Our Search for The Big Black Bowl

Posted by: Greta on: June 13th, 2006  »  1 comment

On Sunday morning after our very early appearance on QVC, Janet and I were on a mission to find a breakfast joint that served your traditional egg breakfast. We stopped at Starbucks in Paoli (Pennsylvania) to get our Chai tea and cinnamon lattes, then headed over to a restaurant in a little strip mall, which ended up being closed, but the door was open, so I ventured inside. “Do you serve breakfast here?” I asked.

“No. Sorry, we don’t open til noon. Just head on over to The Big Black Bowl. They serve really good breakfast there.”

“Great!” I responded, as I attempted to memorize her sketchy directions, involving a couple stoplights and a left turn or something like that.

“Don’t worry. You’ll see a big black bowl outside, so you’ll know you’re there,” she assured me.

We drove around and around and around but couldn’t find The Big Black Bowl anywhere. I loved the name of the restaurant and was curious about the black bowl, plus my stomach was rumbling, so I couldn’t wait to find it. “Where the heck is it?” Janet asked, beginning to get annoyed that I didn’t write down the directions.

“I dunno. Pull over at the bagel shop and I’ll ask.” So there we were at Einstein’s Bagel Shop, a very smart-looking restaurant which, for some reason, was sweltering hot inside. I waited in line to speak to the server behind the counter as beads of sweat formed on my brow.

“Have you ever heard of a restaurant called The Big Black Bowl? It’s around here somewhere and we can’t find it and we’re starving,” I asked, with desperation and a bit of irritation in my voice.

The young girl looked at me with a blank expression on her face. “Um. No. Never heard of it. Let me ask around.” After a couple minutes of questioning her colleagues, she informed me that no one had ever heard of a restaurant by this name. “Why don’t I look it up in the phone book for you?” she offered. She produced a foot-thick phonebook and searched long and hard under the letter “B.” Big K-Mart, Big ‘n’ Tall Menswear, Big Shot Pool Hall. “Hmm. I don’t see anything. Do you think it would be listed under “The”?

“It’s okay,” I sighed. “Don’t worry about it…we’ll find it.” Janet and I were beginning to get agitated, mostly because we were famished and exhausted, but also because the waitress at restaurant #1 said it was “right around the corner” and we were both sweating profusely from the 90 degree temperature in the bagel shop and I was starting to develop a nasty cold because I sat outside in freezing weather on Saturday night to watch a baseball game for two hours.

Janet made me stop at Walgreens in the same plaza to get a new anti-cold product called Airborne. While at the cash register, I asked the young man if he’d ever heard of a restaurant called The Big Black Bowl. “No. Never heard of it.” Then he paused for a second and said, “But, there’s a place just down the road with a big black bowl outside. It’s not called The Big Black Bowl, but maybe that’s what you’re looking for. They do serve breakfast there…and really good hoagies.”

Yee-ha! Finally! I rushed back to the car and told Janet the good news. “He said just go down the main drag and we’ll see a big black bowl, but that’s not the name of the restaurant, but they do serve breakfast. That must be the spot!”

So, away we go, cruising the drag in our Dodge Stratus rental car, looking for a big black bowl but not The Big Black Bowl, when Janet slams on the breaks and yells “Oh my God! Look over there! That is SO weird…it’s a big black……. BULL! Look! It’s a big black BULL!”

We both stared at the big black bull statue in shock and silence, then burst out laughing after realizing our (my!) mistake. It all started with the first waitress pronouncing “bull” like “bowl” and the confusion multiplied from there when our “Canadian accents” took over.

By the way, the restaurant was simply called “Our Deli” and they did serve an excellent, greasy-spoon breakfast!

Comments (1)

  1. Reply

    Michael | September 14, 2007 at 9:52 pm →

    Hello, My name is Michael, and I am the manager and chef at the Big Black Bowl…lol, aka Our Deli, home of the Black BULL, I just loved your story about finding our place,and am so glad you did! We hope to see you again, and when you do stop in please ask for Big Mike, aka, that’s me, and that’s no Bull…..

    Take care, Mike

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