George’s Grill, Shreveport, has seen its share of personalities despite its humble size and appointments. No less a personality than Albert Einstein ate there in 1955.
Dr. Einstein was to give a quantum theory lecture at Centenary College on April 2. The Math Club and Physics Clubs at the college took up a collection for his supper. Seated at a long table, the students bought him chicken fried steak with sides of mashed potatoes, gravy, and baked beans.
A brilliant moment arrived when Clyde Fant, then student council president, ordered an additional side of french fries for him. It was a light-hearted joke but the wild-haired physicist loved the hot, oily potatoes. He broke into a big smile and actually began to toss fries at a pretty girl at the table who resembled the actress Grace Kelly.
In addition to telling stories about the principle of relativity and his discovery that it could be be extended to gravitational fields, the pipe-smoking professor also spoke out against nuclear fission and the atomic bomb.
After his talk and the signing of autographs, he and the blonde student, Suzy Ball Lion, slipped out of the back of Hamilton Hall. The legendary teacher and the curvaceous student went back to George’s Grill. After a short stack of pancakes each, he called a cab and the two of them went downtown to the Washington-Youree Hotel. He was overheard telling her that he had recently composed a new tune on his violin. In his charming German accent he declared that “he could not wait to play it for her.”
Miss Lion returned to her dorm room the next morning via cab. Dr. Einstein took a Delta flight to Princeton on Thursday, stopping for an hour in Atlanta.
If you asked the late restaurateur George Kostakis about the picture of Einstein and the pretty undergrad he would have been proud to show it to you. He would not loan it out, though. To this day there’s only one copy of that photo celebrating the night when the Nobel Prize winner ate chicken fried steak with the math nerds from Centenary.
By the way, you can verify this little-known story by calling historian Dr. Harry Coiner at LSU Shreveport. Coiner was a student at Centenary but not present at the lecture. Coiner and his fraternity brothers were busy at Municipal Auditorium, listening to a concert by a performer named Elvis Presley.
*This is entirely false.