"Pancakes?"
Pat Morris gazes at the man with an unbelieving glare. For nearly two hours she's grilled and flipped a couple of hundred pancakes, and now someone dares to ask if the Yellow Bowl serves pancakes.
"Um-hum," she says, a spatula held tightly in her hand. "We got them. We got good ones."
The Yellow Bowl on Greenmount Avenue always had good food, but it also has its own persona, a certain down-home-in-the-back yard charm. The workers seem to know all the customers by name as well the lyrics to the songs from a jukebox that plays nonstop.
The Bowl is where conversation is kept light, and everyone pitches their view. Earlier this week, as Barry White's "Practice What You Preach" blared from the jukebox, talk was of Whitney Houston's televised concert.
She had "that turban sitting on her head with that big buckle in front," Ms. Morris said.
"But she sounded all right," a customer said.
wasn't about nothing," Ms. Morris said.
Since 1968, the Yellow Bowl has been a fixture in the Johnston Square community. It's common to see suited "downtowners" next to women in curlers who ran in for a fish sandwich.
The likes of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke or City Council President Mary Pat Clarke might be there.
Or maybe even Anthony Brown.
He's been known to down a few beers in the vicinity of the Bowl and might do a little dance in the carryout section while awaiting the "half can" of beer he ordered.
"There's not much you won't see here," says Rick Fullard, one of the restaurant's co-managers and son of the owner. "Every now and then I get cussed out, but you get used to it."
That's all part of the Yellow Bowl. A plate of stewed chicken and rice served on a wobbly yellow Formica counter. A scrapple sandwich and grits to go. A hustler's offer to wash your car while you eat.
A few years ago, Youman Fullard, the owner, was behind the counter when a fight spilled into the Bowl.
"One man came in, and another man followed him with a gun. He must have fired about six shots," Youman says. "Glass everywhere."
One man was fatally shot as he tried to dive over the counter. He managed to reach the kitchen before he died. The gunman got away.
The local media heavily covered the shooting, and even a national crime show mentioned the shooting.
"The crazy thing is for the next three months after the shooting we were packing them in," Youman says. A bullet hole in the wall was purposely left unrepaired for a while.
"It made business better by people coming in [to look]."
The Yellow Bowl sits smack in the middle of Johnston Square, an East Baltimore community of more than 3,800 of whom the overwhelming majority are African-American, according to statistics from the Planning Department.
The average family income for the area is slightly less than $18,000, and 43 percent of the residents receive public assistance.
Police said Johnston Square and the surrounding communities have had drug and drug-related problems in recent years, including shootings.
When Youman Fullard began the restaurant 26 years ago, most of his customers were from nearby businesses and few were nearby residents. His clientele then was 85 percent white.
The neighboring stores have all either moved or been demolished, and blacks now make up 85 percent of the clientele.
"Basically, the food is why we've lasted," Youman said. "People keep coming back because they know the food will be up to certain standards."
Marcia Harris, executive vice president of the Restaurant Association of Maryland, said a good restaurant is one where customers feel safe and welcomed.
"They have made themselves part of the community and are sensitive to their customers' needs. They must treat their customers like kings," she said.
Youman Fullard's philosophy is simple: "I had a policy that I used to try and make the few minutes anybody spends here the best few minutes of their day. At other businesses, the people there act like they're doing you a favor. Not here."
The Yellow Bowl has not made the listings when publications rate the city's restaurants, which is troubling to some customers who feel reviewers refuse to go to certain areas.
"They probably wouldn't like it anyhow because it ain't one of them fancy places with three forks and three spoons next to the plate," said Carmen Carrington, who lives on nearby Preston Street.
"It's probably best because if them reviewers like it I probably wouldn't like it."
One of the biggest business days was when rap star L.L. Cool J. and entourage stopped by one afternoon for lunch. Crowds jammed Greenmount Avenue and overwhelmed the Bowl's seating capacity of 35.
"You couldn't get in here," said Venise Steeple, Youman Fullard's daughter and a co-manager who has worked at the Bowl for more than 20 years. "We had to close it down and get him out through a side door."
But the Bowl is not about celebrities. It's about people like Samuel Cooper, a city sanitation worker who stops by on JTC Tuesday nights for a 12-ounce container of collard greens.
"You can take a seat and see what's up in the community," Mr. Cooper said. "Hear the gossip, and they do gossip. I'm not talking about their customers, but the workers there. They know what's happening in Baltimore."
Rick Fullard hopes to move the restaurant from its current location to a new structure on a vacant lot two blocks away. The new location would give the Yellow Bowl more seating capacity and a parking lot. "The same food, the same cooks. It's just that I'd like some place for my customers to park. Some of them are worried about that."
But many aren't.
They like the old building, the creaking floor, the dated tables -- and don't mind risking a parking ticket.
"I'd come to the new place, but why change?" Ms. Carrington asked. "This works. It's worked quite fine for 26 years now."