Lil’ Jon Restaurant & Lounge

What you need to know about Lil’ Jon Restaurant & Lounge: the cinnamon roll. Available in the morning only until that day’s batch has been eaten up, it is monstrously big and topped with so much sugary white frosting that there is enough to smother every forkful. I sat at a big breakfast table with a Roadfood “Worth the Detour” video crew of 6 people, and one single cinnamon roll provided enough warm, swirled dough and frosting for each of us to have our fill.

Also huge, if not as compelling, are Lil’ Jon’s pancakes: plate-size rounds that are thick and spongy and seemingly able to sop up infinite amounts of syrup. Biscuits and gravy is a monumental meal, too, the stout hunks of quick bread completely blanketed by 40w-70 peppered cream gravy.

The point is that Lil’ Jon is not for dainty epicures. I’ve only had breakfast, at which everything is plus-size, and I’m quite confident that lunch and dinner uphold the banner of blue-plate excess.

It’s a fun place for those of us who appreciate the cuisine of a vintage coffee shop. Coffee shop, I emphasize, for this counter-and-booth establishment is definitely not a coffee house at which brewing is an artisanal experience. No, the coffee here is what one person at our table jokingly dubbed “western style … because it’s been on the range all day.” It delivers caffeine, but in the most blatant way imaginable.

Now celebrating 50 years in business, Lil’ Jon Restaurant is a big, boisterous enterprise with diner-style counter-and-booth seating, free-standing tables and chairs, and a lounge for knocking back adult beverages and watching sports on TV. Plus Saturday night karaoke starting at 9. If coming for breakfast on a weekend morning, expect to wait for a seat; but the wait is seldom as bad as it looks.

Punctuation nerds: Earn a gold star if you can explain the apostrophe at the end of Lil’. I cannot.