At Spoons, you can dive into Southern-style soul food like smothered pork chops and corn-bread stuffing, puffy biscuits and country gravy. But that's not all.

''You can get your car washed, your hair done and your belly full all at the same time,'' says owner Dwight Witherspoon. ``We're one-stop.''

That's because Witherspoon also owns Big D's unisex salon next door, and keeps a small crew busy in the parking lot lathering up cars, mostly on weekends.

''Ladies and gentlemen can leave looking good, feeling good, with their cars shiny,'' he says enthusiastically.

Witherspoon's restaurant is such a bargain -- dinner with two sides and a generous square of corn bread starts at $7.95 -- that you might not mind splurging on some personal and car grooming.

The main attraction, though, is the food, made from recipes stretching back generations to South Carolina, like Uncle Amos' sweet barbecue sauce on the pork ribs.

Working in restaurants since he was 16, Witherspoon cooked and learned about the business at places like Stan's on the Waterfront, the Fort Lauderdale Yacht Club and the Riverside Hotel. He struck out on his own to open Spoons in Lauderdale Lakes in 1996.

The restaurant is a basic storefront with two TVs and walls painted beige and an orange as deep as Spoons' sweet yams. It's lined with booths and a handful of tables, especially packed at breakfast when there's a big demand for country dishes like fish and grits.

Cooks will grill the fish with peppers and onions ''if you're a health junkie,'' Witherspoon says. But folks aren't choosing Spoons for its low-cal cuisine, so you'll see plates loaded with golden, deep-fried tilapia flying around the room. Spoons coats the fish twice, first in flour and eggs, then cornmeal, for a good, crisp crust. It's served with heaps of creamy grits as well as a country breakfast of eggs and toast or biscuits.

A friend who introduced me to breakfast at Spoons gets a plate of liver and onions with her eggs over easy and home fries. Restaurants often overcook liver till it's leathery, but Spoons does it right; it's well-seasoned, nestled in brown gravy.

I like my eggs with the delicious salmon patties, grilled with onions and peppers. The chicken wings are so good you'll find yourself sucking the last morsels of meat off the bones.

At dinner, I'm back at Spoons with a Southerner who's excited about the smothered pork chops and collard greens. You get two big, breaded, deep-fried chops and onions coated in that rich brown gravy. Smothered turkey legs, the braised meat falling off the bone, will take a country boy home.

Spoons also serves slow-cooked, Southern-style oxtails nestled in a ''30-weight'' gravy, so named because it's really thick. These bony chunks are tender and tasty, served in a portion so huge it can feed two.

Sides are traditional comfort foods -- really cheesy mac and cheese, baked so the top gets that nice, crisp crust. Chunky potato salad is the homey version you'd find at a church picnic. The greens, boiled with smoked neck bones, are stoutly flavored with plenty of pot liquor we mopped up with the corn bread.

We learned the hard way that the breakfast and lunch crowd nearly empties the kitchen on a Sunday, when the place closes at 6 p.m. Spoons was out of dessert, usually red velvet, coconut or pound cake. Already plenty full, we were only slightly disappointed.

We can't vouch for that new 'do next door or a car wash in the parking lot, but when you're looking for soul-satisfying food, Spoons delivers.