Poole’s Bar-B-Q, East Ellijay GA

I had to track down Randy before I wrote up this chapter and let him know what I was going to say, for fear that he might think that I was making a passive-aggressive swipe at him when I say that Poole’s is probably the most improved restaurant that I have ever visited. They’ve gone from a regional curiosity to something downright amazing.

Last week, Marie and Ivy and I drove up I-575 to the mountain town of Ellijay to buy some apples. There’s a really great place on the right just after you enter Gilmer County called Panorama Orchards, and while you could very well load up with all sorts of jams and jellies and salsas, you can also spend late summer and early fall loading up on fresh apples. Marie got several pecks – Fujis, Mutsus, Arkansas Black – to share and to snack and to bake into pies. That’s a very agreeable way to spend an hour.

A little further north, and technically in the town of East Ellijay, there’s an intersection where, within spitting distance of each other, you used to be able to find a Pizza King, a Burger King, a Waffle King and a Mexican restaurant called El Rey. The Waffle King has gone now – I suspect this old chain might well have left Georgia entirely – but I still think of this place as “King’s Corner.” A zigzag right and a left from there brings you to the Pig Hill of Fame, and one of the state’s silliest and tackiest restaurants. Once upon a time, Colonel Oscar Poole fell afoul of some county sign ordinance or other and responded by turning his property into a glorious eyesore. The building is painted in vibrant, bright colors, and the land behind the restaurant is covered with small, flat, wooden pig signs which customers can buy for a small fee and have their names listed there until weather erodes them away.

Poole himself is quite a trip. I only saw him in person once, briefly, years back, but I can’t think of a restaurateur in the state who’s been photographed as often as him. He’s a little hard to miss. He’s kind of a cross between Grandpa Munster and Uncle Sam. He even drives a car that Grandpa might have found funny.

If you read between the lines of earlier chapters, you might have picked up that I don’t care for having politics inserted into my meals when I go out. You might have also have detected that the politics to which I object would be the Republican variety. But really, what makes a place unfriendly isn’t a discussion of ideas, it’s that grim, quiet, paranoia that unhappy people spend time seething about. It’s when loudmouths start parroting whatever hate radio talking point passes for discourse, and loudmouths have been doing this long before anybody heard of Barack Obama. I’ve been quietly declining to return to restaurants owned by such morons for many years.

Poole, on the other hand, may be as Republican as they get, but he is having the time of his life. He wants to tell everybody how fantastic a job he has, and how his faith and outlook and damn hard work and, yes, political views, have helped made him a success. He’s optimistic and wild and carefree, and basically everything good about people. If you don’t leave this place with a smile, something must be wrong with you, because his upbeat and fabulous attitude is evident in all the staff, the decor, the photographs and the building itself. You are guaranteed a very good time here.

For quite a few years, however, this didn’t translate into very good barbecue. Randy stayed up here in the mountains for a few years and we ate here a couple of times (maybe in 2003-04) and then ate again at the antacid counter of the local drug store. It was, then, a place to visit for the considerable spectacle, but the pork was just so greasy that it really disappointed.

I told a lot of people this. I used to have an old barbecue review page on Geocities and shared this disappointment with everyone who came to it. I don’t know whether Poole ever saw that page or whether he concluded on his own that his pork was too fatty and gross and his recipe needed changing, but I can tell you this: I once had two meals here, about a year apart, which were marred by the heavy, greasy aftertaste, and a meal this past week which was easily among the best plates of barbecue that I’ve had in the state of Georgia. Top ten, easy. I was prepared to sop up the pork with a paper towel before I started eating, but was very pleasantly surprised. The pork was dry and very smoky, and so incredibly flavorful. I can’t remember ever having a meal at a restaurant that much of a 180-degree turn towards the positive before, ever. It wasn’t just the pork, either. We also had onion rings, Brunswick stew, baked beans, green beans and mac and cheese as sides, and everything was incredibly tasty.

