining area.
A nostalgic décor featuring 1950s-era cars and old radios reminds customers of the building’s history. In this pleasant setting are families, working men in caps and boots, retired couples and business people.
Tables, booths and chairs are light ash blonde, and the floor is a handsome large-square tawny tile. Windows ring all the areas, providing plenty of light and a nice view of the traffic on Fourth Avenue.
You can get three square meals a day here. Most of the breakfast items are less than $5 – including eggs, meats, pancakes, omelets and French toast – but you can really blow it out for a couple dollars more with Steak & Eggs that includes a 6-ounce ribeye, two eggs, grits and hash browns. If you’re in a hurry there are several portable breakfast choices, from biscuit with sausage gravy to a ham and egg sandwich.
Photo Gallery
For lunch you can choose from a variety of burgers, sandwiches, wraps and salads, but the most popular option is the $7 lunchtime meat and three buffet, where you can select one meat and three side, and the food is dished up for you. If you’d like a buffet meal with smaller servings (ask for the light portions), that’s $1 less.
From 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sundays the buffet price is the same at $7. It used to cost more, but Bobby Edwards says he decided he could not continue to charge more for his food on Sundays so he lowered the price. All buffet meals come with iced tea or coffee (with real half-and-half), rolls and butter (trans fat-free whipped spread).
The day I visited, the lunch buffet included fried flounder, collards, rice, gravy, purple top turnips, sweet potato soufflé, fried squash, fried okra, corn, black-eyed peas, lima beans in gravy, peas, Salisbury steak, mac and cheese and fried chicken. The Edwards never tire of reminding customers their produce is as fresh as possible, and frequently mention “Those collards were picked this morning,” or “The turnips just came out of the field.”
The fish is cooked to light and crispy brilliance, and chopped collards are flavorful and tender; not cooked to mush or over-seasoned. Rice is perfectly firm with separate grains, and most people moving through the line ask for rice and brown gravy.
In the evening, all entrees come with fries or baked potato, and house or Caesar salad. You can substitute sweet potato fries for an extra $1.
There are nightly specials like a recent one with two fresh spots, grits or rice, sweet potatoes or fries, cole slaw and hush puppies for $8. Steak and seafood are served every night, and in season you can get an oyster roast of local (McClellanville) select clusters for $18.95.
Every buffet meal comes with dessert. A typical day would include a choice of banana pudding, peach cobbler or Key Lime pie topped with a mile of fluffy fresh meringue.
Speaking of sweets, this is the sort of place you need to expect to be called sugar, honey or darlin’, and you can sling the endearments right back and feel at home doing it.
J&J Cafeteria is at 1303 Fourth Ave. in Conway, at the corner of Beatty Street, and the number is 843-248-6281. Hours are 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and 6 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sundays.
There are no comments posted. Add yours below.