I had an internal schedule to keep as we raced down I-75 – well, Marie raced and I napped – to get back to Knox County, Tennessee. My daughter has family there, and I’d offered to let her kick back with them for a few hours while Marie and the baby and I went out and ate and played around Knoxville. The girlchild was duly deposited with her aunt, and we drove out to East Magnolia and pulled up at Pizza Palace, the home of Marie’s favorite pizza. Continue reading “Cardin’s Drive-In, Knoxville TN”
Category: dessert
Graeter’s, Cincinnati OH
Happily, for all the encroaching homogeneity in our culture, you don’t have to go very far to find a place where totally different ice creams are waging war for the hearts and minds of the locals. In southwestern Ohio, there are at least three very popular brands to choose from that don’t have any representation down in Georgia. These include Graeter’s, founded in 1870, Aglamesis, whose products are found in restaurants like Blue Ash Chili, and United Dairy Farmers, who have a chain of convenience stores and gas stations that also sell their ice creams in a parlor setting. I read about Graeter’s at Chopped Onion and at Roadfood.com (links below) and hoped that we’d have the chance to visit their Hyde Park store. Continue reading “Graeter’s, Cincinnati OH”
B & K Root Beer, Troy OH
We got very lucky about finding lunch in Ohio. We dropped Marie at the facility where she was training the team there and got to meet some of the group. They had a ball getting to see the baby they’d heard so much about – and the teenager, I suppose – and were interested in what the three of us would be doing and eating during our time in Dayton. I mentioned that, among our destinations, we’d be visiting a popular place in town called the Root Beer Stande. Continue reading “B & K Root Beer, Troy OH”
Bill’s Donut Shop, Centerville OH
It took us twelve hours, but we finally made it to Dayton. The toddler was unbelievably good for the trip. He whimpered and got frustrated a few times, which was to be expected, but he handled the road trip like a champion, even as we got caught in the northbound sludge of Cincinnati’s evening rush hour, and was rewarded with the awesome and welcome sight of Mommy in the hotel lobby. Continue reading “Bill’s Donut Shop, Centerville OH”
Hoskins Drugs, Clinton TN
Marie’s job had taken her back to Ohio, setting the stage for our biggest road trip since we started the blog, since our honeymoon expedition to Montreal and back, in fact. She flew to Dayton on a Sunday for a week. On the following Wednesday morning, about three minutes after the baby finally spotted a photo of Marie on the wall and remembered who it was he’d been missing – “Mommy! Mommy!” – the car was packed, and the baby and the teen girlchild were strapped in and we were off to join her. Continue reading “Hoskins Drugs, Clinton TN”
The Pharmacy Burger Parlor, Nashville TN
I only had one particular restaurant in mind for our trip to Nashville, and decided that when we got to town, we’d let our friend Tory pick where we ate, but only after we stopped by The Pharmacy Burger Parlor and Beer Garden. I had read about The Pharmacy, a very trendy and popular burger joint and biergarten – so trendy that the predictable backlash came almost instantly – in East Nashville, and, on our last visit to town, when we stopped by Mas Tacos Por Favor to enjoy some of their Friday fish tacos, we saw the very long line of people waiting to get in. I figured we’d wait a little while, for the fad to cool, and stop by during some off-peak time to try the burgers and see what the fuss was about. Then I read a little more closely and learned they make their own sodas from an old-fashioned pump. This suddenly became very promising. Continue reading “The Pharmacy Burger Parlor, Nashville TN”
Thatcher’s Barbeque and Grill, Trenton GA
Our planned tour of northwestern Georgia barbecue only managed half of the planned number of restaurants, although it is likely that we visited the most northwestern barbecue restaurant in the state. I would happily be proven wrong, but I can’t find evidence that there are any closer to the corner than Thatcher’s in Trenton. This town, located about six miles from both the Alabama and Tennessee lines, is the county seat of what I still call the Free State of Dade. Continue reading “Thatcher’s Barbeque and Grill, Trenton GA”
Marie, Let's Eat! 