Liz's Where Y'at Diner

Cult restaurants fascinate me. I have often spoken about them, but I rarely go to them, except to see what the fuss is about. Usually, when I go, I understand why so many people are so passionate about them, but I continue to be an outsider looking in.

A cult restaurant is one that so many people love so much, that it is unacceptable to disagree with the unipinion. (I just made up that word. Feel free to use it when groupthink gets old.) Mandina’s is a cult restaurant. On the north shore, we have Leonardo's Trattoria, and the poster kid for the cult restaurant: Liz’s Where Y’at Diner.

I say kid because Liz, the petite, fifty-ish woman who owns and runs the place, reminds me of a teenager fresh from the beach. That persona sets the tone for the restaurant, which they appropriately refer to as a diner. It’s a gal place, with women everywhere - in the kitchen and on the floor, all dressed in tie-dyed Tees, all smiling. Not only do they love that you are there, they love you. Sincerely.

Liz’s Where Y’at Diner is a collision: of colors, (turquoise, black, and white) symbols, (peace and love)

and tattoos. (miscellaneous, depending on the wearer.) The scene is a magnet. We arrived late so we actually got a seat, but I have seen lines to get into this place.

Breakfast is served the entire time they are open. When lunch is added, the menu is very large. But my order was settled as soon as I noticed a club sandwich on the menu. I also saw a crab cake salad there, and I got that too. Tom got what he always does when he sees it - French toast.

As anyone who listens to the show knows, I am crazy about club sandwiches. I get them whenever I see them. None can compare to Porter & Luke’s, but I am always assessing challengers. I didn’t know what to expect from this one.

It was actually a very good club sandwich. The toasted wheat bread was a little soft, but that is my only complaint. The cheese is pepper jack, which I think may add a little extra dimension to it. Both ham and turkey were of good quality, and the dressings were just right, But it was the bacon that was a standout. I loved this bacon!  It was salty and smoky and not thick but perfect in every other way. They were very generous with the bacon on this sandwich, and I think that really made it special. It was cooked stiff as I like it. I couldn’t help but wonder as I enjoyed this sandwich what the BLT here must be like. 

My answer to this question arrived when a man at the neighboring table (literally six inches away from ours) got one. His wife got a Cobb salad, which I also wondered about. His sandwich was overloaded with this fantastic crispy bacon and he was quite pleased. It seems he always gets it, and I don’t blame him. His wife’s salad saved me future disappointment. It looked nothing like a traditional Cobb.

Tom was thrilled with his French Toast, so much so that he ignored the syrup that came with it. It was four slices of thick supermarket-looking French bread dusted in powdered sugar. Tom’s food proclivities line up with Elf’s, so for him to leave syrup on the table was a testament to the sweetness of the French Toast itself.

The crab cake salad I ordered was about what I should have expected. Billed on the menu as a pan-seared crab cake, I imagined a real crabcake, though I don’t know why. The price of the entire salad was $17.99, so how could this be mostly crab meat? It was in reality two heavily breaded crab stuffing patties with minimal shreds of crab. The salad itself was weird, using mostly escarole for the greens, which were a little sparse. I didn’t care for the remoulade, which is odd for me. It had a sweet taste, which is a sacrilege for remoulade sauce, in my opinion. I was especially annoyed that the extra dressing I requested was .75, a detail the waitress neglected to mention. 

There are a lot of little details no one mentions, which contribute considerably to a check. Pickles are .99, French bread in lieu of bun, .99, cheese is $1.50 extra, fries instead of chips are .99. All of this is in the fine print at the end of the menu, but for people not usually in places that nickel and dime you like this, it’s surprising to see that your $14.99 hamburger (with a suspiciously uniform patty) becomes $18.99 at checkout. In better restaurants, real fries are included, the burger is dressed, and the patty is hand-formed. Your choice of cheese also comes with it, and the whole thing never amounts to $18.99!

On the subsequent visit to try the burger, we also got Bananas Foster French Toast, which Tom raved about multiple times. It came with banana slices, some nuts, and copious amounts of syrup already on it, all buried under a layer of whipped cream. 

The “Deuce”  is the American breakfast everywhere else. Two eggs as you wish, potatoes or grits, and toast, English Muffin, or biscuit. In most other places some breakfast meat is included. I learned that it wasn’t when the bill came and my “Deuce” was $11.99 on the bill. Oops! Bacon is extra here too. This is annoying.

My plate of breakfast was the height of ordinary. The biscuit did not tempt me to eat it, and it was buttered and toasted. The breakfast potatoes were nice. They were smallish and fried. The eggs, well, eggs. The bacon did not move me as much this time as last. Still very good bacon, but last time it was stiffer. But I did really really like the grits. 

Grits interest me. There is such a wide spectrum of grit world that you can get the worst of the lot, i.e., watery and tasteless, to ultra-fancy, with Brie and cream. And of course stone ground. These were old-fashioned grits, but what I liked most about them is that whoever cooked them was not worried about salt. I did not have to add any salt to them to make them taste like something. They tasted like something with no help from me. (I did add a pat of butter from the basket. It was real butter. I checked.) These grits were exciting to me, not because there was anything special done to them, but because there wasn’t. (I’m a little sick of really fancy grits.)

The whole time we sat there Tom marveled at how much he liked being there. How friendly everyone was, and how the place had a nice “feel” to it.

We have been twice at two really lucky times when the place was between customer shifts. I was able to get a few pics without people, which is a feat. Liz’s Where Y’at Diner is wildly popular, and the lovable Liz has done so well that she has added an event space to her holdings, as well as the former K-Gee’s, which will open as a sports bar/pub after her arrival at Pelican Athletic Club settles in.

I posted a picture on Instagram last night to promote this piece in this newsletter. It included the word “expensive,”

prompting an immediate reply to take me to task for the comment. Thank you, Instagram commenter, for proving the point that began this report about Liz’s being the poster kid for a “cult” restaurant.