Main Cafe

6:30 am at the Main Cafe: Four men are seated around one of the two communal tables in the old, tin-walled dining room discussing politics and whether or not stress makes you fat or thin. They are eating bacon and eggs and getting up every once in a while to help themselves to coffee refills. We enter the restaurant just when the day’s pies are being carried forth from the kitchen, so we begin our dining day with a slice of still-warm coconut pie and cool chocolate pie.

The breakfast menu is not all that interesting, and the baking powder biscuits are slightly overweight, and dairy products are virtually unheard of (buttery spread for biscuits, powdered creamer for coffee). But we relished the very piggy, crisp-fried tenderloin that came alongside our plate of eggs. And we look forward to returning one day for the lunch special of ham, beans and cornbread.

Just sitting in this town cafe is a Roadfood joy. Despite the lively table-to-table conversations (everybody who eats here knows everybody else), it is a meditative sort of place, ideal for getting centered, as well as nicely fed, before a day of travel along the Ohio River Valley.