Monday, October 4. Return To Bud's On City Park, And Dr Pepper. It was so chilly last night that I had to pull the comforter over me. It was forty-six degrees at eight a.m. Fall has arrived with emphasis. And a brilliant high-pressure blue sky. It's just like it was in Chicago last week, but cooler.
Back to the grind. Everything's in arrears, of course. I can't take even a few days off without that happening. Hundreds of e-mails to read, dozens to respond to. Commercials waiting for me to write and record at the radio station, keeping me there until eight-thirty.
Word keeps filtering back to me that Scot Craig at Katie's is itching for me to come by. He notes that he's been open well past the six months I generally stay away from new openings. And this isn't really a new opening, but the return--with as few changes as possible, they say--of an always-good neighborhood cafe that got shut down by Katrina.
The appetite for that kind of grub was with me today. But the restaurant was dark. Closed Monday nights! Drat. It was getting late. I rolled up Bienville Street trying to think of somewhere else to go that would a) suit my hunger and 2) give me useful information. Santa Fe? Sounds good, but it's too late for that kind of food. Ralph's on the Park? It would take too long, and I'm still tired from the Chicago trip.
Ah! Something simple. Bud's Broiler. I've not been to the ancient stand on City Park Avenue since it reopened last year. That the one I went to most over the years. In my first semester at LSUNO (now UNO), I ate there almost every day on my way from classes to the Time Saver. I used to live three blocks from the place and walked there often for a quick lunch. Many people--myself included--always thought it was the best of the Bud's.
At the counter I ordered my standard: Number One, with cheese. I braced myself for the discussion that always came next, in which the order-takers would tell me that a Number One with cheese is really a Number Three, but then by his next few questions prove that it wasn't really true. For thirty years, this was unavoidable. Today, the guy just looked over the panel of buttons on his cash register, punched a few of them, and asked me for the total. When it came out, the hamburger was indeed a Number One with cheese--exactly right.
I was so astonished that I replayed the interchange in my mind. And I noted something different from all past orders at Bud's Broiler. No order pad! Instead of the ripped-off tab at the bottom of the hand-written ticket--the one that gave the order number to listen for, and the salutation "Thanks Bud"--I was given a printed receipt from the register.
A break with the past! And another one: the hamburger wasn't very good. Actually tough. The fries, on the other hand, were hot and crisp.
On the beat-up old wooden table (this Bud's, being right on the crest of the Metairie Ridge, had no Katrina flooding) was a Dr Pepper. Dr Pepper was my default beverage through most of my years of dining at Bud's. In fact, it was my soft drink of choice going all the way back to when I was twelve and working at the Time Saver on Jefferson Highway in River Ridge. Darryl Murray, the manager of the store, drank Dr Pepper. So I began drinking them, too. The seven-ounce bottle replaced Big Giant Cola--more that twice as big, as the name implies, with a bat-swinging baseball player depicted on the back of. I drank those for the previous two years. Before that, it was (going backwards) Barq's, Nehi creme soda (Gulf creme soda if Nehi wasn't available), and 7Up--my first bubbly drink preference. The last three take me all the way back to 1956. I was five, and was allowed to walk from our house on the Marais end of the 1300 block of Ursulines Street to the Treme end. There was a sweet shop, selling candy, scooped ice cream, potato chips, and soft drinks. The latter were dispensed from an open-top Coca-Cola icebox. Literally: it was filled with blocks of ice and very cold water. I remember fishing around for the 7Up bottles with the new design, not the old one with the lady in the bathing suit.
This reverie began when it occurred to me that this was the first Dr Pepper I'd had in many years. In fact, it was my first bubbly soft drink in I couldn't remember how long. From twelve through my thirties, I drank five or six Dr Peppers a day. (No wonder my teeth are terrible.) The pace slowed gradually, and at some point I stopped completely. But when was that?
And who should happen to be at Bud's Broiler this evening but Scot Craig, with his son. I told him of my attempt to dine at Katie's tonight. He said I really had to come in for dinner.
Bud’s Broiler. City Park Area: 500 City Park Ave. 504-486-2559.