The restaurant was amazingly busy on this Saturday – they call in extra, volunteer help for Ellijay’s apple festival, which brings in thousands of tourists – and we arrived along with a huge tour group from a Baptist church in Louisiana, most of whom were wearing LSU shirts. Let’s see, they had this great barbecue for lunch and the Tigers beat Florida in The Swamp that evening. Sounds like everybody there had a fine Saturday.

(Of course, the small irony in comparing Oscar Poole to Grandpa Munster is that Grandpa Al Lewis was about as left-wing as they get, although equally bombastic and fun. No offense, Col. Poole.)

Folks Southern Kitchen, Marietta GA (CLOSED)

The story of Atlanta’s Folks Southern Kitchen is another one where the small chain’s heyday seems to be behind them. However, unlike a couple of the earlier stories I’ve told here about, say, The Mad Italian and Old Hickory House, where the last remaining outpost of a chain is struggling to remain relevant, Folks still seems to have a pretty good bit of life in it. I say this even though the chain, which once numbered twenty stores in north Georgia, is down to ten around I-285. Two more, in Cumming and McDonough, were recently converted to a new “concept,” Rusty Rooster Cafe, which apparently serve very similar food in a “fast casual” setting. That we’re talking about food in terms like “concepts” and “fast casual” is probably a warning flag to many food lovers that the food’s quality might have been a little lost under the weight of marketing.

Folks was originally called, and you’ll love this, Po Folks. The first store opened in 1978. I’m not sure which that was, but I recall that the one on 41 and Windy Hill must have opened around that time. It had a bright red roof and all of the signage and menus were written in a tacky font meant to represent the scrawlings of an illiterate hillbilly. My own folks got takeaway from them quite frequently – their sweet tea was said to be the best of any restaurant – but I don’t remember ever actually eating there.

In 1994, the chain converted all of its locations from Po Folks to Folks Southern Kitchen. The reds were changed to greens, the hillbilly scrawls were replaced with a more elegant script, and, since Folks weren’t po no mo, the prices went up. It was this incarnation that expanded to its peak in number of stores, but a few years ago, the contraction began. I recall that they shuttered the restaurants in Roswell and Smyrna right at the same time, and probably a few others as well. I rarely see any advertising for this chain anymore.

Without making too much hoopla about it, my daughter loves Folks, and when we gave her a turn to pick an activity for our weekly dinner-or-movie night, she suggested this place. So last week, Marie and I took her to supper, meeting up with Neal, Samantha, Randy and Kimberly. Circumstances forced us to have a pretty long dinner; our server was congenial and attentive, but also incredibly slow. I thought that we’d never get our checks at the end of the evening.

Marie ordered the rainbow trout and declared it very tasty. It came with some mixed vegetables and sweet potato waffle fries. Sweet potato fries seem to be quite trendy lately, but these are the first ones that I can recall that are done waffle-style. My daughter had a chicken pot pie that she enjoyed very much and a side of Brunswick stew. I almost always just have a veggie plate here, since everything they offer as a side is as good or better as their entrees. This time out, I had fried green tomatoes, calico beans and corn nuggets.

Everyone really enjoyed their meal, but special praise was reserved for the bread. Folks serves up these incredibly tasty peach muffins that everybody really enjoys; Randy and Kimberly ordered another half-dozen to take home. Marie bucked the trend by having a biscuit and everyone else asked whether she was feeling all right.

And that’s the story of Folks. They may be smaller than they once were, marketing-synergy-speaking gobbledygook may be vomited all over their web pages, and the place may be as quiet as the grave in the evenings, but the food remains quite good. They talk big about their recipes being made from scratch and prepared fresh daily, and while it may lack the individual attention and focus of something smaller, it’s still a reasonably good dinner out, for rich or po.

