When you visit, I'll be sure to take you to Al's Breakfast in Dinkytown, down the block from where I live.

Al's serves out of a long, dark corridor no longer than 60 feet and no wider than a tall stack of buttermilk waffles.

Two waiters and a cook -- presumably Al -- scramble back on forth in a thoroughfare on the right side of the joint. It's a constant ballet of fancy footwork, syrup and fresh coffee.

Patrons sit on stools, and beneath the counter are all the morning's newspapers. In the space between the customers and the wall -- and there's not much -- people stand waiting for a seat, close enough to smell the blueberries and close enough that the patrons feel the heat of their watering mouths. The patrons hurry accordingly.

The waiters are heard loud and vibrant above the hum of Chuck Berry tunes, and have a number of shticks well-rehearsed. One is as follows: Often two people will want to be seated together, but there may only be one stool open here and one stool open there. In these cases the waiter says, "Everybody up!" and all the patrons between the vacancies pick up their plates and silverware and scoot down to the left. Voila.

As for the food, it's pretty decent. In fact, the blueberry pancakes are the best blues I've experienced this side of the Mississippi.

The walls at Al's are crowded with the omnipresent knick-knacks of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Above the coffee maker there is an old photograph of a man praying over a loaf of bread and a Bible. The photograph is titled "Grace," and few Lutheran households in the Midwest are without a copy.

I tell you this story to tell you another. Tomorrow.