By Marshall Chapman | Aug/Sept 09 | Features

Keeping Secrets

Why you should never tell a soul about your favorite hangout 

Courtesy of Marshall Chapman

Sometimes it’s best to let a secret remain just that—a secret. Say you have a favorite restaurant where everybody knows you, where it’s always cool and comfortable, where you can always find a seat at your favorite table by the window. If you go around blabbing about it, next thing you know, the restaurant is no longer yours. Your favorite table no longer available, your favorite waiter unable to acknowledge you because he’s too busy dealing with the invading riffraff.

One of my favorite Nashville eateries used to be the old Pancake Pantry. For years, it sat next to a parking lot in one of those old buildings along 21st Avenue South in Hillsboro Village. It was run by its cantankerous owner, a man named Bob Baldwin who was so put off by the cultural revolution, he refused to serve hippies—a fact well documented in my 1971 Vanderbilt yearbook. On page 23, a black-and-white photograph shows a bearded, long-haired graduate student picketing the Pancake Pantry. The placard in his left hand reads JESUS HAD LONG HAIR/COULD HE EAT HERE?

Baldwin mellowed over time. By the mid-seventies, he begrudgingly began serving hippies. During that time, I was having breakfast with Jimmy Buffett and his manager, Don Light, when I noticed Baldwin standing behind us, cursing and grinding his teeth at the sight of Jimmy’s long blond hair, while Jimmy obliviously chowed down.

The old Pancake Pantry had the best waitresses in Nashville. Joyce Stubblefield was everybody’s favorite because she always remembered how you liked your eggs and would always greet you with a smile. “How’s my baby this morning?” she’d ask while filling your cup with fresh hot coffee.

I don’t care what kind of day you’re having, when someone calls you “baby” while pouring you a fresh cup of coffee, things can only get better. Joyce had big hair to go with her big heart, and a smile that could light up a room.

There was a gang of us that would have breakfast at the old Pantry just about every morning. Don Light, Harold Shedd (who produced Alabama), the late Ham Wallace, and I were among the regulars. We were like a secret society.

Then everything changed.