style="font-size:15px;"> “Are you challenging me to a chicken fry-off, Halia?” Vera jokes.
“That’s one contest I’d be glad to sign up to judge,” Wavonne offers.
“I guess we should focus on the contest at hand for the time being,” I say, and turn to Vera. “So how did you end up part of this whole spectacle called Elite Chef?”
“I’ve been watching the show for the past couple of years, and I made a career change recently—I left my job at a health insurance company and opened my own food truck: Vera’s Fried Chicken and Doughnuts.”
“Fried chicken and doughnuts? Two of my favorite things,” I say.
Vera smiles and talks about the trials and tribulations of getting a business off the ground as we take in the displays about the great migration of African Americans from the South to other parts of the US, the original sign from a bed and breakfast in Maine that catered to black tourists called Rock Rest, and an old COLORED SECTION sign from a segregated train car. The subject matter is not as troubling as the slavery exhibit, but in some ways it hits closer to home as it really wasn’t that long ago that events depicted within these walls unfolded. I see the dress Rosa Parks wore when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on an Alabama bus and think about how that happened only about twenty years before I was born. I take in an obsolete tape recorder used by Malcolm X and realize Momma was already in her twenties when he gave his powerful speeches. These displays are definitely emotion-evoking but, somehow, when compared to the slavery exhibit, the mood, and maybe even the lighting, are just a tad lighter. No one is clowning around with a selfie stick or talking in raised voices, but unlike the almost complete silence we experienced downstairs, talking among ourselves in a measured tone doesn’t seem inappropriate in at least certain areas of this exhibit. We are, however, quiet when we come upon a fragment from the stained glass window of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama that was blown up in 1963 and, of course, we observe a moment of silence when we stand before Emmett Till’s coffin. But as we take seats at the interactive lunch counter and begin tapping on the screens, Vera resumes chatting with Wavonne and me. “My daddy helped me a lot when I started my business,” she says. “Not only was he an excellent cook, he was pretty knowledgeable about the food service business in general. You’d be surprised how much he learned working in restaurants forty years ago still applies today.”
“What’s it they say: The more things change, the more they stay the same?” I reply. “We have so much more technology to track inventory and expenses... and relay information from the front of the house to the back of the house, but in the end, just like forty years ago, good food and good service at a fair price are what keep customers coming in the door.”
“Daddy told me almost the exact same thing when I was debating whether or not to move forward with my venture.”
“So, there was some hesitation?”
“Yes. Big time. I had a steady job with an insurance company... a regular paycheck... medical and dental... paid time off... a 401K. But boy was I bored. I wanted to do something more interesting and more active. I was tired of sitting in front of a computer at a desk all day. I love to cook and have always wanted to get into the restaurant business, so one day, I decided to just take the leap and go for it.”
“I’m guessing you’re not bored anymore,” I say. “That is one thing about the food service business—it’s never boring.”
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