Mrs. Wilkes and More Savannah Exploring

My dear friend, Karon, was the first to mention Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House to me when she first heard that we were heading to Savannah. Then someone else mentioned it. Soon, I'd heard from I don't know how many people that it was a "must" to eat there. So, today, the four of us made our way to 107 West Jones Street.

Mrs. Wilkes took over the boarding house in 1943. Since then, through 4 generations, the dining room has operated pretty much the same: people are lined up before opening time of 11:00 a.m. Right at 11, the doors are opened and people are directed to one of the large tables, set for 10 and already piled with bowls of every vegetable imaginable - sweet potato souffle, squash casserole, okra gumbo, black-eyed peas, green beans, lima beans, creamed corn, corn bread dressing, macaroni and cheese, carrot salad, potato salad, and I can't think what else. Everyone is seated, a bell is rung, a blessing is offered, and everyone begins passing dishes around. Wait staff bring out the fried chicken, beef stew, and whatever additional meat is offered that day. Eventually, the wait staff comes back around with trays of desserts - today was banana pudding or blueberry cobbler.

What a challenge to Dortha's and my Weight Watcher's program. I took small samples of most of the offerings, including the fried chicken. But that was my only meal today, and I wrote it all down, to the best of my memory! Oh, and yes, it was most definitely worth every point!

This is the only indication there is a business at this address:

I think Mark and Jim were really looking forward to this lunch too:

After lunch, we needed to take a walk. We enjoyed just looking at the interesting architecture of this historic city.

Moss covered brick steps:

There are few "front yards" in this area, but we saw several beautifully landscaped side yards:

Connected row houses:

We were just a couple of blocks from the Mercer House, so we decided to see if we could take a tour. We hit the time just right and got to join the afternoon tour. The movie, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" was filmed on location here, so it was very interesting to me to see it. Jim Williams, who lived in the house for many years, had an incredible collection of art, and the house is beautiful. We only got to tour the first floor, though.

We left there after the tour and headed back to the car. As we drove out of the neighborhood, we passed by Mrs. Wilkes one last time, and saw that there were still people in line:



We had talked about taking a carriage tour, but since it was still cloudy and a little on the cool side, we chose instead to do more shopping. We made a stop at a Walmart, then a mall. We all got a few things and then headed back to the rv park.

This has been a most enjoyable day! Now I think I need to take another walk...