Original Spud Hut¶
The Original Spud Hut is the walk-up stuffed-potato restaurant in Dahlonega, Georgia, under a giant neon potato, where the team ate again and again while investigating the town.
| Type | Location |
| Aliases | Spud Hut (Dahlonega); Spud Hut restaurant; Spud Hut drive-thru |
| Region | Dahlonega, Georgia |
| Affiliation | Spud Hut |
| First appearance | Appalachia 01 |
Description¶
In Appalachia 01 the team saw only the dark neon sign, an unlit potato above a lot with room for about 40 cars, after a McDonald's counter kid named Eric recommended the original Spud Hut and complained that the only other local option was the big Spud Hut plant on the edge of town. In Appalachia 02 a woman they questioned told them the original Spud Hut is in this town, not in Idaho as people assume, and is "sixty or seventy years old now."
When the team ate there in Appalachia 02, Andre described a hut about the size of a small burger joint, with an awning, a couple of benches and an order window but no inside to the restaurant. The neon potato is significantly wider than the building and casts a dim, potato-colored light over several blocks. Andre made it canon that the bathrooms are in a separate building across the parking lot, and that the worker's kitchen is a corridor about two feet by five. Spuds cost $5 each, which Ezra called expensive for 1992. Food arrived within a minute or so and Andre rated the spuds from an A to a C-plus (Appalachia 02).
Drive-thru versus walk-up
In Appalachia 03 the team "pulls up under the big Spud Hut sign," orders at the front and is told to wait by the second window, which reads more like a drive-thru than the walk-up hut with benches in Appalachia 02. The episodes treat it as the same restaurant and never address the difference.
The menu and staff¶
The counter worker recites roughly 100 specials from memory with no menu board. When Kurt dropped a pile of matchsticks, he said the number was 43 instantly, and when Kurt urged him to get out and use his mind, he answered, "I can't leave the Spud Hut. The Spud Hut changed my life." He then locked up and walked off across the parking lot into the woods (Appalachia 02). In Appalachia 06 a savant counter kid who had worked there 793 days said "Spud Hut saved my life" and called a coin flip correctly. See Spud Hut Counter Savant.
The numbered menu is covered at Spud Hut Menu. In Appalachia 02 the team ordered Southwestern, poutine, BLT and chicken Parmesan spuds; at lunch on another day they ordered Greek, spaghetti and meatball, Reuben and spinach and artichoke spuds (Appalachia 03). Andre also established that the restaurant has a liquor license, and it keeps a locked, encrypted secret menu (Appalachia 07).
History of events there¶
- Appalachia 02. The counter savant, a hundred specials and a challenge: finish one of each and it is free; otherwise the bill is about $5,000. Kurt told the worker to leave; he answered with the "changed my life" line (Appalachia 02).
- Appalachia 03. Lunch after the cave and the freeway, $25 for four (Appalachia 03).
- Appalachia 06. Lunch with the photographer Derek Edwards and the Spud Hut corporate auditor, who had been following the team. The savant told them the dead hoaxer had come in on three occasions (4, 9 and 25 days earlier), carried a holster and a wallet containing only cash, and arrived by ATV. Once he was there at the same time as a man in a business suit, though the two did not speak (Appalachia 06).
- Appalachia 07. Dinner. They met the drunk Eduardo Hooper, the Circle Chasers arrived, and the counter man produced the handwritten cryptogram from a two-key briefcase. The Chasers' Great Dane, Harvey, knocked Andrew over; the Chasers described bear vomit and a blinking light that became the SHA tracking device. The hut closed but left the giant potato lit for a couple of hours, so the group stood in potato-colored light ("potato noir") (Appalachia 07).
After the arc, Kurt arranged for the savant teen from Spud Hut to get a job at the CIA (Walkers 01).
Inhabitants¶
The savant counter worker, covered above. See also Eduardo Hooper and the Circle Chasers.