What is street food? Street food is good food that's not fancy. It's a great meal you can order quickly, yet without feeling like you're supposed to leave fast. It's food the locals usually know about--food that you don't feel strange eating by yourself, but are always glad to reveal to a special friend. Street food costs less than $10 per person. You order it at the counter, or at least pay for it there.
The Blue Plate Special
Restaurant Review by Eve TaiIn the summer of 1990, I arrived home in Madison after living in Paris for a year. Though I didn't have a job yet, I was secure knowing that I had just tasted some of life's pleasures, and felt confident that good things lay ahead. Little did I know that some of those would be found at a place called Monty's Blue Plate Diner.
The diner was a new restaurant in the neighborhood. When I had left town, it was a place of concrete and weeds. The owner and his business partners had re-habbed an old gas station into a sleek diner featuring very good comfort food. In fact, the owner's parents had met on the very sidewalk in front of the old gas station years ago. The story intrigued me, and I decided to wait tables there while I looked for a more permanent job.
I didn't really know much about waitressing, but fortunately, my lack of experience was lost in the chaos of the restaurant's opening weeks, when the Blue Plate was still trying to figure out its systems. Arguments erupted between the waitstaff and the cooks, the busboys wanted a higher cut from the waitstaff tips, the espresso machine was delicate and fussy. I found these workplace issues kind of novel and as a result, could maintain an easy distance. I was more focused on meeting and observing all the interesting customers who were coming in the doors.
Flooding in was more like it. It soon became apparent that the Blue Plate's appeal stretched far beyond our immediate neighborhood, and included folks from literally next door to hundreds of miles away in Minneapolis. The crowds almost never slowed down, no matter the time of day or day of the week. The customers all shared a good appetite, of course, but their appetite wasn't just for food. There was a liveliness about them, an eagerness to be there. Even folks from Chicago, their faces worn from years of long commutes and working in sealed high-rises, would just blossom when they walked in the door. One day, as I waited on two booths that were sharing a conversation between them about the latest city council meeting, it dawned on me. Our customers were also hungry for community.
At the time, Madison had a decent culinary scene, so there were plenty of places to get a good meal. But not many restaurants offered the sense of neighborhood that the Blue Plate did, nor could they match its homey, yet arty decor of appliance sculptures swirling with glowing neon tubes. I had worked during my summers off from college at a suburban country club in Detroit, and was accustomed to a fair degree of surliness from the members. But at the Blue Plate, folks smiled while giving their orders for the "Meatloaf of the Gods" (a favorite) and a microbrew, and frequently seemed happy to chat with me.
The variety of people that came to the Blue Plate reminded me of something a friend of mine used to say: "same planet, different worlds." I couldn't imagine where else you would find all these folks sitting next to each other as though they were in their own kitchens. In one month's time, I waited on a graphic designer, a famous musician, a crusty farmer, lesbian couples, the local warm-and-fuzzy weather guy from Channel 15, a poet living in New York back to see his hometown, a little boy who ordered his Oreo shake in sign language, a police officer, lady golfers sporting diamond golf club pins, and even an old boss visiting from Chicago with his grandchildren.
To appreciate the mix of people who came to the Blue Plate, it helps to know a little bit about Madison culture. Monty's is on the East Side of Madison, a part of town with an industrial blue-collar history. Cozy neighborhoods with bungalows weave their way around Lake Monona, taking in local shops that sometimes haven't been remodeled for 25 years or more and probably won't be for another 25. In the 1960s, the East Side was also a hippy haven, with head shops and funky souls strewn along Williamson Street, better known as Willy Street. A faint haze still hangs around the area, and residents are often proud of their counterculture history, even as the old men in thick glasses still take in the sun in front of the old-fashioned Ace Hardware store.
As the city's population grew, so did the city's boundary. Residents spread west in search of more space and larger homes, bringing with them more roads and strip malls. The migration mimicked trends found in larger cities across the nation in the '60s and '70s, only instead of "white flight," it was more like "white-collar flight." Over time, West Siders were reluctant to go "all the way over" to the East Side, when so many of life's conveniences were only a car ride away.
So when Monty's Blue Plate started drawing in crowds from the West Side, that was something remarkable. Even as crowds bulged the diner's doors on weekend brunch days, no one seemed to mind the chaos or their hunger, which would only sharpen to a delicious level with the wait. The wait also gave you a chance to ease into the day with a cup of fresh coffee and some socializing--you almost always bumped into someone you knew, or at least wanted to know. At the Blue Plate, you helped create the atmosphere merely by being there.
After a few months, I found a job and went back to the 9-to-5 life. But I continued to return to the Blue Plate almost as often as when I had worked there. I thought that over time I would grow bored of going to Monty's. But nearly 10 years rolled by, and that never happened. The place was irresistible. I loved everything about it. I joined friends for breakfast there so often that we didn't have to specify where to meet when we made plans. I went to the Blue Plate when I was feeling lonely, maybe with a book or a letter to write, or to read the New York Times, soaking up the hum of human energy around me. I walked out on a beau once in the middle of my grain burger, and had lively meetings with colleagues, no doubt fueling our creativity with Monty's breakfast biscuits loaded with honey and butter.
We live in a time when many of our creative powers are devoted to making us more independent. Cars, automated teller machines, and most notably computer technology have made our lives easier and more convenient than before. But if we are to believe that these things which make us independent also remove our need for each other, then we are believing an illusion. We still need to connect with each other, to feel a part of something bigger. We need to know that there are other people out there, and that we have a place alongside them.
Even as we are prone to point out our differences, we are more often longing for common ground. Community, in the truest sense of the word, is both found and created at Monty's Blue Plate. Maybe not on a huge scale, but a significant one all the same. It isn't a special occasion kind of place. Rather, the Blue Plate is special because it is an everyday kind of place. It has something for everyone--an idea that our supposedly more sophisticated lifestyles have almost forgotten or no longer thought possible. But we know it is. Just walk into the Blue Plate on any day, and our neighbors are there, engaged in the important business of another day in their lives.
The Blue Plate Special, Madison, Wisconsin
Eve Tai lived in Madison for 12 years before an irresistible job offer in Seattle drew her to that special city. She returns often to Madison and her favorite table at the Blue Plate.
This article is reprinted with permission from In My Neighborhood: Celebrating Wisconsin Cities. Copies of this book are available by calling 608-259-1000 or emailing friends@1kfriends.org. It is also available from Amazon.com.