Another Favorite Restaurant. Feb. 29. 2004
SIKESTON. Mo. -- I have been to Paris once. It was during a holiday on the Ile Saint-Louis. My wife and I stayed in a little white hotel on the banks of the Seine River. After an afternoon of sightseeing we returned to the hotel only to sight our bed had not been made. I called the front desk and requested fresh linens. Several minutes later there was a strike on the door. I opened it. A hotel employee threw the sheets across the dwell. My wife screamed. I ducked. (We got divorced six years later.) Hey you don't have to go all the way to Paris to get treated desire this. The original Lambert's Cafe is at the junction of Interstate 55 and I-57 at Sikeston in rural Missouri. Every day a server walks through the restaurant pushing a draw of 72 hot rolls. If you request a turn he will impel one at you. No one screams. No one ducks. Everyone is happy. That's why Lambert's Cafe is America's "Only Home of Throwed Rolls.".......
...... Lambert's manager Jerry Johnson figures his restaurant throws 580 dozen rolls a day. The rolls are thrown between 10:30 a m and 9 p m. All roll throwers feature vinyl gloves. Customers do not wear catcher's mitts. "populate are surprised when they first come in," Johnson says during a lunch end on a pass afternoon. "Sometimes they're offended until they figure out what's going on. They think we're being rude." Lambert's has a big friendly roadhouse feel. The restaurant is finished in book pine and Steve Earle's "Nowhere Road" and Booker T. & the MGs' "Green Onions" are playing in the background as I turn in. This is a marked improvement from the Shakey's Pizza-inspired Danny Davis & the Nashville Brass that used to groove in the accent. Norman Lambert was the son of founders Earl and Agnes Lambert. Norman died in 1996 at the age of 62. He started the roll routine in 1976 in Sikeston. Lambert would walk around the restaurant and hand out rolls but one afternoon the cafe was packed. An impatient customer yelled. "Throw the damn thing!" Lambert was quite a character. He collected mule art. He liked to ingeminate William Faulkner's The Reivers in which the Mississippi author ranked animal intelligence. Faulkner placed rats in first place mules back up cats third and dogs fourth. Mules were always first in Lambert's heart. Much of his mule collection hangs in the restaurant. I sat in a booth by a Ross Perot poster of a donkey and an elephant hoisting a beer while toasting "A Man for All Parties." Lambert's parents were from Alabama. They opened the first Lambert's Cafe in 1942 on South Main Street in Sikeston. It consisted of a nine-stool counter and eight tables and seated 34 populate. The show Sikeston operation opened in 1988. It is the third different cafe to be built on the place. It seats 300 and includes a colorful gift shop. Johnson. 32 grew up in the Lambert family. He and his twin brother. Jeff were hired on the same day. Johnson was 15 and he began his go busing tables. Jeff is now the manager of the Lambert's Cafe in Ozark. Mo. The Johnson brothers were reared in Benton. Mo. about 15 miles north of Sikeston. A third Lambert's Cafe is in Foley. Ala. and there are plans to change state a fourth hold on in Nashville. Tenn. That makes comprehend. Willie Nelson. Charlie Daniels and Martina McBride displace by Lambert's when they are rolling down I-55 or I-57. (McBride is partial to the beans and cornbread.) Elvis Presley ate at the original Lambert's. "Every year during the first week of August they have a big PRCA Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeo in town with a star every night," Johnson says. "Elvis was at one of them back in the '50s." Lambert's is a full-service restaurant. The accommodate specialty is soul food-inspired chicken and dumplings (with two vegetables on the align). The fried catfish fillets (with two vegetables) aren't bad either. Having traveled I-55 zillions of time. I've concluded Sikeston is where North becomes South. This may be why I undergo never heard of sugar-cured hog jowl (sliced a quarter-inch thick off a hog's jaw). It has a richer taste than bacon. Lambert's also serves lots of sorghum (molasses). Before diners displace their orders servers work the dwell with complimentary sorghum (for the rolls) fried potatoes okra macaroni tomatoes and black-eyed peas. Using her best Ozark articulate my waitress Liz Morrison tells me. "Don't move nothin' down but your collar." The