For drivers who pass through downtown Summit, the barrel-shaped grill in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot is a familiar landmark. But it sits idle for most of the year, much to the dismay of the legions of locals who have enjoyed the seared, smoky slices of beefy goodness it has produced over the years.
On five pre-holiday Fridays between Easter and Thanksgiving, Piggly Wiggly, known affectionately by its regulars as “The Pig,” lights a charcoal fire and offers a ribeye meal with all the trimmings. A good steak dinner is hard to turn down but a steak dinner for $6.99 is even better.
Grill man Richard Sanders says he cooks upwards of 1,300 eight-ounce ribeyes per Friday, all of them cut by hand right in the store.
“We try to keep going till six o’clock,” he said Friday through a haze of smoke, “so if we need more we’ll cut more.”
The meal includes baked beans, potato salad and a roll.
When the “Steak Dinner Friday” sign appears next to Laurel Street early in the week the collective salivation begins, and by the time the first steak is pulled from the grill Friday morning, hungry customers are ready for them. Last week the cooking began on the early side — around 9:30 — because customers were already lined up.
The unmistakable aroma of beef over a fire drifts beyond the makeshift parking-lot diner. If the wind is out of the west, passengers on Amtrak’s City of New Orleans might very well catch an enticing whiff as the train passes by twice a day at the end of Baldwin Street.
Store co-owner Wayne Vinson mans the cash register, taking orders and calling them out to the team on the assembly line. He conducts multiple conversations at once, with his customers and the young folks putting it all together in the takeout boxes.
“How many would you like, sir?” he asks, then turns to his crew. “I need one, please!”
As he’s collecting money from the first he’s calling out the next order. “Two more, one with double beans!”
Vinson is part merchant, part orchestra leader. Occasionally he’ll swap places with one of his workers, and when he does he leans over the line, focused on his product intently like a concert pianist maneuvering through a difficult passage of Rachmaninoff.
The dinners are served in styrofoam boxes and people carry them away by the stack.
The younger workers, who usually perform more typical grocery store tasks such as stocking, bagging and cashiering, don’t seem to mind spending an occasional Friday outdoors, even when temperatures slide into the muggy 90s.
Colton Carr, whose job it was Friday to place a steak in each to-go container, said, “I like it out here. I like it better than inside.”
His colleague Caitlyn Whatley, who rotated between the baked beans station and the cash register, agreed. “Oh, I definitely like it better than being inside all day.”
Two large box fans sit behind the serving line but they move the smoky air around more than they cool it.
When Richard Sanders takes a break from the grill, Donovan Peters relieves him. The handoff is seamless.
“You’ll need to throw another 20 on,” Sanders said as he wiped his brow and handed Peters the tongs.
“Got it,” Peters replied as he edged into place.
A plastic wall clock hangs from a nail in a nearby telephone pole. Peters explains that it’s to help him and Sanders remember to add charcoal to the grill every hour. They’ll go through 250 pounds.
No one remembers exactly when cookout day began, but everyone agrees it was long ago. “Oh, it’s been a long time,” Vinson said between customers. “A long time.”
Store co-owner Ron Jones said the cookouts are an effective advertising tool. “We’ve always been known for the ribeye steaks,” he said Friday. “That’s our claim to fame.”
