Jefferson Side-Street Restaurant (Location Key)

It is from this 'back-alley' or 'side-street' restaurant that Flem Snopes launches his climb toward wealth and respectability in Jefferson. As soon as he acquires a half-ownership of it by fleecing V.K. Ratliff ("Lizards in Jamshyd's Courtyard," The Hamlet) he moves to town, living with his wife Eula and their child in a tent behind the restaurant. Both Flem and Eula work in the restaurant for a while, but it isn't long before Flem acquires the other half from Ratliff's co-owner Grover Winbush, and brings additional Snopeses in from Frenchman's Bend to run it. One of these is Eck Snopes, who in The Town "fries on the crusted grill the eggs and meat" until he is fired for admitting that he "dont know jest what this is" in the hamburger he's cooking, "but it aint no beef" (34). That grisly detail gives us a clear enough idea of what kind of restaurant it is. According to several texts, most of the people eating at its long counter are "country folk" (Flags in the Dust, 166), but it is possible that this is also the restaurant "on a side street" that Joe Christmas eats at in Light in August (113).