BY KATELAN CUNNINGHAM
Where: 2812 Bee Road
Owner: Miss Geneva Wade
Favorites: crab cakes, baby fry bird, New Orleans jambalaya
Price: $7-15
Contact: (912) 356-9976
Grade: A
Geneva Geneva’s Home Plate is a fusion of Southern charm and dining class. A hodgepodge of chairs, tables and 1960s lights make for an intimate setting for a menu of Southern comfort foods. Miss Geneva Wade sat in her office, not behind the desk but in a chair, wearing her apron and searching for a receipt.
“I can’t find it Theo,” she said to the man behind the desk.
Wade’s place of operation is not the office—it’s the kitchen.
“Where was I, baby?” she asked me.
“The famous mistake cake,” I said.
“Was that the cake I tried the other day?” the man at the desk chimed in.
“No. That was my graham cracker cake, which is so good,” she said.
When I went back to eat there a few days later, I ordered the graham cracker cake—off menu. And just like the rest of my meal, the cake was “so good.”
The Story
This is Wade’s third restaurant since 1983. She used to work in housekeeping at Candler Hospital until she opened her first restaurant in the Historic District. She grew up in Savannah in a time when blacks were still unwelcome in many restaurants.
“I couldn’t understand why we couldn’t eat there, but we could spend our money there.” So Wade opened her own place “where anyone could come.”
All of Wade’s recipes are her own that she has accumulated over the years. Everything on the plate is made from scratch.
Most of her clientele are tourists who find Geneva’s on the restaurant’s Web site or tripadvisor.com, where it consistently holds its place among the top five restaurants in Savannah among the 371 rated.
The Food
The meal begins with a basket of warm cornbread and pear butter. Next, my order of baby fry bird—a customer favorite—with baked squash and broccoli apple slaw.
Wade puts a twist on a Southern signature with her fried grits. She waits for the grits to get cold, puts them in to balls, stuffs the balls with cheese, double batters them with Ritz crackers, then deep fries them.
How does she come up with these original recipes? She responds with a laugh, “I don’t know, baby. You’re in the kitchen all day and you just come up with it.”
She came across her Famous Mistake Cake in 1985 when she was trying to make a peachy sour cream cake, but mistakenly bought pears. From there, it became delicious destiny.
The Last Bite
While refills were lacking, the food left me scraping my plate. One of my friends finished off all that was left from my meal and ordered a piece of graham cracker cake for the road.
“I bet yo’ mama rather clothe you than feed you,” the waitress told him.
Geneva Geneva’s Home Plate is no place for modest diets or calorie counting. It is a place for Southern classics: ox tails, red beans and rice, shrimp creole or peach cobbler.
Geneva Geneva’s cozy vintage furniture and savory aroma of Southern indulgence make for an eating experience better than mama could make.
