The people of Durham might not realize they should thank their lucky stars that none of Jerry Turner's 1970s bandmates knew a spoon from a spatula.
When Turner's rock band hit the road, its members had two options: prepare their own food or eat on the run.
"We had eight or nine guys riding Greyhound buses, and I was the only one who knew how to cook," Turner said. "It was either that or McDonald's."
Once Turner started cooking, he couldn't stop. For the last 11 years, he and his wife Bonny have run Biscuit King, 816 Ninth Street, where the rich flavor of the food is exceeded only by the flavor of the atmosphere.
"Bonny and I have always thought you had to give more than just the simple, 'Thank you,' 'Hello,' 'Come again,'" Turner said. "We just try to make you feel like you're at your home."
The Turners and their employees-two relatives and a close family friend-seem to have succeeded, based on the remarkable loyalty of their customers. The Biscuit King has only two types of patrons: regulars and newcomers.
"We try extra hard to make sure to hook [new customers]," said Lisa Selfe, Bonny Turner's daughter and one of Biscuit King's five-person
staff. "You might go back and pick the best piece of ham, make sure they get extra-special treatment."
Although newcomers get treated like royalty, regular Biscuit King customers aren't exactly turned away. All five employees can predict what many of their customers will order, and whenever Jerry isn't cooking, he has a joke, a story or a bit of advice for whomever he sees.
"It's real laid-back," said 25-year-old Matthew Strausbaugh, an assistant manager at a local Food Lion. "At other places, they're just interested in getting you in and out. They don't care about you the same way. [At Biscuit King] they call you by your first name. They know you like that."
The down-to-earth approach carries over to Biscuit King's food: The Turners wake up at 2 a.m. each weekday morning to start baking biscuits and preparing barbecue-and their work is evident.
"I make a special effort to come here," said Gene Hammack, a Durham resident who drives several miles each day to eat at Biscuit King. "I just think it's real food. That's something we've lost with fast food, drive-in, all that stuff that's ready-to-go."
Hammack's commute to "The King" pales in comparison to that of many University alumni. Numerous alums, struggling to survive without a dose of barbecue chicken or Biscuit King's homemade cole slaw, have forked over extra cash to have the Turners ship food across the country.
When Federal Express isn't quick enough, some alums travel back to Durham. If they can't make it themselves, they may pay Biscuit King a vicarious visit.
"The [alums] tell their parents, 'If you're in North Carolina, you've got to go by Biscuit King,'" Jerry said. "We've had people on vacation from Massachusetts, and if they're driving through the South, they go out of their way to make it over here."
It's not just the food that draws customers, but the restaurant's charm. The one-room seating section is decked with banners and photos, many related to the University and its athletics. The Turners find room for everything, from alums' postcards and baby announcements to posters signed by Grant Hill and Christian Laettner.
"The people are friendly, and it takes you back to a time when Duke used to be Duke," said Trinity sophomore William Leaf. "You've got pennants with the old [University] seal, basketball championship banners [and] a Duke football poster with Steve Spurrier."
Along with the posters, nearly a dozen framed composite pictures of Duke's Sigma Chi fraternity adorn one of Biscuit King's walls. The photos are a testament to Jerry's close relationship with the fraternity, whose members have frequented Biscuit King for more than a decade.
The hordes of Sigma Chi alumni who pour into Biscuit King each year at homecoming remind Jerry of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when his band, Hot Possum, played at Duke graduation parties for the families of his regular customers.
"That's when I got to hug the grandmas and the mamas of all my kids," Jerry said. "Jerry's kids-that's what we used to say.
"We had one lady who came in and said, 'You've fed my baby for four years. I just don't know what I'm going to do when I don't hear about the Biscuit King.'"
One of "Jerry's kids" gave Biscuit King a signature item-the Garbageburger. A cheeseburger covered with nearly everything under the sun, the Garbageburger might never have been born if not for the voracious appetite of University alumnus Frank Spector.
"Frankie would say, 'I want this and that, some of this, some of that,'" Jerry said. "It got to be such a monster burger, we got to calling it the Garbageburger-Frankie's Garbageburger. After he didn't come back for four or five homecomings, we said, 'Okay, Frankie,' and we took down his name."
Their customers' many quirks have Biscuit King employees thinking of writing a book based on the outlandish breakfast and lunch orders they have taken during the restaurant's unusual hours of 6:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The eccentricities range from the obvious (one customer asked, "Do you sell biscuits?") to the obsessive (a man's demand of butter on both sides of his biscuit) to the bizarre (a request for a BLT with the bacon crisscrossed in the shape of an 'X,' with the sandwich cut perfectly into four squares).
For all their oddities, though, the customers have more than endeared themselves to the Biscuit King staff.
"If not for the smiles, jokes and good friendships from the Duke people we've gotten over the years, we'd not still be at it," Jerry said. "That's what keeps us going-the young people coming in here, telling us how much they appreciate it."
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