Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024 - 70

DINING AT WADE'S
Field Peas, Fried
Okra and Family
This Upstate South Carolina institution, founded
in 1947, represents the meat-and-three tradition
at its best.
BY FRED & JILL SAUCEMAN | PHOTOS COURTESY WADE'S RESTAURANT
A
s the dough for yeast rolls rises, it must go
over the lip of the muffin pan, a lesson every
baker at Wade's Restaurant in Spartanburg,
South Carolina, must learn on
the first day of employment.
And it's a daily ritual. Wade's sells, on average,
3,500 yeast rolls every day.
Yeast rolls are a direct connection to the restaurant's
co-founder, the late Betty Lindsey. When Betty died at
a young age in 1970, only Lou Brown knew how to
make those rolls. Betty had sworn her to secrecy. The
Lindsey family had to engage in some clandestine observation
to replicate the recipe.
" They had to stand around corners and watch, then
go home and try until they finally matched it up, " says
third generation co-owner Wade Lindsey III.
Early on, at the Lindsey family's grocery store that
doubled as a restaurant, there were no choices. Millworkers
on their lunch break picked up a plate of
whatever Betty chose to make that day. Not only were
there no choices, there were no complaints.
Betty's name is on the pecan pie served at Wade's
today, but her influence is far deeper. The menu, full
of Southern classics like field peas and fried okra, is
largely based on Betty's recipes.
She had come to Spartanburg from Rutherfordton,
North Carolina. Her future husband Wade Lindsey's
path was longer, all the way from Alabama as a hitchhiker.
In post-World War II South Carolina, he and
Betty built a life centered around the simple glories of
the Southern table. Wade wanted to name their busi70
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ness Betty's, but
he was afraid of
linking his wife's good
name to potential failure.
But through years of plate
lunches, hickory-smoked barbecue, hot
dogs and curb hops, their business thrived.
" We're not some flashy restaurant. We're a 77-yearold
institution, " says Wade Lindsey III, who runs the
restaurant today with his sister Anna and their father,
Wade Jr. " It's a landmark in our community. "
Still, when an email came through from the James
Beard Foundation in New York this year, " We paid it
no mind, " Wade III told us. " Then another one came
and we thought, 'There might be something to this,'
and we returned the telephone call and recorded it. "
Wade's had been chosen as the 2024 recipient
of the America's Classic award by the James Beard
Foundation. The entire Lindsey family made the trip
to Chicago to receive the prestigious award, and they
were accompanied by lead cooks Sonya Hunter and
Ray Pearson, whose pictures are on the restaurant's
Wall of Honor, a tribute to their longevity as employees
of Wade's for more than 25 years each.
For inspiration, Wade III has preserved an article
published in the Harvard Business Review. " That article
said that the third generation is where most familyowned
businesses fail. "
Until his junior year at nearby Wofford College,
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Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024

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