Lexington men find community at White Castle, spinning yarns and downing sliders

Yahoo

07-06-2025

It's 9:30 on a Saturday morning at the White Castle on Reynolds Road, and the party is in full swing.
Ten men, several wearing caps noting their military service, are gathered around tables that have been pushed together, and the coffee and conversation are flowing.
This group of Lexington White Castle regulars, most of whom are in their 80s and 90s, has become like a family, and some of them have made these chats over breakfast part of their daily morning routine for 30 years or more.
'They just cuss and discuss anything,' Randall Dowell joked. 'Mostly yarn spinning.'
'It's a camaraderie thing,' said Ed Parker.
'I come to White Castle for cheap food and fellowship. The food is great and the fellowship is great,' said Jim Atkins. 'Sometimes I come for breakfast and lunch.'
Wayne Tullis says he's 'the baby' of the group, at 82 years old.
On May 31, they celebrated their most senior member, John Hughes, who turned 99 May 9.
There was cake for everyone, and restaurant employees feted Hughes with a pair of White Castle socks, a White Castle gift card and a cookie jar shaped like a slider in the signature blue and white box.
'Ain't everybody got one of them,' an admirer called from the other end of the table.
There were blue and gold tablecloths, streamers hung from the ceiling, and a gold crown was placed atop Hughes' cap.
'You're king of the castle today,' said Gail Gurney, a White Castle district manager who has known the men for years.
Hughes said he doesn't know how his 100th birthday could top his 99th.
'I'm shocked,' he said of the celebration.
Hughes, a World War II veteran, thumbed through old photos of past gatherings with his buddies at White Castle, including one of another birthday party there years ago.
'I was an old man then,' he said.
Bob Niles is a 95-year-old veteran who served during World War II and the Korean War. He said he's been eating sliders at White Castle since he was a youngster growing up in Louisville.
'We were really upset in high school when it went from a nickel to seven cents,' he said.
Niles said he thinks the sliders still taste the same as they did back then, though.
Dowell said he's been coming to the White Castle on Reynolds Road for 'forever... off and on probably 40 years.'
He said he used to live in a complex behind the restaurant, but he now drives over from his home in Versailles to visit with his friends.
White Castle, he said, is 'welcoming to service people. It has a good feel about it. We know most of these (employees) by name.'
'I don't think there's any subject that's sacred here,' said Dowell. 'We discuss anything and everything: the media, horse racing, farming.'
Ray Wedding gives 'the tomato report.'
'Every year I put out 28, 30 plants or more just to have something to do,' said Wedding, showing off a cell phone photo of the tomato plants lining his backyard fence.
When his Big Boys and Better Boys are ripe, he brings them in to share with his breakfast buddies.
'They're a friendly bunch and would do anything for you, I think, if they could,' said Wedding, 88.
The men's relationships with the employees are as close as their bonds with each other.
'They're special to us,' said Gurney, the district manager.
The regulars always order the same thing, and the staff knows what each wants before he says a word.
'As soon as we see their cars pull in the lot, we start making their food,' she said. 'We are all just like family.'
Gurney started working at White Castle as a 16-year-old and has been with the company for 37 years now, working her way up to district manager.
Dowell told her Saturday he thinks he can remember her first day on the job.
'She is the cornerstone behind all of this,' Dowell said.
'They've watched me go from this store to the other store' across town, she said.
When her son had a bone marrow transplant, she said the morning regulars took up a collection to help out, since Gurney had to be off work for six months.
'They wanted to make sure that I was OK to take off work,' Gurney said. 'My customers took care of me.'
And she takes care of them too.
Gurney said staff members have contact numbers for some of the guys in the back, and if someone doesn't show up for breakfast for a few days, they'll call to check on them.
And they make sure the egg on Hughes' bologna and egg sandwich comes with an unbroken yolk, something not just anyone can get at White Castle.
Hughes doesn't come in to White Castle every day anymore, Gurney said, so 'it's a special day when he walks in the store.'
Hughes still drives, but not as far as he used to. He said Saturday that he usually spends his mornings at the McDonald's on Winchester Road, because it's closer to his home.
But the group at White Castle knows he reserves the last Saturday of every month for them.
'We solve all problems,' Hughes said.
The makeup of the White Castle regulars group has changed over the years, as some members have died or moved away.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 12 or 15 guys getting together every morning, Tullis said.
'The pandemic got some of them,' Atkins said.
But the regulars didn't let even a pandemic keep them from getting together.
Tullis said they sat outside during those days, and the staff brought food out to them.
'We were in our cars and trucks,' Tullis said.
'We yelled at one another,' Parker added.
How did they all come together in the first place decades ago?
'It was just a couple people, and they had a friend' who they invited, Tullis said. 'It just kept collecting.'
Tullis invited Dick LeMaster, 90.
'I'm here every day, six days a week,' LeMaster said.
He always gets the same thing: a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee.
LeMaster, in turn, invited Mike Blackard.
'I show up about once a week. It's a fun group,' Blackard said.
He said he enjoys the wealth of knowledge the men have accumulated over their lives.
'They've done it all,' he said.
LeMaster said his granddaughter, a University of Kentucky student, once brought some of her classmates out to observe the group.
And what did they learn?
LeMaster, who served in the Army and was stationed in Japan during the Korean War, said her assessment was that the guys liked to talk about the past, not the future.
His assessment: 'We're social people. We just like to chat and visit., tell the same stories over and over.'