Dairy Inn

Right across the street from where Kerouac liked to drink stands one of my all-time favorite ice cream stands - Dairy Inn. Much has been made of Kerouac's frequenting of the Flamingo Bar, but since we also know that Jack also was an aficionado of cones, I'm absolutely certain he stumbled over here once in a while to get a banana split.

They have so much goodness on the menu - including beignets, Philly Cheesesteaks, and scrambled eggs - that my mind just shuts down trying to absorb it all. Therefore, I tend to just grab a butterscotch-dipped soft-serve cone and be on my merry way.... across the street.

Mazzaro's

Up until this week, the most awe-inspriring gourmet market I've witnessed in Interzone would be Morton's in Sarasota. When I lived for three months on Siesta Key and then for two weeks in the Rosemary District, Morton's was my one-stop shopping source for amazing products that truly make a man feel like he's made it to the top, the pinnacle, the apex of civilization. And it's still a fine place whose homemade chili and BBQ pulled pork brings tears to this fat boy's eyes in reverie, even now.

But when I waltzed into Mazzaro's in St. Petersburg (it's more like Lealman if you ask me) all my preconceptions about culinary heaven went out the ventana. This truly is the Sistine Chapel of gluttony. Name it? It's here, and it's superior to what you and I have been eating. Some stores are so spectacular that you can spend two hours wandering its aisles and not buy anything because you're so overwhelmed by the choices. Mazzaro's is that place. Some stores are so spectacular that as you load your bags into the car and drive off, you feel as if it's a getaway from a museum heist. Mazarro's is that place. Even in NYC, I never saw a place equal to Mazarro's grandeur.

That being the case, I can scarcely assemble my thoughts enough to even describe it to you. When I went in on a Saturday, it was packed to the gills with people, as if it were a tourist attraction or a gallery opening. Tourists (myself included) had cameras and video cameras documenting everything in their excitement, hoping in vain to convey to the folks back home in Cedar Rapids that such a place could even exist.

In Louisville, I used to shop at Fresh Market and would bring my prized items home like a smuggler who somehow, against all odds, concealed the jewels of Kohinoor in a hidden compartment in a false leg and got away with it. Here, the rarest item to my Kentuckian self was a mere footnote, an afterthought, to the edible glories hitherto unknown to a hillbilly like me. And that oneupmanship is across the board - the sausages, the pirogies, the gelato, the coffee, the fresh-made pasta cranked out before your eyes, the imported oils and spices... it reduced me from being an arrogant jerk who thought he was Mario Batali, Jr. to a speechless worm in seconds. But I'm catching up fast.

The place is like a labyrinth, or a series of sequential areas you progress to like Maxwell Smart at the opening of every episode of Get Smart, reaching ever-deeper levels of security clearance the further you walk. By the time I'd reached the immense monastery-like man-cave where they kept the wine and cheese, I was prepared to faint. I managed to fight the crowd and score several hunks of exotic cheeses I'd never heard of, or had read about but never had the opportunity to let my hand boldly seize, before I needed to get out and get some air.

The area where Mazarro's is located is, oddly, not all that affluent. But these weren't locals jamming the place up like a Springsteen tickets campout, they came from miles around, as far away as Tampa, just to do their grocery shopping. It's that amazing. They also have a patio out front where you can sit and eat your prizes from the deli right on the spot, and I'll be filing a report shortly on that as well.

If you're depressed and this place doesn't cheer you, you have no soul. Then again, they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

Cuban Delight

Cuban Delight is a charming little restaurant located at 2950 49th St N. in that vast vague gray area that somehow seems simutaneously to be Disston Heights, St. Petersburg, Pinellas Park and Lealman. I dunno. Google Maps calls it St. Petersburg, but they call everything St. Petersburg, fer cryin' out loud.

The only negative about the place is that ambience-wise, it's a little too homey. The cheap formica tables, the harsh fluorescent lighting, the loud shouting across the room from the wait staff - it all makes it feel like some lunch counter in Jersey. If they'd put a little more effort into the setting and the mood and the customer service, they could easily jack up their prices and I not only wouldn't squawk, I'd drop in more often.

Oh yeah, and the Cuban coffee came in a styrofoam cup. Ack. No. No. Honey, no, just no.

But the main courses make it all worth it. I've chowed there three times now - had ropa vieja once and the Steak Palomilla twice. It's every bit as good as Columbia's and that's no exaggeration. In fact, the steak here has even more of an authentic nuance to it (or at least as I perceive it), and comes smothered in sauteed onion strings, which is rather an improvement on Columbia's fresh-diced onions. Cuban Delight's portions of yellow rice and black bean soup are larger too.

Lakosil Grave

Interesting figural decorations on the grave of John and Lillian Lakosil in Royal Palm Cemetery, St. Petersburg/Gulfport area.

The Jitney Lunch

Consider this casefile dated January 1, 1916, from the St. Petersburg Daily Times newspaper. A New Year's greeting from something called The Jitney Lunch, "and remember the price is 5 cents for everything." Even in a 1916 economy, I have to say that's a pretty sweet deal. But what IS this Jitney Lunch they speak of?

A "Jitney", it should be mentioned first of all, is an antiquated term for a type of bus, or more specifically, a minibus. So does this mean a Jitney Lunch would be a prepackaged meal to take with you to eat on the bus? There goes my imagination's mental image picture of old Mr. Jitney in his butchers smock and paper fry-hat, lovingly laying each piece of salami on the rye while you watch.

According to this etymology site:

Jitney entered the language from an undisclosed language before 1903. Some have speculated it came from French jeton "token", but no one knows for sure. In any event we do know how the meaning slid over to a vehicle. In San Francisco and other cities small busses that charged only a nickel to ride acquired the name "jitney bus". It didn't take long for that phrase to be shortened to jitney. By 1914 the shorter form was in common use. The word fell on hard times in the 20s and 30s, when it came to mean "anything dilapidated, cheap, or ramshackle" because of its implication of cheapness, as in jitney pianos, jitney paintings, or jitney houses.

Aha. So, since the advertisement notes the super-cheap price of 5 cents, I'm guessing they're also using "jitney" in this same sense of low-budgetude. And a commenter on that previous link also says, "as a boy in elementary school, once a month we had "Jitney Lunch" which everyone looked forward to, as it was hot dogs, chips, choc milk and some dessert."

The term must have already been quite in vogue, judging from this similar ad spotted in the December 28, 1917 edition of the Norman, Oklahoma Transcript:

Whatever building housed this Jitney Lunch, it's apparently long gone. A glance at Google Maps shows a modern office building. A more hopeful datum: there exists evidence that a theatrical play entitled "Jitney Special Rare; or, Gert of the Jitney Lunch" existed in 1923 and most certainly must be made to exist again, by any means necessary.

But wait, what's this? In the December 2, 1919 edition of the Evening Independent one can see, if they squint, this tiny brief mention of one J. G. Nottage, "a popular restaurant man of St. Petersburg who made the words "Jitney Lunch" so famous in that city." Apparently Mr. Nottage was moving on from Jitneydom and going into the pie business. In Gainesville, as the squib suggests? I must know. Search engines provide us nothing else about Mr. Nottage, but a slew of other Nottages from the St. Pete area are indicated, and some are surely related. Could it be that one of them has, tucked somewhere in a dusty, forgotten and yellowing scrapbook of family pictures, an old photograph of Mr. Nottage and his Jitney Lunch counter?