Where Everyone Knows Your Name ...
... and the food is not boring
By Loraine Page
FOOD AND BUSINESS WRITER
Kelly Hunt, owner of Mason Dixon Cafe on Princess Anne Street in Fredericksburg, likes to think of her restaurant as the place where everyone knows your name.
She describes the atmosphere of her restaurant as "creative comfort food with a sense of community. A place where the locals eat."
The menu here is extensive and contains seven categories, not counting kids and sides. Under Sandwiches/Burgers/Melts alone, you'll find 30 items. Browsing this section can be a hoot.
You may pause at The Naughty Pork Chop Sandwich, and be surprised--or maybe not--that it consists of fried pork chops, bacon, over-easy egg, and cheese sauce on a roll.
The Jive Turkey makes you wonder what is so jive about it. You'll find out it's grilled turkey with provolone, stuffing, and cranberry relish on a toasted croissant.
"It's about comfort food," Kelly affirms about the fare offered, "but with a twist." As she is a Fredericksburg native born and bred, the menu leans southern, including fare like shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, and biscuits and gravy.
Though she's a southerner herself, Kelly's maternal relatives are northern. Her grandmother was born in Philadelphia and her great-grandparents owned a deli in Harlem in the 1920s or 1930s.
As a nod to her northern connection, the menu includes a few northern dishes, albeit with a difference. For example, The Yankee Transplant takes the classic Jersey cheesesteak sandwich and modifies it with pimento cheese and bacon.
Which brings up the question, did her northern-southern ancestry influence the name of her restaurant?
It might be so. She was a culinary school student when the idea first appeared. "I was on the Metro one day," she says, "and, I don't know, jotting things down in my little notebook. And this name kind of popped into my head--Mason Dixon Bar & Grill."
She believes the "Mason Dixon" bit does derive from "being born from here and having all of my mom's family from New York and Philly, and my great-grandparents owning the deli in Harlem. I think, honestly, that's how north and south came together."
Her love of cooking first developed when she left home and had to feed herself. She was working various jobs, including at bars and restaurants, but always had the urge to have her own business. After leaving culinary school, she accepted a job at Wegman's in Fredericksburg. "Working there," she recalls, "I got a lot of experience in the food business and that's when I eventually decided to actually open the restaurant. I was ready then."
In 2012, she opened The Mason Dixon Cafe and Baking Company--she was "baking a lot back then"--in the Bowman Center off Route 2 in Spotsylvania. Two years later, she relocated the business to where it sits presently, on Princess Anne Street in proximity to Route 1, under its now permanent name.
"I didn't realize how well it would do there," she recalls of the early days of setting things up and welcoming customers. "I didn't think I needed a manager. I thought, why would I need a manager?" After putting in 100-hour, 200-hour work weeks, she decided to hire more people "as quickly as we could!"
Aside from townspeople, the restaurant also draws in tourists and snowbirds. Kelly says, "I can't tell you how many times I have seen it in the reviews or have people tell me that they live up north and stop here on their way to Florida. They're like, 'This is our spot'."
"Really," she adds, regarding her restaurant's popularity, "it's kinda cool. But I don't take it for granted."
One wonders which, in her opinion as creator of this eatery, out of all the dishes available, is most often ordered?
The answer is it's a few of the All Day Breakfast items. One of them is Big Breakfast Burrito, and it's literally a mouthful: scrambled egg, bacon, sausage, ham, cheese sauce, home fries, onions, peppers, sour cream, and chipotle sauce.
Kelly's urge to develop a business enterprise, along with her life-long love of food, rose up in her again, In 2022, she opened Eats: A Burger Joint, where burgers, hot dogs, fish platters, and more are on the menu. She fell in love with the building--it's a former Hardee's--and purchased it.
Even though she will tell you that the starting up of a new restaurant is "insane work," she found it in her to accomplish this too.
These days she puts aside some time to travel, something that has become one of her passions. But she carries a notebook with her because "Everywhere I go, I get ideas. I'm still always jotting things down."
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Mason Dixon Cafe, 2100 Princess Anne St., Fredericksburg, (540) 371-1950, www.masondixoncafe.com; open 7 days a week 9 to 9 except on Sundays it closes at 2; beginning Dec. 1, 2024 opens at 8; Eats: A Burger Joint, 701 Lafayette Blvd., Fredericksburg; (540) 940-6400, www.eatsburgers.com
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Mason Dixon is an amazing restaurant with fantastic food and a friendly staff. One of the best places to eat in Fredericksburg!!!