"The
Family of Mom’s"
At
some restaurants customers come and go or even just drive through. They
talk into intercoms. They eat in their cars. Mom’s Restaurant at
the corner of 5th and Court streets in downtown Fulton is different. For
the past 17 years, Mom’s customers have come and stayed, and stayed
and stayed.
Mom’s customers coo over each other’s babies and grandchildren, stand up to tell a story, tease each other and sometimes just stare ahead and say nothing at all. Near the kitchen, sometimes customers step behind the lunch counter to freshen each other’s coffee and the waitress’s coffee, too. It smells like fried potatoes and cigarette smoke. Country music plays and every now and then the kitchen yells, “order !” and a plate appears on the ledge.
Customers stand and push in their chairs and soon a waitress is sitting alone. Tomorrow it will begin again.
Mom’s customers coo over each other’s babies and grandchildren, stand up to tell a story, tease each other and sometimes just stare ahead and say nothing at all. Near the kitchen, sometimes customers step behind the lunch counter to freshen each other’s coffee and the waitress’s coffee, too. It smells like fried potatoes and cigarette smoke. Country music plays and every now and then the kitchen yells, “order !” and a plate appears on the ledge.
Customers stand and push in their chairs and soon a waitress is sitting alone. Tomorrow it will begin again.