Looking for ‘feed’back on Macon’s iconic restaurants

I often hesitate to use the term “icon,’’ a word that has been overused and abused to describe something epic.

But I was delighted when I learned that Monday, Aug. 24, is National Iconic Restaurant Day. This is a day after my own heart, not to mention taste buds. It’s a package deal, combining two of my favorite subjects – legends and food.

In Macon, we have more than our share of culinary icons, places where traditions have been established and reputations have been built on much more than just food. Folks break bread at tables sitting on sacred ground.

This past week, I made a list of what I consider Macon’s Half Dozen Iconic Restaurants, both past and present. I put some thought into it, and I stand by my list, but it certainly is subject to debate.

Maybe I’ll get some feedback, no pun intended.

Nu-Way Weiners. I doubt anyone will argue against the most iconic of icons. It has been around since 1916 and is the second-oldest hot dog restaurant in the country, next to Nathan’s on Coney Island. No other local eating establishment can boast such strong history and sense of place. Nu-Way has been featured on television shows and in national publications, and the word “Weiners” has been famously misspelled since 1937. There is even a book about it. Oprah Winfrey ate there on her visit to Macon in 2007. She ordered two hot dogs “all the way” … and a Diet Coke.

Fincher’s Barbecue. There is an overabundance of great barbecue restaurants in Macon, but only two can come close to matching the local flavor of Fincher’s. Tucker’s Barbecue has the same Fincher bloodlines. And Fresh Air, on Northside Drive, can claim kinship to the mother ship up the road in Jackson, which dates back to the Depresion and is the oldest pit-cooked barbecue restaurant in Georgia. Fincher’s has been around since 1935 and has given generations of Maconites their weekly barbecue fix. To say it’s out of this world fits right in with those “Pigs in Space” T-shirts. In 1989, astronaut Sonny Carter, a Macon native, climbed aboard the space shuttle Discovery, taking a freeze-dried helping of Fincher’s Barbecue with him into outer space.

H&H Restaurant. The Allman Brothers Band put the Cotton Avenue restaurant on the map, but it’s the soul food that has kept in there since 1959. Founders Inez Hill and “Mama Louise” Hudson were as legendary as the fried chicken and collards they served at one of Macon’s great culinary melting pots. In 2015, the website thrillist.com named it “Georgia’s Most Iconic Restaurant.’’ I began eating there back in the days when you had to walk through the kitchen to pay at the cash register in the back. And it was the first time in my life I drank tea from a Mason Jar.

Len Berg’s. It opened in 1908, the same year Henry Ford rolled the first Model T off the assembly line. It has been closed for more than a decade, but the hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the alley between Walnut and Mulberry had unforgettable character. It, too, had a book written about it. There were tiny rooms on the sides and a counter with stools in the middle. You would order by “letter” from the menu. There was a doorbell you could ring as you were leaving to let the cooks know you enjoyed your meal.

The Rookery. It has been a fixture on Cherry Street since 1976, the year Jimmy Carter was elected president. So it stands to reason the menu would include a hamburger – topped with peanut butter – named after him. There also are burgers that pay tribute to James Brown, Otis Redding and a host of others. Garden & Gun magazine once placed The Rookery on its short list of “South’s Best Burgers.’’ Folks still talk about the time actor Harrison Ford went there and signed his name on the wall of the booth. It also is where I went with a friend on my first visit to Macon. Years later, I took my wife there on our first lunch date. So I could wax nostalgic about this place all day long.

Pig’n Whistle. Like Len Berg’s, the Pig has gone on to that great diner in the sky. I never had a chance to dine there. It closed a few months after I arrived in Macon in 1978. But I’ve heard enough stories to feel as if I’ve eaten a “Pig Special” while sitting in a ‘57 Chevy over on Georgia Avenue. And occasionally, my family will pick up a bottle of the Original Pig’n Whistle sauce at Milltown Market. Little Richard and Otis Redding were once car hops and playwright Tennessee Williams, on his visits to Macon, would walk down the hill from College Street. While there, he wrote parts of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” (No, he never considered renaming the play “Pig on a Hot Tin Roof.”)

Of course, I considered plenty of others for the iconic list, including Natalia’s, Jim Shaw’s, S&S Cafeteria, Jeneane’s, Ingleside Village Pizza, Bear’s Den, Francar’s and Sid’s Sandwich Shop. I even thought about Polly’s La Mesa over on Pio Nono Avenue, the first Mexican restaurant in Macon.

But I found myself running out of time and space. I had to make the cut somewhere.

Not to mention, I got hungry.

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.