Category: regional chains

Turkey Tacos at Del Taco

Devotees of fast food retail in Georgia may recall that, prior to Del Taco’s cautious re-emergence in Georgia two years ago, the chain was last seen (from c. 1996-2003) in a half-dozen shared-space locations, joint-menu joints with Mrs. Winner’s. None of these were located anywhere near convenient to where I lived during that period, but there was one in Woodstock on GA-92. In the spring of 2003, I moved – at the time, it was just me, the girlchild, and the rarely-seen older teenage boy – to our current digs in Kenne-rietta, a few exits south of this store. That very first weekend, I drove the children up here for supper, only to find that the franchisee had ended the long experiment a couple of weeks previously, and left these RTM-owned stores selling Mrs. Winner’s chicken only. (There’s a good overview of Del Taco’s history in Georgia at Sky City, if you haven’t already seen it.) Continue reading “Turkey Tacos at Del Taco” →

Peppino’s Pizzeria, Athens GA

Years ago, when I went back to school, as an older and nontraditional student, I joined a certain friendly society on campus, and, after our Thursday night meetings, it was tradition to walk as a group over to Peppino’s. This is when it was still downtown, on Broad Street, and usually just getting warmed up for the night around 10 in the evening. Continue reading “Peppino’s Pizzeria, Athens GA” →

Hamburger Mary’s, Jacksonville FL

Overshadowing this visit to see our friend Chris in Jacksonville was this unfortunate little incident at his house. See, we thought we had worn out the toddler in the morning. He ate well, got to visit a dinosaur, and spent an hour at a super-fort playground. Then we drove around the city’s southern beltway for the Orange Park neighborhood. He slowly started nodding off. We got to Chris’s place, climbed up the stairs and looked forward to putting him down for a nap, and— Continue reading “Hamburger Mary’s, Jacksonville FL” →

Jeni’s Ice Creams, Atlanta GA

Once upon a time, I didn’t object much to Ohio State. Part of it’s because I always thought that Jim Tressel was a class act, but basically, while I have little interest and no real concern about the activities of other, lesser, conferences, it’s kind of hard for me to muster much passion or antipathy for what goes on in the Big Ten. Then they went and hired Urban Meyer and packed their schedule with a bunch of loser teams and had the audacity to announce that they were number two in the country and stood in the way of Auburn playing FSU for the title. Continue reading “Jeni’s Ice Creams, Atlanta GA” →

Dreamland BBQ, Roswell GA

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that Marie and I had been very impressed with Moe’s Original, a barbecue chain out of Colorado that traces its origins back to Tuscaloosa. There’s another barbecue chain from that city with a foothold in Atlanta. It’s Dreamland, and while Moe’s Original is mostly an unknown quantity, you get talking with barbecue lovers in this or any town and when Dreamland comes up, more often than not, you’ll see a shaking of the head and a furrowed brow. Dreamland, to hear people tell it, is where chain barbecue just went wrong. Continue reading “Dreamland BBQ, Roswell GA” →

Bloggers Invade Chai Pani

Here’s another thing that happened while we were in Asheville. While we were enjoying a little picnic lunch on Wall Street, I noticed the big sign for Chai Pani on the back of the Battery Park building where they’re located. I had planned to have lunch at Mediterranean Restaurant, and almost abandoned that plan to go have a big indulgence at my favorite Indian place instead. Then I remembered that I’d be having supper at Chai Pani’s Atlanta-area store in Decatur just a few days later and came to my senses. Continue reading “Bloggers Invade Chai Pani” →