It’s a pretty bold claim to say that yours are the “best catfish this side of the Mississippi.” That’s an awful lot of land, you know. Fortunately, Marie and I visited a restaurant just a short hop from I-75 that might can honestly make that claim. Falls View Restaurant, which is near Forsyth and Jackson, and across from the gorgeous High Falls State Park, is one of the last places on our list of Roadfood.com-reviewed Georgia businesses to try. It’s an incredibly convenient place for interstate travelers to pull over and stretch their legs for a little while before enjoying a quite good fish supper. Incidentally, the restaurant itself claims to be in Forsyth, while both Urbanspoon and Roadfood.com call it Jackson. I’m not familiar enough with the area to judge, so I tossed a coin.
We came to the park from the east, having spent the afternoon eating and shopping around middle Georgia and just enjoying ourselves tremendously. We stopped at the park first, and spent more than an hour walking around. There’s a large pond dammed up by the parking area, but most people make their way across the state highway and onto one of the trails to go play in the waterfall.
Since I’m stating this boldly, in public, I should point out that, legally, you are not meant to swim here. There are signs all over the place telling you not to. Swimming is prohibited. But people were doing it anyway, by the dozens. There were between twenty and thirty people splashing around and cooling off in the wonderful swimming hole at the foot of the falls. Brave teen boys were on the falls themselves, sliding down into the deep water beneath them. It looked mighty dangerous, but I’d have done the same at their age. Marie and I were not dressed to get completely drenched, but we waded in up to our knees and had a terrific time.
After too-short a time in the swimming hole, we knew we had to make our way to the restaurant and get back on the road. My mother was watching the children and we did promise that we’d be home at a certain time. We found out that the climb back up to the parking area was a lot steeper than I had thought, and were pretty spent by the time we got back to the car. Turns out the restaurant was close enough that we could have just walked there instead.
Falls View was opened by John H. Wilson the week before Christmas in 1969. He sold the business to his son Tommy in 1988, and he, after a sixteen year run, sold it to the present owner, whose name is Almond, in 2004. She made some minor modifications, but otherwise has kept the place’s rustic charm and front porch rocking chairs. There’s a touch of gentle whimsy to the place; one table up front is given over to a great big catfish, “reading” a menu in some shock over its content. I told her that we found out about her restaurant from Roadfood.com, and she didn’t know what that was. I encouraged her to stop by.
This is a place that welcomes visitors of all ages, but their clientele is in the older brackets. I was reminded of Jim Stalvey’s in Covington; it is a restaurant that appealed to my parent’s generation and has never taken the time to reach out to a younger crowd. I don’t suggest that they should change anything, but, heck, that Ms. Almond had never Googled her place to see that the review at Roadfood.com was the top result suggests that they’re comfortable with their aging base. It all adds up, as it did at Stalvey’s, to a wonderfully timelost experience. They just don’t make restaurants like this anymore, where a server asks, when she takes your order, whether you want onions and pickles, and, indeed, brings you a small plate of white onions and dill and sweet pickles as an appetizer.
The catfish was indeed really good. Apparently, most of the time, they have an all you can eat special with them, but a sign on the door sadly reported that on this Saturday evening, they could not offer it, as their sources did not catch enough. But we made one of the best decisions that we made all day when Marie ordered the red snapper so that we could try a couple of different fish. It was completely wonderful, and totally outshined the celebrated catfish. Definitely try this yourselves, dear readers.
If you are traveling between Atlanta and Macon in the evening on a Wednesday through Saturday, then this is absolutely a place to consider. I’m aware that I have pointed our readers at some pretty out-of-the-way joints, but this isn’t even five minutes off the highway, and it will give you a wonderful experience celebrating a style of restaurant that is slowly fading to time, and enjoying some really terrific seafood and steak fries while you do. I’m very glad we were able to visit this place.
Marie, Let's Eat! 