• Who: Clay
• Where: Penn Quarter
• What: Veggie omelet, wheat toast, coffee

To celebrate Clay’s last week of work in ye olde US Federal Government, we decided to sneak away for a little midweek brunch at our local downtown hotspot, Lincoln’s Waffle Shop. To call this place a hotspot may initially come off as sarcastic because at first glance, there is absolutely nothing hot about it. In fact, it’s hardly even a spot, tucked away innocuously somewhere in between the Hardrock Cafe and Washington Welcome Center. It’s the kind of place that makes you ask out loud, How the hell do they stay in business?!!? Who comes here!?!? As soon as you walk inside, though, it all becomes clear and you know EXACTLY how Lincoln’s Waffle Shop continues to thrive in the land of 8th grade class trips, overpriced salads and all-you-can-eat froyo…regulars.  

There are no tourists at Lincoln’s Waffle Shop. Frankly, I’m surprised we were even let inside, the only thing salvaging our credibility as locals, aside from our lack of fanny packs and Let’s Go Washington! books, was an overtly positioned smart trip set out on the counter next to Clay’s Marlboro Reds. The people inside the Waffle Shop are the real people of DC—they have tool belts, monogrammed polo shirts and nightsticks. They fix your cable, take out your office trash and tell that homeless guy on the street to stop asking you for money. They drive the Hop-On, Hop-Off double decker bus.

And what do they serve at Lincoln’s Waffle Shop? You guessed it: bacon. Lots and lots of bacon. So much bacon that when I tried to order something without bacon, it hard for the owner/waiter/server/cook/cashier guy to even understand what I was asking for. Omelet, JUST toast, NO bacon, please!! NO BACON!! It’s as if God was talking to me that day, though, because of all people to dine with on Wednesday it was Clay, supreme lover of all things bacon. From rural Illinois, Clay has a taste for the finer things in life—chicken wings, frozen vegetables, Budweiser bottles (Legend has it that one night he even consumed ten Budweisers in a row, earning him the coveted nickname of ‘Ted Bud Clay’) and most importantly, bacon. Clay even taught me his secret ritual for eating a meal such as what he had at the Waffle Shop (French Toast Combo Meal)—mush potatoes and eggs together, break up 1.5 pieces of bacon, sprinkle over egg/potato mix, douse in hotsauce, put the rest of the bacon over the toast and finish it off by pouring syrup over everything.

Oh Clay, if only we could see inside what your internal organs look like after thirty years of cigarettes, beers and the Clive diet. At least we can safely say that one of your last meals in DC was finally up to your standards and an all-around success. Some day, when we hear that you’re living on an holistic, all-vegan polygamous compound after your 3rd heart attack, we’ll just think of Lincoln’s Waffle Shop and smile…