Papa’s Kitchen

For breakfast starting at 6am or meals of classic meat-&-2, hot sandwiches, or burger-&-fries, Papa’s Kitchen is the place to go. Adjacent to the 310-square mile SRS nuclear reservation (home of tritium), it is a modest, mild-mannered sort of place, its daily menu board adorned with a different spiritual homily every day. One time when I stopped by, it said, “Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created.” (Esther 4:14)

The fare is comfort food with a southern accent: succulent-skin fried chicken sided by the likes of collards, butter beans, or mashed potatoes and gravy; pork chops or catfish, handsome 1/3-pound, hand-pattied hamburgers, shrimp po-boys, and sandwich baskets with good, house-made French fries. On one recent occasion, the week’s specialty (“While supplies last!”) was a grand Lowcountry feast — the vividly-spiced South Carolina meal of shrimp, sausage, sweet corn, and potatoes, here also including plenty of meaty crab legs. To know the specials available on any particular day, check out Papa’s Facebook page, where they’re listed most mornings.

Although a first glance into the dining room seems to show a buffet table at the back, service is not help-yourself. Customers study the menu board or a printed menu and tell the waitress what they want. She goes to the buffet or back to the kitchen, plates it all, and serves it. All with good cheer and genuine hospitality.