Fast Food

A gentleman on the ferry recommends El’s in Morehead City, NC for dinner, and that’s where we pull in around 8pm after a drive through the marshes from Cedar Island, through Smyrna and Beaufort, night slowly obscuring the landscape until our world narrows to the beam of our headlights, the story on the CD player, Mia’s hiccups. We are road weary, and our eyes sting, the Bright lights assaulting us like hallucinations.

El's Drive in

Pulling into the darkened lot, we are careful to douse our lights. A line of cars fans out, each facing in towards the kitchen, which glows supernaturally. A door opens. A woman steps out clutching menus, and several attending dogs weave ornate choreographies behind her as she approaches. I raise my eyes from their stupor, roll down my window, accept the menus. “Do you know what you want to eat”? The dogs kicking up dust behind her disperse as we give her our order.

El's Drive in

El’s is the self-professed "Home of the Super Burger": coleslaw, mustard, ketchup…perhaps some secret ingredients…that and the onion rings were surprisingly good. The waitresses take orders at the car and deliver it, a triumph of infrastructure minimization (its all kitchen and a very large exterior garbage can), maintenance minimization (no messy customers spilling coffee and catsup (which is it: ketchup or catsup?)), and good old American suburban isolation. Like home delivery, there is practically no opportunity for communalism. Everyone sits in their cars, in the dark, facing forward.

El's Drive in

Morehead City, United States