Southern Burger Co., Ooltewah TN

This week, I’ve been sharing stories about meals at new places around Chattanooga that we enjoyed while finding one reason or another to celebrate. We know that we don’t need all that many excuses, but we drove a few miles north of our neighborhood, to the town of Ooltewah, to toast Marie’s first successful week at her new job. I picked Southern Burger Co. after reading Chattavore’s story about the restaurant a few days previously. And since I knew I was going to dig into a big messy burger for dinner, I enjoyed a light vegetarian lunch earlier.

I’ve been around the outskirts of Ooltewah a couple of times in the past, but I’d never seen this very nice development called Cambridge where Southern Burger has set up along with several other local restaurants like Lupi’s. They moved here from downtown Chattanooga’s Warehouse Row. It’s a really nice and modern mixed-use “town square” setup with space for markets and Friday evening concerts. Parking here can be a little difficult when there’s an event, but we found a space and enjoyed a nice little hike to get dinner.

It’s kind of a given that new burger places in this part of the country are going to have pimento cheese appetizers. (They also have a really interesting beer menu with lots of local brews, but I have no idea where to start. Yet.) So we ordered the pimento cheese and pickles and enjoyed them very much.

Marie had one of their regular burgers, and dressed it almost like I might, with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. She really liked it. Our son had a kids-sized burger, and between us, we had sweet potato waffled fries, tots, and proper – and awesome – hand-cut fries to share.

Before we started the blog, we had visited this really good burger place in Woodstock GA called Bob O’s a few times. It didn’t last very long, but they served a chorizo burger which remains one of the best burgers I’ve ever eaten. So whenever I see one on a menu. I get curious. Southern’s normally comes with a fried egg, but I asked them to hold it. It has a couple of tortilla strips, a slice of Cotija cheese, guacamole, and salsa on the side. It was awesome, and I’d like to have another sometime soon.

The bottom line: we’re used to driving more than ten miles for burgers of this quality and navigating a whole mess of traffic lights zig-zagging around Marietta. This is just a straight shot up the interstate from us. When it’s a little cooler, we’ll certainly enjoy dining on this patio.

You can see all the restaurants that we have visited for our blog on this map, with links back to the original blog posts. It’s a terrific resource for anybody planning a road trip through the southeast!