Ike & Jane, Athens GA

This past Wednesday, I practiced my notion of visiting Athens and enjoying two small meals, at least one of which I can write up for this blog, on either side of spending a couple of hours downtown visiting friends and buying comic books. For this trip, I had a small sandwich and a bowl of chicken mull at the Butt Hutt, about which I wrote in July, and then moseyed over to Ike & Jane on Prince Avenue on my way out of town for a devilishly decadent treat. Continue reading “Ike & Jane, Athens GA” →

Boardwalk Fresh Burgers & Fries, Sandy Springs GA (CLOSED)

Here’s an example of a restaurant that just crept into town. I think that the manager has done everything that anyone in his position is meant to do to get the word out – there’s a whacking great billboard right above his shop – but it hasn’t taken and people aren’t talking about it. This is a huge shame, because Boardwalk Fresh Burgers & Fries really is worth a visit, and worth a lot of talk.

Admittedly, sometimes it takes a little while for word of mouth to build. Boardwalk has been building very slowly, with most of their business over thirty years confined to sports arenas and fry carts around the mid-Atlantic states. The conversion to a “fast casual” burger joint came in 2007, and they now claim nine restaurants in six states.

The french fries are definitely this place’s draw. Don’t get me wrong; they cook up some very good burgers, but Atlanta is, as we’ve established, more than awash in very good burgers and it is tough to stand out. But these fries, well, darned if I can think of any other burger joint in town to offer fries this good. There are better burgers in Atlanta, but I don’t believe that any of Boardwalk’s many competitors in the field have such good fries.

Last week, Marie and I met up with Samantha and with Neal, who had just returned from his California trip. We all drove separately, and Neal and Marie each mentioned something which might be blocking the restaurant’s hopes for success: nobody can find the place. Marie, using Google Maps and Neal, using GPS, each got bad directions to a place which should be incredibly easy to find. I just tried it myself on Google and it says, quite wrongly, “destination will be on the left” when coming from downtown Atlanta. That’s not true. Going north on Roswell Road from the perimeter, it is less than a mile on the right, just past the El Azteca in a strip mall in front of the Lowe’s.

Once you do find the place, you’ll find a menu board that’s not hugely different from the industry standard. Customers can order a basic burger with one or two patties and an assortment of toppings or one of a few different specialty items with the extra-priced toppings added. Honestly, I don’t see the need to pay for mushrooms or bacon when I have come to sample ground beef, unless I want something considerably different. Neal went with the chicken, but the rest of us just had single patties with basic lettuce and tomatoes. I had ketchup and their chipotle sauce on the side. This turned out to be the only disappointment of the meal; as a little bit on the bottom of my burger, the chipotle was unmemorable and brought out nothing, but as a fry dip, the sauce had no tang at all to it, and the flavor did not mix with the potato.

Five Guys is the obvious comparison point here. Despite the flashy design and colorful interior, Boardwalk feels like it is following in Five Guys’ shadow, but they excel in every way. I enjoy Five Guys, although I have not eaten at one in a very long time – they are big enough that they don’t miss me – and they provide a good baseline for acceptable quality in a good burger. Marie, Samantha and I all agreed that this was a better hamburger, and far less greasy than what Five Guys offers. It is certainly on a par with Cheeseburger Bobby’s.

But these fries, well, these are superior to Five Guys in every possible way, and miles better than the awful fries that the otherwise great Bobby’s makes. Unfortunately, I made the calamitously bad mistake of ordering chili cheese fries. These were not bad, but I assure you, these fries need neither chili nor cheese. The restaurant suggests that you eat them “Maryland style” with vinegar and Old Bay seasoning. Fortunately, Neal and Samantha each had more than enough fries to share for us to try those add-ons. I like Old Bay seasoning a lot – it’s basically celery salt with mustard, black and red pepper and pinches of another ten things – and if I’d ordered fries without chili and cheese, I’d have blanketed ’em in Old Bay.

Neal bought a dessert for us all to share, probably because he was still smarting from the funnel cakes that he didn’t get to try out in California. Boardwalk’s “funnel fries” are (and there’s no way to explain this without repeatedly using this word like a bad, novice journalist, hence this lengthy parenthetical comment to break them up) fried to come out in a fry shape and covered in powdered sugar. Because we’re all trying to find some compromise between watching our weight and eating the bejezus out of everything wonderful that comes our direction, one order of funnel anything is plenty for four people.

