What’ll Y’all Have?

Atlanta, Georgia

I first became aware of the Varsity while reading Lewis Grizzard’s newspaper column and subsequent books growing up. Grizzard was a syndicated humor writer from Atlanta, and he wrote several times about his love for The Varsity. I’m not sure if it was my first or second trip to Atlanta when I first ate at The Varsity, but it’s a place I try to go to whenever I’m passing through or visiting. Although there are other locations, including the one at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the location I associate best with the Varsity is just across the interstate from Georgia Tech’s campus.

When you enter The Varsity, there are hundreds of parking spaces, making it very convenient for people going to a Georgia Tech home football game. When you go inside the main kitchen area, you will hear the very common refrain thousands of times in the day, “What’ll y’all have?”

There are multiple lanes that you can hop into at the counter, and the place is built for speed and efficiency. The Varsity has a limited menu, but you can order quite a bit for a reasonable price. My go-to for The Varsity is usually hot dogs, the homemade fries or onion rings, and a big orange drink. Sometimes, I feel like a Coca-Cola, just because that is what you do in Atlanta. On our most recent trip, Wyatt, Henry, and I went, grabbed our order, received our food pretty quickly, and then we took a seat. I tried something a little different at The Varsity this time: a burger and a peach pie. The burgers are OK, but Highway 55’s burgers are much better. I do like Varsity hot dogs, but I found myself actually longing for a Dairi-O hot dog instead. The funny thing about nostalgia is that sometimes we find ourselves preferring the taste of memories.

I went back and found an article where Lewis Grizzard wrote about The Varsity. In an article titled, ‘My Dogged Addiction’ that was reprinted in the book, Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night, Lewis Grizzard wrote, “I had my first chili dog when I was twelve. My father took me to Atlanta’s legendary Varsity, the world’s largest outdoor drive-in. My father ordered me a chili dog. I took the first bite of it, and I was hooked.” Lewis Grizzard wrote that when he lived in Chicago, he would have his girlfriend pick up a box of hot dogs from The Varsity and fly them from Atlanta to Chicago. On the surface, this seems pretty ridiculous, as Chicago also has excellent hot dogs, though they are prepared differently. In Grizzard’s ode to chili dogs, he talked about how they were his meal of choice before he had heart surgery, writing that if he died, he “would have had a satisfying last meal.” Lewis Grizzard even talked about what made the hot dogs so good for them, and it was not just the hot dogs and the chili; it was because The Varsity has steamed buns. Grizzard wrote, “There’s nothing better than a steamy bun.”

So, do I recommend The Varsity? Of course, if you’re visiting somewhere, it’s always worthwhile to eat as the locals do. Thousands of people in Atlanta make The Varsity their home for lunch or dinner every day. Do I think that The Varsity has the best hot dogs? I think a lot depends upon how you grow up and where nostalgia takes you. For me, the nostalgia was not The Varsity; it was the chance to reread some Lewis Grizzard, one of my favorite authors. If The Varsity was good enough for Grizzard, it is for me, too. I see Grizzard’s influence on my own writing, and I can only hope to be as humorous, but I am just thankful that my chili dogs did not bark at night.