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“THROWED ROLLS”

October 22, 2012 by Professor95 · Leave a Comment

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Have you ever been in a restaurant where the servers throw huge 5-inch in diameter, hot, yeast raised rolls across the room with hopes that you will catch them?

If you answered yes, you have most likely visited one of the three locations where Lambert’s has one of their original “Throwed Rolls” cafes.

We stopped at Hinton RV Park just off I-55 in Sikeston, MO. When we checked in, the park attendant handed us a packet of information on local points of interest. The one that caught our eye was for Lambert’s Café. We were told that Lamberts would send a driver to the RV Park to pick us up for dinner and then bring us back to our RV. With an offer like that, how can you refuse?

When we arrived at the restaurant our chauffer took us to our table, gave us some preliminary warnings and left us to our server. At that point, a young man in jeans and red suspenders came down the center isle of the restaurant shouting “Throwed Rolls” and then pitching them to anyone that held up their hand.

My first attempt at catching a roll didn’t go too well. The roll was so soft that part of it slipped through my fingers and landed on the floor. Before I could lick the soft buttery bread off my fingers, a second roll came flying at me. I caught the second roll as the crowd cheered.

The practice of throwing rolls to customers apparently started back in 1976. According to the restaurant’s brochure, I (Mr. Lambert) would try to pass out our hot rolls in the traditional manner. You know, real nice like, by saying, “would you care for a hot roll?” This was awkward and uncomfortable to me, so, on an extremely busy day, when getting through the lunch hour crowd was impossible, a customer said, “Just throw the * * * * thing!” I did, and everybody else joined in. We started throwing rolls May 26, 1976, and continued ever since.

The food served at Lambert’s is true to the Ozark mountain region and the southern part of the United States. You get unlimited “pass arounds” of fried okra, tomatoes and macaroni, white beans and seasoned fried potatoes with onions.

Menu choices include salads the size of hub caps, fried chicken livers and real mashed potatoes, fried catfish, yams, seasoned green beans or real salt and sugar cured smoked country ham. Now, if you are not familiar with southern cookin’ this is the place to introduce your taste buds to an array of delectable morsels that pay true homage to the legacy carried forward by Paula Dean!

You know, one of the greatest pleasures of exploring this great land in our RV is what we discover that we never expected too along our routes. Lambert’s is an example of one of those interesting and fun places we have visited. The great memories we have collected will be with us for the rest of our lives – memories and opportunities that we most likely would never have enjoyed if it were not for our RV. Yes, fuel cost are up and travel is becoming more and more expensive but our lives are short and if we don’t do what we are doing now, we may never have the opportunity again.