Plymoufh Restaurant-Bar

Sorry for leaving you hanging with yesterday’s abrupt post. It was the end of a very long day, except it wasn’t quite the end yet, because I still had a six-hour bus ride ahead of me. Needless to say, we made it safely back home. Joanie came out late at night and picked us up at the bus stop, thank you dear.

So where was I?

We checked out of our hotel room, but left our bags there until later. As always, the doorman at the Wyndham Blake asked us where we were going to eat. We named a diner, more than a few blocks away. He said that we could go there, it is a very fine diner or we could go to the Plymouth, the place that he eats at every morning. It was much closer. We said fine and off we went.

At first, I thought that he was going to just point us in the right direction, but no, he was headed there for his breakfast too. He kept explaining that he only had ten minutes, so that we needed to hurry. It was only a couple of blocks away, but what ensued was a wild jaunt through rush hour traffic. We had always been strict adherents of the walk lights, but in-tow of the doorman; we jaywalked our way across traffic. His patter to us alternated between admonitions to stay close to him, a big black man, and reminders to hurry, because he only had ten minutes. This conversation was punctuated with another running dialog with Chicago’s traffic. As a doorman, he knew all the cabbies. Civilian drivers were warned off, sometimes with a laying-on of hands on hood, not quite an Al Pacino, “I’m walking here”, but close.

We made it to the Plymouth fine and in time. We took a booth, while the doorman collected his carry out. He and a waitress got to talking about the restaurant’s “Cheap-Ass” breakfast specials. The waitress told the doorman that tourists couldn’t believe their good fortune and would often take photos of their breakfast plates for proof. You’ll see no such pictures here, but of course the food there was excellent.

The doorman left us one other recommendation, Garrett’s popcorn. He told us to get the Chicago mix, a combination of caramel and cheese popcorn. It is located across the street from the Plymouth. I noticed that in Chicago, even-numbered addresses are located on the west side of the street. Here in Saint Louis it is the opposite. I remarked to Anne about this oddity. She told me that it is because Saint Louis is west of the Mississippi and Chicago is east of it. I stared at her in disbelief, to which she replied, “I’m a smart-ass who has just had a Cheap-Ass breakfast.” It was not quite 10 AM.