THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602150051
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL RUEHLMANN, SPECIAL TO FLAVOR
LENGTH: Long : 177 lines
ONE COLD, pearl-gray morning Wayne Brent pulls his big Wal-Mart rig off Bypass 58 at the Wilroy Road exit west of downtown Suffolk and heads for haven from the rain. That's the low-slung, black-shuttered brick building set back from a parking lot the size of a soccer field. The lot, even at this early hour, is loaded with more rigs, pickup trucks, vans, station wagons, old cars and new ones.
The building is Bunny's Family Restaurant, so designated by large square neon letters looming bright green through the smear. When Brent walks in, the welcoming warmth of the room seems to wrap itself around him like a security blanket. He's home.
``How're y'all?'' comes the inevitable cry.
Brent, 44, hails from Dinwiddie Court House, but when his delivery runs take him anywhere near Bunny's at mealtime, he comes here to chow down. Nobody's a stranger at Bunny's. And everyone recommends the same particular favorite from the menu:
``Anything on it.''
Brent sits in a booth and pushes aside that menu as waitress Louise Johns, 61, pours him a piping cup of coffee.
``I'm going to splurge,'' the driver informs her. ``Give me the country ham and fried eggs, over light. Today I'll take two blood-pressure pills.''
That, laid out with potatoes or grits, toast or biscuits, jelly and butter, will set him back all of $3.80, and as sure as this is Bunny's 25th anniversary at this location, Brent won't be needing one more thing till lunch.
The two spacious paneled rooms that sprawl before him are alive with plants that hang and customers that hang out. There are the good old boys in fedoras and print ties and the good young ones in ball caps and ponytails. There are relaxed senior women getting out of the house and smart junior women on their way to work.
In the evenings and on weekends, there are kids.
Open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, Bunny's provides a core sample of American society. The Suffolk Cosmopolitan Club meets here monthly. C.F. Huffman Sr., 62, retired police sergeant, and Larry D. Johnson Sr., 61, retired lumber company administrator, command a table just about daily.
Wayne Brent eats right regular in these rooms, and so does former Virginia Gov. Mills E. Godwin. WHAT'S COOKIN'
``It doesn't matter whether you wear jeans or a suit,'' says Suffolk grocery clerk Betty Edwards, 34. ``You always feel like you belong at Bunny's.''
French toast, buttered toast, cheese toast. Hot cakes, syrup and butter. Pork sausage, grilled ham, corned beef hash.
``This place,'' says realtor Fred Slade, 68, ``is the Mecca of Suffolk business people - everybody that's anybody comes to Bunny's.''
Turkey plate, barbecue plate, shrimp plate. Fried crab cakes. Fresh fish, fruit plate, sauteed chicken livers.
``My father had 30,000 head of hogs across the street,'' reports John Holland Jr., 40, owner of a landfill business. ``Bunny never complained when he came in here with hog manure all over him.
More business takes place in Bunny's restaurant between 6 and 9 a.m. than in the rest of the city all day.''
Smithfield ham, roast beef, fried chicken. Pork chops. Fried oysters, fillet of flounder, Delmonico steak.
``What strikes me most of all,'' says G.P. Jackson, 69, president of the Bank of Suffolk, ``and I've been coming here since the place was built, is that Bunny spends so much time in the kitchen getting quality food together, and then she follows up by going table to table to make sure you're happy with it.''
Bunny is the Queen of the Saturday Dinner Special. Don't ever forget that this here's good old-fashioned home cookin' to tuck into, none of that pinky-lifting, teeny-portion, nouveau-cuisine gourmet dining. The prices are cheap, the bathrooms are clean, and Bunny's the reason.
Bunny says eat your nice vegetables.
Because while you can have fries with that, you can also have mashed potatoes, coleslaw, pickled beets, fried apples, butter beans, string beans, black-eyed peas, candied yams, Hanover salad, applesauce or stewed tomatoes.
Just save a little space for the pie a la mode, pilgrim.
``Wear a smile,'' says Elizabeth ``Bunny'' Hingerty, 80. ``Look ahead, and keep on going. That's my secret, Honey.''
