It all started when Garth Brooks went on The Tonight Show and mentioned to Jay Leno that his favorite place to eat in Nashville was the Pancake Pantry. This, after Leno had good-naturedly ribbed Brooks about his weight.

When Brooks mentioned “this great waitress named Joyce who always remembers what everybody likes for breakfast,” Leno became animated.

“Really? Let’s call her up!” he said.

Next thing you know, Jay Leno is talking to Joyce Stubblefield right there on national television. When Leno mentioned he was sitting there with Brooks, Joyce replied in her thick Tennessee accent, “Why, how’s my baby doing?” Then she proceeded to list Brooks’s favorite breakfast items, a list that was well represented by the three main Southern food groups: white flour, sugar, and butter.

I can’t remember what was said after that. All I know is the next day, a tour bus crammed with country music fans pulled up in front of the Pancake Pantry, and in an instant, the line of people waiting to get in stretched all the way around the block.

Around that time, Bob Baldwin retired and his son David took over the reins. Then the old Pantry was torn down to make way for a bigger one on the old parking lot. Oh, Joyce was still there, but her smile didn’t seem as bright. David had promised there would be plenty of windows in the new place, but the windows were placed so high, you couldn’t look out on the street and relax as you could in the old place. Plus, it was just too damn crowded with tourists.

For a while, we regulars were like a swarm of hornets whose nest had been torn away. Eventually, we all scattered and went our separate ways. The old Pancake Pantry was a magic secret place. But after the cat got let out of the bag on national television, things were never the same.