After 12 extraordinary meals with Keith McLendon over the course of 2 1/2 days, and after outstanding lunches with Keith at Hootenanny’s and Gary Lee’s Market, I headed west to Macon and Fincher’s Bar-B-Q. I remember eating at Fincher’s in 1980 on my first road trip as a newly minted Justice Department attorney. It was 108 degrees and I had to call in from a heat-collecting, wasp-ridden glass phone booth beside a highway filled with casually tethered logging trucks. I was to check on open vote-buying in a nearby county. It’s worth reading about that here, but to get back to the subject …
I loved Fincher’s back then.. Fast forward to 2016 when Nancy and I stopped there on our way back from Florida. On that visit I, or rather my peccant GPS, blithely assumed that the Fincher’s on Houston Street was the original. Not so. The original is on Houston Avenue. Georgia loves to confuse you. Atlanta has 71 streets named Peachtree. They also mix up city and county names. Madison is in Morgan County while Morgan is in Calhoun County and Calhoun is in Gordon County and Gordon … well, you get it.
This time I drove to Houston Avenue and found the original Fincher’s closed, contrary to the assurances of the internet. I called and the Houston Street Fincher’s was about to close. I finally went down to Warner-Robbins (motto – EDIMGISAFAD), where I planned to join Somnus that evening, and I found an OPEN sign in the window of the Fincher’s at 529 North Davis Drive.
But there were no cars in evidence and the front door was locked. I went back to my car and briefly considered driving to Old Clinton BBQ in Gray, Georgia, a round trip of 70-odd miles in rush hour, and then punched the address of my hotel into my GPS. I glanced up and saw someone inside the restaurant. She saw me and motioned to the drive up window. Doh!
I hadn’t eaten in hours so I ordered two pork sandwiches and a cup of Brunswick stew,
and took an inside look before I left.
I took a few bites. And a few more. I opened one of the sandwiches in the parking lot, and I began to realize why my friend Rex Granum used to buy them by the score, literally, when he was home in Georgia. Rex would bring them up to Washington and keep them in his freezer until he ran out. Then back to Georgia for more. This is the sort of sandwich that, especially if you grow up eating it, you will love it forever and judge all other barbecue sandwiches by the Fincher’s standard. It inspires devotion.
I hustled to my nearby hotel and pulled the cup of stew out of the bag along with 10 packs of saltines. Fincher’s cracker largess reminded me of Shapiro’s. Here’s the stew —
The Brunswick stew was absolutely delicious. In some ways it’s more like a South Carolina hash than a Brunswick stew, although there are some tomatoes and other vegetables in there. The flavor was very complex, at once rich and tangy, and I didn’t have to use my miniature Tabasco bottle, one of several such “first aid kits” that Ella gave me when we were at Mohonk Mountain House.
Oh, and I finished the stew and both sandwiches. My second failure to eat at the original was forgotten, as were other worldly cares. I was well pleased with the world. Barbecue and Brunswick stew can do that.
There’s. chance that you may not be well pleased with the world right now. If you’re in Middle Georgia, where every day is barbecue and Brunswick stew appreciation day (EDIMGIBABSADS), head to Fincher’s for some good barbecue and Brunswick stew. If you get to the original location, tell them I’ll keep trying.
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