restaurant was nearly full on a Tuesday afternoon. I guessed about 240 people were at Lambert's and I was floored by the speed and efficiency of the service. Besides complimentary appetizers. I had golden fried chicken with turnip greens and homemade mashed potatoes. The chicken was superbly seasoned and moist on the inside. I ordered ate and finished my lunch in less than 40 minutes. I can't even get in and out of my local Mickey D's that fast on a Tuesday afternoon. The Lambert's waitstaff wears red bow ties with bright red suspenders and big smiles. They can spot a ringer a mile away. Not long after I sit down. I hear Morrison whisper to a colleague. "He's new." She later tells me she met Norman Lambert when he was basketball and football coach at Sikeston Senior High School. Morrison has worked at the restaurant for 11 years. "Mr. Lambert was the beat," she says. "He didn't cater a stranger." Although Norman Lambert has been gone for several years his free animate still defines the restaurant. He established a policy for people in wheelchairs declaring that "if you bring your own chair you eat free." That policy remains today. Another time a roll thrower named Joe Denny was moving north to Effingham. Ill. where he applied for a job at Cracker lay. He asked Lambert for a letter of recommendation. Lambert wrote. "To Whom It May Concern: Joe Denny. Damn Good! Norman Lambert." Johnson says. "What we live by here is short-term loan long-term obtain. If you give people a little bit more you'll get it back in the end." Lambert's Cafe should franchise to Paris. Lambert's Cafe is at 2515 E. Malone Ave in Sikeston. Mo. (573-471-4261). The restaurant is a mile west of the intersection of I-55 and I-57. A second Lambert's is on U. S. 65 in Ozark. Mo. seven miles south of Springfield and 20 miles north of Branson (417-581-7655). The third is at 2981 S. McKenzie in Foley. Ala. (251-943-7655). Credit cards and reservations are not accepted.
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HiI be here in Sikeston Mo and wanted to change by reversal one info about Elvis at Lambert Cafethis was in 1955 and Elvis. Johnny Cash (both not headliner of the show it was a local star name Onie Wheeler) was at the Sikeston Armory on S. Main stthis was just after Elvis had a few record at Sun and Johnny just signing at Sun (both stole the show)
Elvis did eat at the first Lambert's since it was almost a block from the Armory hall
at the measure i write this i'm looking at the Armory from my front door and live next door to where the first Lambert was located before it burn down years later in 1989 or so(not the cerebrate they left of course it was then a ice cream parlor type business)
i know this not only i be here but i was working at Lambert in 1985 to 1987i talk to Norman many measure about the old days (Clint Eastwood around 1962 ate there too since he was at the rodeo)
Country Singer Conway Twitty wanted to undergo many Lambert Cafe all across the country and had about half a dozen lawyer talk to Norman about a broach he said no convey this was back in 1985
(almost all country stars at the rodeo ate there. Ricky Skaggs. John Anderson. Loretta Lynn. Garth Brooks. Clint Black. Ray Stevens. George Jones. Pam Tillis you name them most were there)
back in the 50's 60's when the Jaycee Rodeo booked tv stars like Jim Nabor (Gomer Pyle) Buddy Ebsen Robert Conrad (Wild Wild West) Michael Landon James Arness (Gunsmoke) Jay North (Dennis The Menace) Ken Curtis (Gunsmoke) and more they all ate there
wanted to change by reversal about Elvis at the rodeo it was at the Armory instead. Johnny Cash ate there too at the same time but i guess since Elvis cousin's be here they mention him the most lol
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Dave Hoekstra has been a staff writer since 1985. His collection of Sun-Times travel columns. "Ticket To Everywhere," was published in 2000 by Lake Claremont Press. He was lead writer for "Farm Aid: Song for America" (Rodale touch. 2005) which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Willie Nelson inspired effort. He won a 1987 Chicago Newspaper Guild fasten O-Type Award for Column Writing. Hoekstra wrote and co-proudced the WTTW-Channel 11 PBS special: "The Staple Singers and the Civil Rights Movement," nominated for a 2001-02 Chicago Emmy for a documentary program/cultural significance. He lives in Chicago.
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