COLUMBUS, MS – Courtesy of the Dispatch

Ida Smith starts preparing hundreds of fresh biscuits at Hardee’s every day an hour and a half before the store even opens, and has been doing so for nearly thirty years. She needs no recipe, she needs no help, she just does it all by heart.

“I like to be back there alone,” she said. “When there’s somebody else back there, they just get in my way. I know how I like to do things.”

Hardee’s assistant manager Bessie Allen interjected. “We all know better than to interrupt the process.”

Smith is an avid cook, and she credits her mother as the inspiration for many of her recipes. “We all cooked in my family,” she said. “My mom had 11 kids. We all were cooking.”

She is popular with customers and co-workers alike: “We love her here,” Allen went on to say. “Everybody loves Miss Ida.”

Smith loves them all right back: “I like working with people I like,” she said. “It makes the time go quick if you like who you’re spending time with.”

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