Biff's!

The title should tell you all you need to know. Perhaps my all-time favorite part of Mooresville, Indiana, is Biff's Bakery. Equally for the food, the sweets, the experience, and the memories. The official name was Biff's Pioneer House. The staff answered the phone by simply saying, "Bakery!"

My Mom and Dad were taking me and my brother and sister to Biffs as early in my life as I can possibly remember. Opened on Main St. in 1956 by Al "Biff" Hornaday, ol' Biff ran things until he passed in the late 80's. By that time, most of the day-to-day operations were run by his son Larry, and Larry's wife Alice. Larry passed away in 2007, and ownership was subsequently transferred to his children, but Alice ran things -- mostly by herself in the past few years -- until her death last year. Sadly, despite multiple offers and options to keep it open, the children chose to close the doors upon Alice's death.

My Dad worked there as a teenager in the 50's, alongside Alice, who met Larry at the diner as she waitressed there as a teen. And my family remained friends with the Hornaday family until it closed. So my connection to Biffs goes all the way back to practically when it opened.

My first memories of Biffs came sometime in the 70's when my Dad, by then a trucker, would stop at Biffs before coming home from a run, and bring home a bag of chocolate chip cookies. I loved those cookies! Eventually, my memories morph into actually going to the diner and having breakfast. After my parents divorced, we continued to go to Biffs regularly.

By the time I was a teenager, but still years away from driving, I would ride my bike there on summer mornings and buy donuts. Often, friends and I would walk up there in the evenings to eat. And when my buddy and I, Ken Fulk, (refer to my last Fond Memory) started playing music together every Friday night, we would end our jam sessions every week with a trip to Biffs, often well after midnight.

And let me tell you, you haven't lived unless you've been to Biffs after midnight.

Until the last decade or so, Biff's was open 24 hours, and in addition to the normal late-night clientele, if you hung around long enough, Pat's Tavern would close up just down the street, and a good deal of their inebriated crowd would ramble down to Biff's for a late night (early morning!) meal. And that's when the real fun would begin!

My friends and I, and subsequently, my family and I, continued to patronize Biffs up until it closed. And I miss it tremendously.

I could write a book full of memories from Biffs alone. But there are some highlights:

First, of course, is the food. Oh, the food. From a breakfast standpoint, there has never been, and likely never will be, anything better than Biff's biscuits and gravy. Many loved the sausage gravy, indeed some of the best. But for me, it was their chipped-beef gravy.

OMG! The best ever. It's bad enough that one can hardly even find chipped-beef gravy these days, but to this day, I've never had any, anywhere, as good as Biff's, and I doubt I'll ever find any. There was magic in their gravy, I'm convinced of it, and it is to our detriment that we'll never get to experience it again.

After breakfast, they made a killer Beef Manhattan that may not have been the best ever, but it was pretty darned good! A full lineup of great, down-home, small-town, Indiana country cooking.

But what made Biff's famous was it's bakery, and what put Biff's on the map, was the Bismark. There are many who believe Biff's may very well have invented the entire concept of the Bismark, the standard by which all the other imitators today are measured. The Bismark, simply put, is a cinnamon roll, topped with white icing and sprinkled with nuts. And it was world famous, as they literally fielded requests for Bismarks from all over the world, as far away as Russia! They would cook 'em up, box 'em up, and ship 'em out. And they were in demand from all corners of the States and beyond.

As for me -- and I realize this is almost sacrilegious -- I wasn't a big fan of the Bismark, primarily because I like chocolate, and I don't like nuts. For me, it was the Long John! The Long John was a creme-filled (not gross custard!) pastry, topped with chocolate icing. And it was pure Heaven and Hell all in one donut! I miss them tremendously, as, again, no one has been able to quite duplicate it. I'm sure many of you miss the Bismark just as much.

As for the people, well, who doesn't remember Ruby?! Ruby Gregory was old when I was a baby, and old when I became an adult. And all the while, waitressed at Biff's like a boss! For those who may not remember, Ruby was about 3 feet tall, with white hair, and if you complained about the food she brought you, she'd smack you in the back of the head. You never really had to tell her your order, because she already knew it anyway, and it was fun to watch the drunks from Pat's come in and hit on her, only to receive their own smack in the head!

And I never walked out without giving her a hug. Ruby was an absolute angel, and I miss her to this day.

Alice, of course, was the constant for the entire 50+ years Biff's was open. She was the owner, the waitress, the bus boy, the cook, the dishwasher, the bill payer, and register girl. For the final few years, as her children were content to let it die, Alice did most of it all by herself just to keep it going. Many was the time I'd go in the diner and Alice would be the only one working in the whole place. And the food would still be as good.

She knew most everyone's name, and knew everyone's order. And for a place that was founded by, and named for, her father-in-law, she was the face of the business for the last decade it was open.

And my other memories are endless. The countless after-midnight meals. My buddy writing my name on the bathroom wall. The bible-studies with friends. That chats with friends. The booth that belonged to Theo Hastings, who would enter the diner through the back kitchen door. Arkie Vaughn. Ruby smacking me on the back of the head. The passed-out drunks with their faces buried in their biscuits and gravy. Donnie. The night a preppie couple chastised my friends and me for being too boisterous. Dirty. The night my very large best friend climbed up on a chair like a baby because he saw a mouse. Biscuits and chipped beef gravy chased by a Long John. Alice's smile. And on, and on, and on...

I went into Biff's hundreds of times over the years, with just as many memories. You probably did too.

But here's today's memory: One night, just a year or two before Larry Hornaday died, my wife and I bumped into him and Alice at the Golden Corral Buffet in Plainfield... of all places. It is the only time I can ever recall encountering either of them outside the diner. Larry's health was failing him, as was his eyesight.

As I approached to say hello, of course Alice gave me a hug, but Larry couldn't see me well enough to recognize me. Alice told him, "It's Paul Uhls." "Paul Uhls?" Larry replied. "That's a fatter Paul Uhls than I remember!"

I laughed. I said, "Of course I'm fatter. It's your fault from me eating at Biff's all those years!"

Indeed... from all the food at Biff's, all those years. And I'd do it all again.

There's a little diner just down the street from our new home in South Carolina. It's called the Squat N Gobble. It's little. Homey, and kitschy, and inviting. We've visited a couple times. It's pretty good. Nice, down home cookin'. We'll probably eat there with some regularity. I might even become good friends with the owners and people who work there.

But they don't have chipped-beef gravy. And they don't have Long Johns. And they don't have Alice and Ruby.

It's not Biff's. It could never hope to be.