Hearth

On a scrapple-eating binge heading south along I-95, we veered onto Route 13 in Delaware and found The Hearth, a restaurant adjoining the Pleasant Hill Motel. It is a clean and decent coffee shop with comfy seats and a professional waitstaff who keep the coffee cup filled and hot from the moment you sit down.

The Hearth is a great place to eat scrapple, which is the uniquely mid-Atlantic way with pork and cornmeal – ground up, fashioned into a loaf, sliced and griddle-fried until crisp. It is the piggiest pig meat, a real morning oink. We had ours with eggs, toast, and potatoes, and gravy. What a great morning pig-out!

On the way back north, we detoured to The Hearth for lunch: sweet-meat crab cakes and hot turkey sandwiches, followed by a nice bowl of rice pudding, and two slices of roadworthy pie: lemon meringue and apple. Those pies were dandy, but our waitress told us that the next time we stop in, we should definitely try the French silk pie, her personal favorite.

After closing in June of 2017 the restaurant has reopened in March of 2018. The restaurant has not been revisited since reopening.