Virginia diners offer meals with politics

Campaigns mean something to Virginia’s small-town eateries, where candidates largely avoiding national chain restaurants traipse through diners and dives trying to convince eligible voters of their Main Street credibility.

A little more than a year ago, with just 15 minutes’ warning, two high-profile Democratic candidates showed up at Short Sugar’s Pit Bar-B-Q in Danville, Va., where the barbecue is cooked over hardwood coals in its own brick building out back.

Then-Sen. Barack Obama, at the time a candidate for president, ordered a chopped pork sandwich and two pounds of pork ribs for the people on his campaign bus. Mark Warner, then a candidate for U.S. Senate, ordered minced pork.

The Obama effect was immediately visible, General Manager Kevin Ainsworth said.

Danville, a city not far from the North Carolina border, has been rocked by the recession. Unemployment was 9.3 percent when Mr. Obama visited last August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We went from eight people to 200 people in 15 minutes,” Mr. Ainsworth said of the restaurant where people can order the slow-cooked barbecue slathered with their secret Short Sugar’s sauce, with a taste of sweet sugar and a kick of vinegar. The restaurant’s roots are in North Carolina, where they have a drive-in, so eaters can order Southern staples like slaw, hush puppies and sweet tea.

The economic stimulus for the Bar-B-Q pit didn’t end when the candidates left: For the next two weeks, the restaurant saw an increase in sales as people stopped by, wanting to eat what Mr. Obama had eaten and sit where he had sat.

It’s no surprise to the owner, Donnie Jones, that politicians stop by.

“Local politics and barbecue intermingle,” he said.

Even though Mr. Jones put the word out to Republican candidates, his political visitors have been mostly Democrats, who tell him the place is a good-luck charm.

“We just had [Virginia Democrat R. Creigh] Deeds, who was running for governor. He said, ‘You must not feed losers,’ ” Mr. Jones said.

Tim Gibson, who mans the barbecue out back, said so many politicians have come in that he can’t remember all of their names.

“They come in, eat, sit and talk,” he said.

During a whirlwind tour of the state leading up to the gubernatorial election in 2005, Gov. Tim Kaine, then a candidate, stopped by Skeeter’s in Wytheville. He’s returned again and again - as has Mr. Warner.

Rick Patton, the owner of the “world famous hot dogs” joint, said the place opened in the 1920s and has ties to the White House. Edith Bowling Wilson, wife of President Woodrow Wilson, was born upstairs here.

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