Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room

Sema Wilkes was born in 1907 to Georgia farmers. In 1943 she took over a boardinghouse in downtown Savannah and served Southern home cooking family style, at shared tables. The boardinghouse served her cooking for 59 years. When she died in 2002, at 95, her funeral at Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church was packed, and the food writer John T. Edge said of her cooking that "history stood still on the plate."

Lunch today still runs the boardinghouse way. Everyone pays one price, sits where staff put them, and shares the food on the table. On March 2, 2010, that included President Obama, who stopped in and ate at a table with other customers.

How lunch works

The doors open at 11. Staff seat the line in order at tables for seven to ten, so a party of two or four shares a table with whoever stood near them. The food is served family style, and the table shares it.

The menu changes daily. The meats listed are fried chicken, sausage and beef stew, and the vegetables and sides run to more than twenty: butter beans, black-eyed peas, candied yams, red rice and sausage, collard greens, okra and tomatoes, macaroni and cheese, rutabaga and more. You won't get all of them on one day. There is no seafood of any kind.

If you have a dietary need

Vegetarians can eat the starches and some of the vegetables, which are cooked in margarine. The cornbread and biscuits are made with animal lard. The restaurant says it can't guarantee a gluten-free meal because of cross-contamination. There are no nuts in any recipe, and the frying is in vegetable oil. Most dishes have no pork, including the chicken, beef stew, starches, cabbage, cucumbers and coleslaw. The entrance is on the ground floor with no stairs.

Timing the line

The restaurant says people line up as early as 9:30 for the 11 o'clock opening. If you want to eat in the first seating, be in line before the doors open. Anyone who joins before 2 p.m. gets served, unless staff have already stopped the line, which they can do before 2. Late in the service, you're betting on how long the line is.

Is it worth the wait?

Go if a shared table with strangers sounds like part of the fun and you have a free weekday morning. The format is the reason to come, and the price is per person, not per dish.

Skip it on a weekend trip, because it's closed. Skip it too if you want seafood, need a guaranteed gluten-free meal, or can't spare the time in line. For a walk-in lunch without a queue, our restaurant guide has Crystal Beer Parlor, and for a dinner you can book ahead, try The Olde Pink House.

Getting there, and staying over

The restaurant is on West Jones Street in the Historic District, north of Forsyth Park. The restaurant suggests street parking paid through the Park Savannah app; the parking guide explains the meters and the garages nearby.

A morning walk can end at the line. The Highlights & Hidden Gems Guided Walking Tour (from $25 · 2 hours · ★4.8 (267)) runs from Forsyth Park to Jones Street, the street the restaurant is on. Check the listing's start times against the 11 a.m. opening before you book both.

The family also rents rooms on Jones Street, including the parlor floor where Mrs. Wilkes lived in the early boardinghouse years, and sells her cookbook in its online store.