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DEPARTMENTS – OCTOBER 2009

Upfront—Dudes' Lunch Club

We wander Hampton Roads to discover great food at diners that time forgot.

By Michael Jon Khandelwal

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It's lunch time, and I pull into the empty parking lot behind the Boot in Norfolk's Ghent. At the back door, I pause and knock three times like the hero does in those spy movies from the 1940s. After a few seconds the door slowly opens.

Inside are my friends Josh and Dave, the owners of the Boot. Together, we are three founding members of a loosely affiliated dudes' lunch club. We're working on a secret handshake and already have a well-established password. (If you're a careful reader, I think you'll figure it out.) Our goal: to eat at as many "diners that time forgot" as possible.

As I wait for them to properly groom their moustaches, I wander the Boot's kitchen. It's a rule that all male employees must grow a moustache, and I notice the jar of fake ones for new workers. I swipe one for later as a surprise. Josh and Dave are actually quite famous for their moustaches, having placed third in a recent international competition, unseating the unruly moustaches of the French.

In the kitchen Dave shows off their new shipments of frozen lambs, and there's a bubbling pot of broth on the stove. Josh demonstrates the industrial dishwasher to me for the 100th time. I am not sure why, but as a nonrestaurant person, that contraption fascinates me—the different tubes of brightly colored liquids, the big levers reminiscent of old voting booths that helped elect the Chicago machine and the spitting steam that makes similar sounds to the ones in Hunt for Red October right when the bad Russian sub fires a missile at the defecting Russian sub and Alec Baldwin hadn't started taking steroids yet.

We're ready to go. We pile into my giant, restored purple Oldsmobile and crank the music loud. Today, we're heading to Manny's Burgers—a small shack near the traffic circle on Lafayette Boulevard.

We've tried many diners that time forgot in many different cities. At Tony's Hot Dogs on Newtown Road in Virginia Beach we held an impromptu hot dog eating contest, each maxing out at four. At the Grill in Chesapeake, we ate the best cheese steaks in Hampton Roads. Earlier this year, a deer ran across Battlefield Boulevard and smashed into the restaurant's plate glass window. One customer, upon seeing the deer careening toward them, pointed and yelled "Deer!" It must have been surreal. Now, whenever I walk into the Boot, I yell "Deer!" as well. It's especially fun when the place is crowded with quiet diners.

In Ghent, we ate amazing gyros at Phil's Cafe in Atlantic City. Our last trip was to the Oceanfront, eating at the counter at the Belvedere Coffee Shop. I often went there for lunch as a kid when I was attending science fiction conventions.

For the rest of Dudes' Lunch Club, pick up our October issue wherever magazines are sold.

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