Athena’s Cafe, Mooresville, North Carolina

One Day 1 of my trip to North Carolina I’d eaten at four different pork barbecue places, and I was ready for something different. I decided to start the day at Athena’s Cafe. The number of cafes named “Athena’s” in the United States is as countless as the stars. As far as I know, each is locally owned. This particular Athena’s has a spot in a shopping center on the west side of Mooresville, at 591-N River Highway, across I-77 from downtown Mooresville.

Mooresville was settled in the 18th century and followed the usual Piedmont course from cotton to cotton mills, and then bust. It has long been a hotbed of NASCAR activity, what with ties to both 3 and 8/88, the Busch brothers, Jeff Gordon, and many others. The town styles itself Race City, USA. Today the Charlotte suburbs are creeping northward into Mooresville, but so far they’re only a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand.

Enough of that. I made the change from pork barbecue and started the day instead with a cup of coffee, a country ham biscuit, and a livermush, egg, and cheese biscuit.

Let’s start with the country ham.  

That’s a lot of country ham, and you can see that they didn’t limit my serving to the bounds of the biscuit. I folded all the ham within the biscuit, and took a bite. That’s good country ham, and there are not a lot of things better than good country ham.

The same disregard of boundaries marked the livermush, egg, and cheese sandwich.

“Livermush” is a singularly unappealing name for a food, and I once did a blog post on that very point. Once you get up the nerve to try it, though, it’s very appealing. It’s seasoned like a quality country sausage, with sage and pepper, and it has great depth of flavor. Livermush develops a truly great crust even while the interior remains creamy. It goes well with egg and melted cheese, or just by itself.

Both biscuits were very light, so that the process of eating compressed them a good deal. I say that as an observation rather than a criticism. The biscuits retained their integrity through the sandwich, and didn’t fall apart as so often happens.

I enjoyed this breakfast immensely, and don’t hesitate to recommend Athena’s. It’s a good, friendly spot, and it’s high time you give livermush a try.

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