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Est. 1962 The Track Kitchen Find us 88 Pinewood Lane

Aiken training oval · Pinewood Lane · since 1962

The Track
Kitchen.

Breakfast for the working track. Trainers, exercise riders, jockeys, eventers, stable hands, and anyone else awake at five. Communal tables, serve-yourself coffee, Southern home cooking. Cash at the counter.

Pre-dawn light over a dirt thoroughbred training oval, mist on the inside rail, a single distant horse silhouette on the backstretch
The training oval, first set, before the kitchen opens.

Today, Sunday, May 17

We are open this morning, seven to noon.

Doors open at seven. Coffee is on the urn. Eggs, grits, country ham, biscuits, the whole spread. Cash at the counter, every day through the end of May, when the horses head north and we close for the summer.

A long communal wooden breakfast table with chipped white mugs of coffee, a folded race program, plates of grits and eggs, warm dawn light angling in from a screen door at the far end

Some history

A breakfast joint for the working track, since before color TV.

  1. 1962

    The Track Kitchen opens on Pinewood Lane, beside the training oval, to feed the morning shift. Trainers and exercise riders come off the rail at six and want eggs by half past.

  2. 1983

    Rita & James "Slim" Bellew take over as owner-chefs. They are still the ones in the kitchen. They are still the ones behind the counter when you walk in.

  3. Today

    Same building, same screen door, same long communal table. Aiken has changed around it. The Kitchen has not.

" Trainers, jockeys, exercise riders, the whole horse country, plus locals and the occasional out-of-towner who heard the legend. Communal tables. Coffee on the urn. You sit where there is a stool. "

An exercise rider, on a Tuesday morning

From the kitchen

A short list. The full board is at the counter.

Prices are kept current on the chalkboard, in pencil. Cash only.

  • 01

    Eggs, however you want them

    Over easy, scrambled, sunny side. Two with grits.

  • 02

    Country ham & biscuit

    Cured ham, hot biscuit, the right kind of butter.

  • 03

    Bacon, the good kind

    Thick cut. Comes with everything if you ask.

  • 04

    Bottomless coffee

    Self-serve from the urn. Always on, always hot.

See the full board

House rule no. 1

Cash
only.

An ATM is two blocks east on Bluegrass Lane.

House rule no. 2

Sit
anywhere.

The long table is communal. So is the small one.

House rule no. 3

Coffee
self-serve.

From the urn by the door. Pour your own. Leave a quarter.

Find us

88 Pinewood Lane, by the training oval.

Beside the training oval on the dirt-road side of town. Look for the screen door and the porch bulb. If a horse is being walked out front, you are in the right place.

Hours, directions, and the cash-only note

  • Hours

    7a, noon

    Every day, in season

  • Phone

    555 · 010 · 0420

    Easier to just walk in

  • Tender

    Cash

    No cards, no apps