El's Drive-In

We normally have lunch in Atlantic Beach here in the condo rather than in one of the very good restaurants that we have discovered in the area over the years.  But last Tuesday we had still not accumulated enough provisions, so we stopped for lunch at a place that is an institution in Morehead City, El’s Drive-In.

There are a lot of things about the tiny, non-descript brick building out on Arendell Street just past the hospital that are unique.  First of all, “El’s” is short not for a woman named Ellen or Eleanor but for Elvin Franks, who opened it in 1959 when I was not yet old enough to drive, let alone drive in.  Notice, too, that it is a “drive-in,” not a “drive-through” as most places are these days.  That means that there is no window to approach as at other fast-food places for ordering and picking up.  Instead, customers simply pull into the large parking lot in front of the building, which is completely unmarked, and in which other vehicles are always parked, fanned out randomly facing the building, an arrangement that baffled us when we first came here.  After a very short wait in the car, a woman – there are usually only two working – approaches your car and takes your order, jotting it down on a tiny pad, the kind that would have been used in most diners in this country for the past fifty years.  When the car in front of you receives its order and drives off, you simply pull forward and take its place.  It’s an admirably efficient arrangement.

One by one, the orders are somehow filled from the tiny brick building, which has no inside seating but apparently a kitchen that expands in some mysterious way to accommodate all of the food that passes through it every day, and that is a lot of food.  Out in the parking lot are everything from beat-up pickup trucks to late-model SUVs.  Somehow, the women work together to ensure that no car pulling into the parking lot goes unnoticed, and in due time your order will be hustled out to you in a plain brown paper bag.  A woman in a black sedan who did not know the unwritten rules of El’s pulled in the parking lot in front of everybody else, looking confused, and backed her car up several times, trying to find the correct place to orient herself and not block anyone else.  Eventually she caught on.

The observant customer might notice, too, the sign on the front window that says No Credit or Debit Cards, exactly as a transaction would have been in 1959, except no sign would have been necessary then.  No prices are shown anywhere on the sign, but the bill is always less than expected.  A generous tip is customarily added to the bill.  More than fifty years ago, I worked one summer at a Steak ‘N Shake in Winter Park, FL while attending college – it was one of those places where orders are taken in the same way but delivered on a tray that fits onto the partially-open driver’s window – and tips were greatly appreciated. 

What did we order?  One of the Spécialités de la Maison:  shrimp burgers, hushpuppies, and coleslaw.  The shrimp burger is fried shrimp, coleslaw, and cocktail sauce on a bun, and some  aficionados claim they originated in this area, either in Beaufort or perhaps in Salter Path at another El’s-like drive-in called the Big Oak.  It is very good!  Martha makes a healthier version by using grilled, blackened shrimp instead of fried.  We will have it often for lunch, hopefully (if the weather is nice) seated at the little bistro table on our balcony.