Twice-widowed Hingerty, mother of two, grandmother of six, great-grandmother of four, comes in every day, seven days a week, at 9. Helps out in the kitchen, helps out in the dining area, from cooking to clearing tables. Closes the place every day, seven days a week, 12 hours later.
``Most of the time, I'm here,'' she says, ``unless I have to go to the post office. Or the bank. On Thursdays, I have to have my hair fixed.''
Sundays she attends Magnolia Methodist Church down the street.
Bunny has a time clock, 23 employees and a payroll of more than $2,000 weekly.
``People tend to stay,'' she says. ``I don't have a turnover. I try to be good to 'em and help out in back.''
Bunny does all the ordering herself.
``You have a place to put things,'' she explains. ``Then, if you need something to fill the place, you order it. When the salesmen come Mondays and Thursdays, they don't have to ask me if I need anything - the orders are on the table.''
Bunny does not pay herself a salary.
``All I draw is Social Security,'' she says. ``Everything above what it costs to run the place goes back into the business. It doesn't take a lot to keep me, anyway.
``I'm not an extravagant spender.'' PLEASE PASS THE PEAS
She drives a white Cadillac. It's the same one she purchased in 1977. The odometer reads 80,000 miles.
``I don't owe a dime on it,'' she reports.
Bunny does not look like an octogenarian. She is a short, pleasant, matronly person with the lively eyes of a younger woman. Bespectacled and sensibly-shoed, she dresses well, and a decorative but tasteful brooch - a silver butterfly, for example - might adorn her sweater.
Last Oct. 3, Bunny's children took her out to eat at the Olive Garden in Portsmouth for her 80th birthday, They came back to the restaurant afterward to attend to a client in the party room. The client turned out to be Bunny.
``All my people and friends were there,'' Bunny says with a smile, ``and we had a time! You know, in this day and age, a lot of people don't live to be this old. If I can do something about a problem, I'll do it; if I can't, I'll forget it.
``You can't accomplish anything by worrying - am I right?''
Louise Johns has been a Bunny's waitress for 12 years: ``A lot of hard work keeps you young,'' she says. Bunny's great. She's got a granddaughter works here. I got a daughter works here, too.''
Rose Turner, 53, has been a Bunny's waitress for 12 months: ``Bunny's just like a mother to all of us,'' she says.
Bunny learned the business through 10 years of waitressing at the former Traveler's and Simpson's restaurants in Suffolk. Her first husband was machinist Eddie Lee Oliver; they had been married 25 years when he died in 1959.
In 1960, she wed carpenter Mills Hingerty; they had been married 25 years when he died in 1985. Hingerty encouraged her to open a drive-in in 1963 on the site of an old TV repair shop.
``Some folks said I'd never make it,'' Bunny remembers, ``but, Honey, I'm still here.''
The right-of-way for Bypass 58 came straight through Bunny's Drive-In in 1969. But she and her second husband built the present Bunny's, just down the road, in 1970, opening its doors in 1971.
The place prospered. Batter-fried corn herring, chicken pot pie. Hard work.
``I find people like basic country home cooking,'' Bunny explains. ``You can't just open things out of a can, dump 'em and heat 'em. It's a full-time job, but it's a pleasure to me.
``I don't have any plans to retire.''
Country home cooking doesn't always square with dietetic trends, she concedes.
``Everybody's to their own notion about what they want to eat,'' Bunny says. ``If you're not supposed to eat salty or fatty foods, don't. We also have oatmeal and cereals and a lot of home-cooked vegetables.''
Okra!
``I've always liked people,'' Bunny says. ``So I'm in a good place, Honey. Am I right?''
Todd Swain, 34, Portsmouth carpenter, says, ``It's good food and good prices.''
Earl Byrun, 81, retired Suffolk salesman, adds: ``It's all good. Don't make no difference what you get. This here is just right down to earth.''
Richard Hammon, 28, Portsmouth truck driver, concludes, ``If you walk away from this place hungry, you're a bigger man than me.''
Hammon's plenty big.
Yes, Ma'am.
You are right. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot
ABOVE, RIGHT: Bunny Hingerty, standing, has a good lauch with her
customers.
BELOW: Even at 80, Bunny still waits tables daily at her
restaurant.
ABOVE: The decor echoes the mom and pop feel that helps make Bunny's
so much like home.
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