Get comfy, my chickens. At Homegrown.

Tucked onto the side of Reynoldstown, holding down the I-20 belly-button of Memorial Drive, is Homegrown. My obsession with Homegrown's food is new but I've always been a supporter of their breakfast/lunch hours because it meant I could find a parking spot for any event at the neighboring WonderRoot arts center. Years passed. I stopped going to WonderRoot because I started to notice I was the 'old dude' at the shows, and I was never awake early enough to eat at Homegrown.

Fast forward a few years. I've gotten over being the oldest guy at WonderRoot and have started eating at Homegrown as often as I can manage to make it over to this side of town before they close up shop for the day.

Homegrown

Lot is full-up with earth haters.

Hot and sweaty, Summer in Atlanta. Homegrown's parking lot was packed--as usual--when J and I showed up around noon on a Saturday. We ended up parking on a side street and walked thirty sweltering miles back to Homegrown. The cracked sidewalk and refuse on the street didn't bother me. I previously lived on/near Memorial Drive and the shambly-nature of the area is part of Reynoldstown's charm--or so the new homeowners in the restored shotguns and ranch homes squeezed in between mini-McMansions are trying really hard to push.

It was so hot I could see the heat waves rising like charmed snakes from the sidewalks. I wanted to give up and get back to the air conditioned car J and I had just exited. It was an inner struggle because my friends had raved about Homegrown for years but I never gave it a chance. I wasn't into Southern home-cooking for a few years because I thought I was getting fat. I'm over that now. But damn... I needed air conditioning and an iced cold sweet tea immediately (Homegrown does not serve alcohol). 

The warden of the Homegrown garden, Man-Bear-Pig Papa Iopa?

We stepped through the side door into Homegrown's front dining area. It is a neighborhood mom and pop operation and feels like the hipster spawn of a Cracker Barrel/Waffle House sexual union, complete with a Homegrown version of the Cracker Barrel Country Store: Sew Thrifty Five and Dime, located in one of the back rooms of Homegrown. A few booths fill the wall to the left, a long food counter and grill fill in the right and then there's the usual odd assortment of knick knacks and objets d'art that fill the niches and walls of most homestyle Southern dining spots. The inside was even more full than the parking lot and I felt my stomach sink as the host said it would be a few minutes and asked us to wait outside. IN THIS HEAT? I wanted to guff, but I held my cool and J and I went outside, trying to find a bit of shade to sit out the wait.

Thankfully, it didn't take too long for the host to call our names and lead us to our table. A cheerful waitress greeted us and took our drink orders--iced teas, yeeeup!--and gave us a few minutes to look over the menu. J explained that many of the veggies on the menu are grown across the street in the Homegrown garden. I had always assumed the extremely overgrown lot next to Wonderroot was just a place for the more sophisticated homeless guys to poop, but now the name Homegrown made more sense. 

The first time we visited, J ordered The Omelette and I ordered the Gum Creek Farms hamburgers--yes, two huge burgers!--but I'm not going to waste time talking about that stuff, just remember three words when you go break your Homegrown virginity: Comfy Chicken Biscuits. It is far and away Homegrown's best seller and is the best fried chicken biscuit--smothered in a thick sausage gravy--that you'll find in Atlanta. VIMEO: The Chickening of The Comfy Chicken Biscuit

This is after I ate half of the plate.

The waitress had to jerk her hand back from a pair of chomping teeth when she dropped off J's pimiento cheese/fried green tomato BLT--AKA the Grant's Stack--and my Comfy Chicken Biscuits in front of us. We all would have laughed about it--or apologized--but our mouths were full of hot, exquisite homestyle food. I finished the Comfy Chicken Biscuits within two minutes and watched J take down most of her Grant's Stack before she offered me a taste. Oh my god! Food coma was about to set in. Delicious day napping... 

J's pimiento BLT.

We paid our check and stood up to leave. It was close to Homegrown's 2 P.M. closing time and the place had emptied out while we dined. The din of the brunch/lunch rush had been replaced with the whirring of a ceiling fan and the quiet buzz of a few scattered conversations.

"Hope to see ya'll again soon," one of the cooks--or maybe the manager?--called out as we opened the side door to leave. J stepped through the threshold and into the parking lot as I turned to say thank you. The glass and metal door ripped off of its hinges and fell into my arms. J started laughing. The guy that had just spoken to me looked slightly amused but didn't move to help. "Don't worry about it," he said as I stood there, holding the door in a startled death grip. I slid the door back into place as best I could and looked at J. She shrugged and we started the trek back to the car.

The sign read: 475. For one morning.