Maybe every college town has a unique little sandwich shop, but few are as beloved as Momma Goldberg’s Deli in Auburn. It’s just a couple of years older than Price’s Barbecue House, which is on the east side of campus. Momma Goldberg’s is on Magnolia, on the northern border of the university. You can see the upper decks of Jordan-Hare Stadium from the parking lot. We overheard a manager showing a new hire the ropes when we visited, and he noted that it is a requirement to work every home game, and to try and get a ride from somebody else on game day, because this place can be a madhouse and parking is at a premium. Continue reading “Momma Goldberg’s Deli, Auburn AL”
Category: regional chains
The Chicken Salad Chick, Auburn AL
This is Marie, contributing a story about a very special specialty store and restaurant. The Chicken Salad Chick is a chain that is slowly expanding through the southeast, and on a recent trip to Auburn, Alabama, we visited the original location. Each of the main menu items except the pimento cheese is some variety of chicken salad. There is a limited selection of sides. The combination I picked was “Fruity Fran” and “Olivia’s Old South” with a side of fruit intended for the boy, who came with us on the two-hour drive from our house to “the Plains” in eastern Alabama. Each of the salads that has a name is linked to a real person in the life of Stacy Brown, the owner and inventor of these delicious recipes. Continue reading “The Chicken Salad Chick, Auburn AL”
The Pub Perimeter, Dunwoody GA
Last month, Marie and I were invited to a soft opening event for Perimeter Mall’s newest restaurant. Well, it was newest for a short time; we understand that a new Varasano’s Pizzeria is coming to the mall in a couple of weeks. Anyway, The Pub is a small chain based in Cincinnati (this is their twelfth store, and first Georgia location) that has the design of a traditional English pub, with appropriate posters and prints on the walls to give you the full British immersion experience. Henry VIII and the London Underground. The Beatles and The Who. Muse and Radiohead. Bangers and mash. Servers in kilts. It’s Six Flags Over London, guv’nah. Stone the crows, the missus’ll never believe this ‘un. Continue reading “The Pub Perimeter, Dunwoody GA”
Chuy’s, Kennesaw GA
Chuy’s, a successful Tex-Mex chain based in Austin, has opened its latest (56th) store just down the road from us in Kennesaw, and invited me to stop by for a tour and some appetizers. This restaurant, the second in this market following the store in Dunwoody, is located along the stretch of Barrett Parkway populated by quite a few chains that get huge weekend business; in fact, it’s just two doors down from an On the Border, which struck me as curious, but Chuy’s marketing manager, Hilary Delling, assured me that the two restaurants are very different in taste, and diners will have very different experiences. Based on what I saw, I would agree. Continue reading “Chuy’s, Kennesaw GA”
Boneheads, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)
Earlier this month, Marie and I joined some friends from the Association of Food Bloggers to sample some of the standards on the menu at Boneheads, an Atlanta-based chain that specializes in grilled fish and chicken and a variety of sauces flavored with piri piri peppers. We also got a preview of the new brunch menu that their corporate chef, Laurel Elliot, has developed, and which is rolling out at Boneheads’ eight stores in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas beginning this month. Their newest Atlanta location, on Pharr Road in Buckhead, serves as the chain’s test kitchen and the brunch items are available there now, with the other stores picking it up very soon if they’ve not already. Continue reading “Boneheads, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)”
Dave’s Cosmic Subs, Atlanta GA
I’m not sure how I got the notion that Dave’s Cosmic Subs has been sitting on North Decatur by Emory forever, or that it was a locally-owned independent. It’s actually been here for less than a decade and is a franchise of a shop that opened in 1997 in a suburb of Cleveland called Chagrin Falls. A musician called Cosmic Dave Lombardy opened it after returning home to Ohio after many years in California singing lead for a band called Foreplay – no, not the jazz combo; they’re spelled Fourplay – and deciding that his shtick would be paying tribute to the sixties with a lot of groovy music and colorful design. He wouldn’t be the first to choose psychedelic as the basis for his restaurant design (see: Mellow Mushroom) and nor would he be the last (see: Peace, Love and Pizza), but he might have come up with the tastiest sandwich. Continue reading “Dave’s Cosmic Subs, Atlanta GA”
Tom + Chee, Kennesaw GA
Here’s a very nifty surprise. Since the small chain Tom + Chee exploded in a big expansion over the last twelve months, they’ve become what is probably the only place in Georgia to serve goetta. Have you ever heard of this stuff? It’s kind of the Ohio River Valley equivalent to Mississippi slugburgers: breakfast sausage that has been “extended” with the addition of oats and onions, and seasoned with rosemary and bay leaves. Continue reading “Tom + Chee, Kennesaw GA”
Marie, Let's Eat! 