So I present to you "Duke's Famous Delly".
Duke's is next to where the giant flea market is on Saturday, which is an amazing thing if you need more cheap stuff to clutter up your house. It's in the strip next to the historic Trinity Church where there used to be a Sunny's Surplus (I miss it so) and where there is now the Triple 9's Billiard Hall.
This stretch of Route 1 is pretty inaccessible by bike. I had to go the wrong way on Montgomery, then on 103 past the liquor stores to Uncle Grube's pit beef, then on Roosevelt Ave past where the mulch operation used to be, then cut through the Trinity parking lot. That's a 6.5 mile ride to get to coffee. But no riding on Route 1. Until you need to continue on, up Route 1 for about a quarter mile to get to Montevideo Road.
My coffee drink was "coffee", which came in a styrofoam cup. Breakfast was a ham and cheese omelet on a styrofoam plate, with cold toast and an orange juice from the cooler. It was very, very cheap.
I remember going to Duke's back in the 90s, when it was a more typical diner/deli, and claimed to be in operation since 1946. You could get a sub or an omelet made with what they call "debris" in New Orleans, which is the bits of leftover meat scraped off the grill. Nowadays, Duke's appears to be run by a very overworked Asian woman. The business is almost all delivery drivers grabbing takeout food.
Decor is amazing. You have this rose/mauve/turquoise color motif surviving from 1989, with Art Deco lettering on the back wall over a ginormous mirror with - get this - silhouettes of deer. WTF.
Services for bicycles include a big post in front of the building where you can chain your bike to foil any thieves who don't realize they can just lift your bike and chain over the post.
The visit to Duke's added 3.1 miles to my 10.6 mile commute, on mostly horrible roads.
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