Shirley’s Restaurant

"Shirley!"

"Yes?"

"I had a dream. A white man is coming and going to offer you a building for your restaurant."

It wasn't the first time Shirley Strickland's husband, Nathaniel, had a dream about her career, and she wasn't going to doubt him this time.

A few weeks later, a man did offer her a building, but the rent was too high and she turned him down.

"The next week at church, my husband told me he was coming back and he would lower the price. He did. And we went and praised God together."

That was the beginning of Shirley Strickland's flagship restaurant, Shirley's Country Kitchen in Newnan. She's been in the "cooking business" since 1986 and expanded to open Shirley's Restaurant at the Exxon Truck Stop on Whitesville Road five years ago.

Strickland now spends five days a week in LaGrange cooking breakfast and lunch for her customers, while her children run the Newnan restaurant.

The Lone Oak resident starts her days early, making biscuits by hand for breakfast and starting the lunch menu as well. She'll make 5 gallons of banana pudding and 5 gallons of macaroni and cheese each week – two of the most popular items on the lunch buffet.

The buffet is laden daily with four meats and six vegetables, cornbread, and desserts. Customer favorites – in addition to banana pudding and macaroni and cheese - are fried chicken, baked turkey wings, neck bones, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, and sweet potato cobbler.

Customers rave about the fried chicken, calling it "cocaine chicken," and the banana pudding is "off the chain" and "dangerous."

Strickland cooks her own favorites as well – turnip greens, cornbread, and turkey wings.

"But I only eat the tip of the turkey wing. That's my very favorite," she said.

She's passed on her cooking secrets to her children and grandchildren, but it's almost impossible to write them down.

The banana pudding instructions include cooking the pudding until "just before it boils," then beating the egg whites "not too long," and be sure to add the sugar at the end of beating the whites or "it won't beat." You've also got to pour the pudding on the wafers when it's cool, because you don't want to crack the wafers or cook the banana slices.

Strickland's love for cooking and serving good food to people began early in her life. She grew up in Sharpsburg, the youngest of six, in a house next to her grandmother.

Her grandmother was a diabetic who used a wheelchair to get around. Strickland stayed with her when school was out and often cooked with her – on a wood-burning stove.

"I had to get (wood) chips for her for the fire. She'd get it just right, and then we'd make biscuits and cobblers," Strickland recalled.

At home, she continued to cook.

"My mom worked a lot, so I cooked for my dad every day and fixed his lunch for work. He'd tell me what he liked, and I made it for him."

His favorites to take to work at West Point Pepperell were tuna fish salad, baked sweet potatoes, and banana pudding.

Her father also took her to outings at the market in Forest Park.

"He'd say, 'C'mon Shirley, let's go to market,' and we'd get in his old green Ford truck and go get what we needed. I remember we had $24 to spend. He was a farmer, too, so we had vegetables, but had to get the other things," she said.

Cooking was something she liked to do, and it worked out well. Her older sister didn't like to cook, but did love to sew.

"She'd say, 'I'll make you a dress if you'll cook for me.' Which was fine with me, because I didn't like to sew. I still don't like to sew," Strickland laughed.

Her brother called her one day and asked her if she wanted to run a restaurant. She decided she'd give it a try and opened her first restaurant in 1986.

"I like it, and I can do it. Once you know you can do something and please people while also pleasing yourself, it's good," she said.

During the same time, she and her husband, who works a job during the week and is a pastor, raised three children and her cousin's two children.

"My husband went on one of his walks and came home and said, 'Shirley, you think you've got cancer, but you don't. But, some children are coming to you,'" she said.

She'd learned over time that her husband's walks with God were not to be dismissed. Her health did turn out to be fine, and a few days later, she saw her cousin's two children coming up the road.

"They said their mama was sick. She had a lot to deal with, so we took them in and raised them up," she said.

Business was at times good and other times challenging.

"The cooking has never been a problem, but sometimes we have other restaurants move in near us, and things change. Things just don't stay the same, and sometimes that progress hurt us," she said.

The COVID pandemic was the biggest hurdle in her almost-40 year career. "It almost did us in. We were a 7-day-a-week restaurant, but we've gone to five days a week. We haven't completely recovered, but we're doing OK," she said.

At 69 years old, some days are a little harder than others for Shirley Strickland.

"Sometimes my knees hurt so bad, but I'll go home and soak in a tub, and the next morning I get up, stand up tall and say 'God, I thank you for another day,' and I just keep moving," she said.

Shirley's Restaurant is located at the Exxon Truck Stop at Interstate 85 and Whitesville Road. It is open from 8 a.m. -5 p.m. Monday-Friday, serving breakfast and a lunch buffet every day.

Cakes by order are also available.

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