Mary Mac's Tea Room: Pot Likker and Cornbread

Lyrics

Ponce de Leon. Noon.
The sun is high and hot.
You push through that door, and the noise of the street just stops.
Smells like your grandmother’s kitchen, if your grandmother ran the state.

Mary MacKenzie, 1945.
War was over, city’s coming alive.
She opened up a place, a simple tea room.
Didn’t know she was building a monument, chasing out the gloom.
Just good food, served honest.
On a Formica table, a promise.

First thing on the table, a little white cup.
Before the fried chicken, before you fill up.
It's the pot likker, dark and deep and green.
The soul of the collards, the truest thing you’ve seen.
Grab that cornbread from the metal basket, still hot.
This ain't just lunch. This is the whole plot.

It’s 12:15 on a Tuesday, maybe 1987.
The deals are getting made, it's a slice of blue-collar heaven.
The blue plate special, printed fresh and damp
From a mimeograph machine under a single lamp.
The clatter of the forks, the steam in the air.
Everyone's here, from the governor to the guy needing a repair.

First thing on the table, that little white cup.
Before the sweet tea, before you fill up.
It's the pot likker, dark and deep and green.
The soul of the garden, the heart of the scene.
Grab that cornbread from the metal basket, still steaming.
This is the real Atlanta you were dreaming.

Mary’s name is on the sign, a legend, it's true.
But back in the kitchen, the work gets done by the few.
The hands that dredge the chicken, that stir the damn pot.
Their names ain’t in the paper, but they give it all they got.
For every mayor shaking hands in the front room,
There’s a cook in the back, with a stove for a loom.

You pay your bill, you step back out on Ponce.
The taste of that broth is a memory, not just for once.
No, not just once.
It stays with you.
It’s the taste of this town.
Yeah. Mary Mac's.