Besides, with the overeating planned for the weekend, nobody needed more than a quarter-order of funnel fries. More on that next time.

(Update 11/29/11: Sadly, the Sandy Springs store closed this month. Boardwalk is continuing to open stores in the New England states, and a second Atlanta location has opened in midtown’s Ansley Mall.)

(Update 3/25/12: But wait! Another franchisee has reopened this store! Better luck this time, fellows!)

(Update 10/15/12: Aaaaand, it has closed again.)

Top Spice, Vinings GA

Did you miss us? I enjoyed having a few days not having to worry about what I was going to write. This has allowed me the chance to stretch out a little and get ahead of my personal deadlines between here, my book review blog and my LiveJournal. Continue reading “Top Spice, Vinings GA” →

Googie Burger, Atlanta GA

If you’ve been reading since the beginning, you might recall that Marie and I used to enjoy having lunch together once a week. Unfortunately, her job packed up and left downtown to go outside the perimeter, but we used to try and meet up on Mondays in Centennial Olympic Park. Since she had a longer lunch than me, she would get our burgers from Just Around the Corner, and we would dig into those at the park’s dancing fountains.

Now that Marie’s job has taken her into Dunwoody, she is missing out on Googie Burger, which opened in August. It’s in the pavilion right next door to the fountains, which means that motorists can get all grouchy about having to find some parking and walk to get here. It also means that some of our fellow restaurant hobbyists can get all too-cool-for-school about Atlanta having yet another boutique burger place. I say, bring ’em on. I’m of the opinion that Atlanta’s burger “scene” is by far the best in the country, and we should encourage all these newcomer restaurants that are doing such a great job with hamburgers. It’s not like any of the better ones are visibly hurting for business.

I usually brown-bag it for lunch – not that, between leftovers of the amazing suppers that we cook and Boar’s Head deli meats, I am hurting in any way – but I wanted to give this place a try so I walked over to Googie Burger for lunch yesterday and really enjoyed it. Fortunately, I did not have a very long wait so that I could get back promptly. I’m told that the wait can get up to about half an hour between 12 and 1.

Unlike some of the city’s other hawt new burger joints, Googie has a very simple menu of just four sandwiches: classic patty with the usual fixings, a ramped-up version that adds smoked pork and bacon, a chicken sandwich, and a black bean veggie burger. I had the classic with fries and, for dessert, a peach milkshake. Googie has also embraced the “spiked shake” trend and offers some seven-dollar vodka or creme de menthe shakes that sounded tempting. My job, however, is awesomely laid back, but it’s not that laid back. I stuck with the peach shake and was very pleased to see a slice of peach buried in whipped cream. It was so good that I might have to get it again next time, instead of trying that fun-sounding PB & J shake.

The burger itself was very good. It reminded me in the best way possible of a Five Guys burger. It was really juicy and flavorful and didn’t need another topping, though I was slightly disappointed by the gigantic hunk of iceberg lettuce that they used. On the other hand, the red onions were sharp and tangy and absolutely divine. I didn’t have a long wait; just enough time to take some photos of the building. It was just cool enough yesterday for a pleasant patio meal in the shadow of the CNN Center, munching away on some peanut oil fries.

It’s a meal that I’d really love to share with Marie. What the heck can we do about downtown real estate prices to get her company to move back down here?

Country’s Barbecue, Columbus GA

Our day trip to middle Georgia and Alabama brought us back to Columbus after some time spent shopping at Hastings. We spent better than an hour enjoying the city’s Riverwalk along the Chattahoochee before going to visit our friend Cheryl, who had recommended we stop at Mrs. Story’s earlier in the day. We had a good time telling stories and hearing about her new stepdaughters before we decamped to get some supper at one of the town’s roadfood heavyweights, the incredibly popular Country’s Barbecue. Continue reading “Country’s Barbecue, Columbus GA” →