If you have never done the cafeteria-style line, Zion Delight Southern Cuisine is a good place to start. It is a family-run soul food spot over at 808 McDonough Blvd SE in Lakewood Heights, just off I-75/85, and it has been cooking from the same recipes since 2008. The format is simple: you grab a tray and slide it down the line, picking your items as you go, and everything comes on paper plates. Cornbread is included with every plate at no charge.
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The menu is built around plates priced by how much meat you want. A one-meat plate with two sides and bread starts at $14, two meats at $18, and three meats at $22. The smothered oxtails are the house specialty, slow-braised in a rich brown gravy with caramelized onions, and the collards are simmered with smoked turkey, vinegar and heat and are gluten-free. The mac and cheese is a baked four-cheese version, and the fried chicken is buttermilk-brined and cast-iron crispy, with your choice of dark meat, white meat or wings. For dessert, the peach cobbler has a biscuit-style crust and Georgia peaches and is baked fresh every day.
Beyond the specialties, the meat list is long: fried shrimp, roasted sliced turkey, slow-baked turkey wings with gravy, smothered pork chops, pulled pork, ham, roast with potatoes, hand-chopped pork ribs, beef ribs, steak and onions, liver and onions, meatloaf and a range of fish, from catfish and tilapia to fried whiting and salmon croquettes. The sides run the gamut from candied yams and cabbage smothered with turkey neck to cornmeal-fried okra, potato salad, rice and gravy, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas cooked with ham hock and baked beans, with seasonal squash, green beans and candied carrots rotating in. Cheese and butter biscuits come with the plates, and the dessert case holds sweet potato pie, banana pudding and a rotating selection of cakes like pound, red velvet and lemon.
There are a few things worth knowing before you go. The oxtails and chitterlings are priced separately at the counter because they take all day to cook and are made in limited numbers. Before 8:00 AM, an early plate special gives you two eggs, grits, a biscuit and a choice of meat for $8, with complimentary coffee. On weekends, a small indoor stage hosts live music. For larger groups, the Sunday Family Plate comes with four mains, four sides, cornbread and cobbler and is meant for four to six people, though it has to be ordered ahead. Catering is available for office meals, church anniversaries and family reunions in half and full trays, with 48 hours notice and Earl at 404-343-6873 as the contact.
Hours are worth a quick check before you head out. The restaurant is closed on Mondays. Breakfast runs Tuesday to Friday from 5:00 to 10:00 AM and Saturday and Sunday from 6:00 to 10:00 AM, while lunch and dinner are Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM and Sunday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Out front there is a free parking lot with room for about a dozen cars, plus street parking on McDonough Blvd, and the entrance is step-free with a wheelchair-accessible spot near the door and an ADA-compliant restroom inside. Earl Campbell opened the place to feed the south side of Atlanta the way his mother and grandmother did, and it has kept the same recipes going for more than fifteen years.
