Hi y’all… my eyes are burning, I’m exhausted, and I’ve got a long-long day tomorrow with this theater project I’m working on. 

But before I collapse, I must mention that I went to lunch today at Mary Mac’s Tea Room, the ne plus ultra of old-fashioned, high-style Southern dining.

This restaurant embodies my favorite things about my native land. The servers are genuinely exuberant, slapping you on the back and calling you “hun.” The high-ceilinged dining areas are elegantly nostalgic, with wall murals of a long-lost Atlanta. The tables and chairs are made of heavy wood (what my grandmother might call “good wood”) and the windows have curtains. Yet at the same time, you write your order yourself on a little pad they give you, and if you’re a man, an elderly female employee will probably propose marriage. 

So you see, it’s the perfect Southern blend of refinement and sass. 

And the food? Well, don’t get me started on the food. Because if I talk about the food, then I have to stop eating it.

And do you know how I learned about this place? When I was a junior in college, I saw the episode of Designing Women where Julia Sugarbaker gets asked to pose for a Women of Atlanta calendar. She balks when they try to get her into sex-kitten poses, and she declares that the “real women of Atlanta” are the church-going ladies who eat at Mary Mac’s. And then in the closing credits, they run photos of these ladies, full of lace-glove dignity as they sit around their plates of okra and catfish.

When I saw that, I figured I’d like this restaurant, and I was right. If you’re in Atlanta, please go. It may be the closest you’ll ever come to being a Sugarbaker.