Across the Family Table, a Dining Debate

A circular table squats in the corner of the dining area of Atwater’s Cafeteria. It is marked by years of cups and dishes heaped with fried chicken and corn bread. But lately, fewer plates have graced its surface than in the old days when people would line up outside for Sunday breakfast.

On weekends Atwater’s used to serve 300 to 500 people. Yet on a sultry Saturday this June, the neighborhood institution at 895 22nd Ave. S. served only 100 customers. The die-hard group of regulars sat at the round table, many with more than 40 years of grits and bacon under their belts. Most people got their orders to go though, hurrying out of the hot restaurant with their soul-food fix.

When Elzo Atwater Jr. opened the cafeteria in 1977 with his father, he also started a catering business, American Sunday Plate. He has since stopped managing the restaurant. But his catering, which includes work at Tropicana Field and the University of South Florida, is out-earning Atwater’s by more than a third. He sometimes has 20 employees in addition to himself and his wife. The restaurant has six, plus three relatives.

“It went backwards,” he said. “People eat less, they got drive-thrus now and people don’t want to come into the inner city.”

With all his success, Atwater wants to expand. He wants a fancy restaurant.

And he doesn’t want to cook soul food.

“I don’t want to be considered a minority business,” he said. “I want to be considered an American business. I don’t want to be subject to so much racism and stigma.”

Atwater is also wary of becoming limited to mditown, a lower-income area of St. Petersburg, so his eyes are set on other locations.

“I want to take Atwater’s to the mall,” he said.

He built his reputation in soul food, but collard greens and ham hocks are rarely on his menus anymore. When catering, he mainly serves turkey, salads and vegetable lasagna. Atwater is a vegetarian.

He estimates that 3 percent of Atwater’s Cafeteria customers are white, while the rest are African-American. His catering business serves a much more diverse crowd, including whites, Asians and Hispanics.

Again, visions of his new eateries don’t include much soul food.

“Even black kids will be looking at you funny if you serve oxtails in the mall,” he said.

In the Atwater’s dining room, the biscuits are still buttery and rib meat still falls off the bone. Customers such as Yvonne Brandon love the food and reasonable prices. She comes in four times a week. But Brandon, like most of the customers, is from the surrounding neighborhood. Even though Gov. Jeb Bush once ate chitlins at Atwater’s, not many outsiders venture in any more.

The Atwaters offer a number of explanations for why they have lost business. Timothy Atwater, one of Elzo’s brothers, left town in the ’80s and came back to see his old neighborhood transformed.

“When I left the biggest thing was break dancing... There was no drugs, or just marijuana -- there was no crack,” he said.

He believes that fear of crimes caused by drugs keeps people away.

However, when Michael Atwater, another brother, thinks about the restaurant’s decline he looks across the street at Badcock’s, the business that burned in the 1996 riots that were in response to the shooting of a black motorist by a white police officer.

“That’s what really hurt business in this area, 1996. European Americans got afraid.”

In traffic, he sees tourists driving by with windows rolled up and doors locked, touring what they see as the “bad” part of town. Restaurant business in the neighborhood, he says, was hurt much more by the riots than by fast food.

Michael’s outdoor barbecue in front of the restaurant on Fridays and Saturdays is going strong, though. He used to run the restaurant but now focuses on his music store. His ideas about the restaurant differ from Elzo’s. Michael would like to remodel and fix the air conditioner, but he does not want to see the restaurant too fixed up.

“This is Atwater’s, a black-owned, soul-food, hot-box place,” he said. “It is not a Red Lobster... This is the ambience, this is what it is. You don’t want to make it too spiffy.”

As it stands now, the furniture and feeling of Atwater’s are still the same. Lacey Shirley, a longtime customer, has seen the changes from his chair at the round table of regulars. The cafeteria used to be busier, he agrees.

But the table is still there, and the regulars are still talking.

“You never know who sits at this table,” Shirley said. “We know everybody’s business. If you want to keep your business secret, don’t bring it here ’cause we’ll discuss it.”

On Saturday, Shirley talked about a local girl’s arrest. He talked about heart attacks and community happenings. He talked about God. And, for the moment, he is not ready to stop.