THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610180267
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: ON THE TOWN IN PORTSMOUTH
TYPE: RESTAURANT REVIEW
SOURCE: Sam Martinette
LENGTH: 80 lines
You almost need a program to sort out the historical links of the elements that come to play at Rodman's Bones and Buddy's.
Let's see. The two locations, downtown and in Churchland, are owned by Ricky and Charlie Mathews. Ricky is the son of Stewart Mathews, who opened The Circle Restaurant in 1947 with his father, sold it, and retired in 1986. Then Stewart came out of retirement and made a deal to buy barbecue from Juddy Rodman, whose grandfather, Howard, founded the family's namesake restaurant in 1922.
Rodman's was a midcentury High Street landmark, operated by Juddy's father, Roy, at the location that's now a Waffletown. Not only is there a street named after the family, but the name Rodman also pretty much means barbecue to locals. Now Juddy Rodman cooks barbecue and caters out of a renovated barn on Shoulder's Hill Road in Suffolk, providing product daily to Rodman's locations operated by the Mathews.
Stay with me now. Buddy Whitaker and Bones Carroll, both deceased, ran a sandwich shop at Alexanders Corner called Bones and Buddy's. When Stewart Mathews got bored in 1988 and decided to open a small shop, he looked around to see what was no longer offered in Portsmouth. He resurrected the square dog with Smithfield Ham sandwich that Bones and Buddy had made famous, added Rodman's barbecue and fried chicken to the menu and voila!, a new legend was born.
At that time, Ricky Mathews and his wife, Charlie, were running an inn in the ski country of the Pocono Mountains but missed friends and family. So they sold the inn and came home in the fall of 1990, thus adding a third generation Mathews to this confluence of Portsmouth culinary history. Stewart retired again.
Whew! I hope I got that right, because many of the people I saw having lunch recently at the downtown Rodman's will know their local history.
``We get a lot of senior citizens, hospital workers and visitors, and people who work in the neighborhood,'' Ricky Mathews said about the clientele of his downtown restaurant, which serves as the commissary for the Churchland operation. ``We seat 50-some people here and have a big turnover. Some people are in every day. It's barbecue, fried chicken, chicken and dumplings ... home cooking.''
And lots of it. By noon, people are lined up at the door, placing their pickup orders at the counter, under their names - no numbers here - for Brunswick stew ($1.99), chicken and rice ($1.69) or navy bean soup ($1.39) with hush puppies; chopped barbecue with coleslaw ($2.25), rib ($6.95) or catfish ($5.49) dinners; fried chicken by the piece (a breast with fries, hush puppies and honey - $3.29) or dinner (a half-chicken with the same sides - $4.69); ham and cabbage ($4.25) on Monday and Wednesday or country-style steak ($5.49) Friday and Saturday.
You can get eight assorted pieces of chicken for $5.99, 16 for $11.99 or 24 or $16.99. A pound of chopped barbecue is $5.75, and a pound sliced is $8.59. Center-cut Smithfield ham is $12.50 by the pound, and all-white-meat chicken salad is $5.99 a pound.
A barbecued rib dinner is a pound of ribs with hush puppies, fries, beans and coleslaw.
``We use the larger pork ribs,' Mathews explains, ``so when somebody sits down they don't have so many bones, and they don't go away hungry.''
But barbecue is the biggest seller at Rodman's Bones and Buddy's.
Mathews said. ``. . . Mr. Rodman's out here cooking barbecue every morning by 3 or 4, and he's about the only person I know of who cooks in any quantity over oak. Then he processes and chops it, and it's in here by 8.
``It's a Carolina, vinegar-based barbecue, with peppers and spices,'' he said. ``What you're used to around here. It's home cooking, not fast food. It's a fast-service restaurant.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by SAM MARTINETTE
Ricky and Charlie Mathews own Rodman's Bones and Buddy's in downtown
and Churchland.
Graphic
AT A GLANCE
Rodman's Bones and Buddy's: 3562 Western Branch Blvd. (downtown),
397-3700; 5917 Churchland Blvd., 483-2000.
Food: Barbecue, ribs, fried chicken, soups, sandwiches; no ABC.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday downtown, 10
a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday in Churchland. by CNB