Flo’s Kitchen, Wilson, North Carolina

I love my Marty’s-supporting cousins and I love Parker’s, but the main reason I went to Wilson was so I could go to Flo’s Kitchen for breakfast. I’ve heard about it for years. The last time I tried they’d decided to go on vacation without consulting me, and I wound up driving over to the Oak Level Cafe, which turned out to be a great find. But as Mr. Warren Pridgen, who told me about the Oak Level as we pumped gas at the Harris Teeter, volunteered, while the Oak Level’s biscuits are good, their tenderloin biscuits aren’t as good as Flo’s.

The biscuits at Flo’s are legendary. Flo’s has been around since 1990, but her biscuits were famous before she opened her own place. Flo’s opens at 4:00 am, and an hour before the bakers start shaping the biscuits by hand and wrapping the dough around some hoop cheese, which is one of the secrets of Flo’s. The other is lard.

Flo’s is a tiny little place at a five points intersection, and there’s no indoor seating. People do walk up, but it’s mainly drive through. An employee approaches your car, takes your order or several cars’ orders, and walks back over to the building. Flo’s is like Chick-fil-A without computers.

The line moves surprisingly fast. And they have — or someone has — a parking lot across the street where you can park and sit in your car and eat your biscuit, unless you had to buy new car seat covers because of previous indiscretions. Then you park and eat on the hood.

I ordered a pork tenderloin biscuit, a country ham biscuit, and a cup of coffee. The bill was $8.00. I love Wilson, North Carolina. Flo’s makes cat head biscuits, a type common in North Carolina, named thus because each biscuit is the size of a cat’s head. One biscuit is a good solid breakfast.

Frankly, I had been skeptical about all the fuss about the tenderloin biscuits. Tenderloin meat, whether pork or beef, is long on tenderness, but the relative absence of fat means that they’re comparatively short on flavor. Well, the tenderloin biscuit was a revelation. The biscuit overflowed with hand-cut pieces of tenderloin, beautifully fried and nestled into a biscuit made with lard. The lard gives the biscuits both softness and the structural integrity to avoid crumbling when they’re split and generously stuffed. And this was very generously stuffed.

The other biscuit was stuffed with country ham that had been pan-fried in what tasted like red-eye gravy, giving notes of sweetness The result was tasty, but it was a departure from the usual salt-forward country ham that is one of the joys of my life.

Maybe next time I’ll try the sausage or the fatback. I’ll definitely have another tenderloin biscuit, You really, really need to hustle down to Wilson and have a biscuit. And a plate from Parker’s and/or Marty’s. And a steak at the Beefmastor. And ….

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