Skippers Fish Camp, Darien GA

We spent Christmas down on Saint Simons Island with Marie’s mother and her father, took a side trip down to Jacksonville on the Sunday, and made our way back home on Monday. On the return trip, we stopped by two more of the thirty-one Georgia restaurants that have featured reviews on Roadfood.com. First up was Skippers Fish Camp, in the small town of Darien, about fifteen miles north of Brunswick. We took US 17 north to get here. It was a bright, shiny and downright gorgeous day to spend wondering what the heck this excellent, upscale restaurant was doing featured along with all the barbecue shacks and classic old diners on that website. Continue reading “Skippers Fish Camp, Darien GA” →

Jomax Bar-B-Q, Metter GA

When I was about twelve, Neal and I were sent on a trip to a summer camp on Jekyll Island – it’s where we met Samantha, surprisingly – that included a glamorous stop in the town of Metter, where we were allowed to get off the bus, pick up a brown bag lunch, and return to the bus to eat it. There are, certainly, far smaller towns than Metter out there, but at the age of twelve I was unable to name a one of them. Besides, I was miserable and unhappy and didn’t want to be there, wherever “there” was. I doubt that had I known Jomax Bar-B-Q was right across the street from us that it would have improved things.

Metter is a long, long way from anywhere. There’s an interstate, I-16, that connects Macon and Savannah, and Metter is 2/3 of the way down it. I’m sure there are much more desolate stretches of nothing in Nebraska and the Dakotas, but this drive is inarguably one of the worst in the southeast. Middle Georgia, outside of the cities of Columbus, Macon and Savannah, is sometimes pretty to look at, but there’s certainly not a lot besides trees. 104 miles after leaving Macon, travelers on their way to the coast have been known to pull over and run around their cars screaming, so I figure Metter’s the best place for a small town to grow and take advantage of people’s desperation for anything to do.

It’s the perfect place, in other words, for one of the three or four best barbecue restaurants in Georgia to spring up. It may be 200 miles from my house, give or take, but it’s in the right place to keep drivers from losing their marbles. It is also notable as being, and I’m not kidding, the only restaurant for the 150-mile stretch of I-16 worth visiting. You can certainly exit from that highway and travel to, say, Vidalia or Statesboro and maybe find something to eat, but as far as restaurants by the exit ramp, it is, almost literally, Jomax or nothing. Most of the trip, you can’t even find chain fast food drive-thru places, but you can certainly find plenty of state patrol cars encouraging you to watch your speed.

I first discovered Jomax around 1998, coming back to Athens from a trip to Tybee Island. I was very much in favor of finding new barbecue restaurants for my old Geocities page on the subject. I recall that I found a good entry or two in Savannah, Tybee and Thunderbolt for the page, and just pulled off the highway for a break in the hopes of finding something else. Jomax is seriously worth the stop, and I believe that I did each of the three times I drove to the coast from Athens during those days. Frustratingly, they are closed on Sundays. Since I started accompanying Marie to visit her folks on Saint Simons – about ninety minutes south of Savannah – I’ve been arranging our travel times and route to make sure we get a chance to stop at Jomax frequently. If we must motor down I-16, then the least we can do is stop along the way for some of the state’s best barbecue!

Last month, Jomax’s original owners bought back the restaurant. They opened it in… heck, I am not sure, but they sold it in 2006. I never noticed any change in the food’s quality while the other owners were there, although I believe they did have a more extensive menu, one of those full of ads for area businesses in Candler County. When we got the chance to stop by this past Friday, one of the first things I noticed was a news clipping announcing the return of Joe and Maxine to their old business, effective November 1. I suppose I should have been forward and welcomed them back and told them how much I’ve always loved their place, but three and a bit hours of driving with Marie’s car packed tight with luggage, Christmas presents and restless kids can make a fellow a little antisocial.

Jomax doesn’t do anything really abnormal or odd with their presentation. It’s basic chopped pork, very tasty and smoky, served with a single house sauce. This is a spectacular tomato and vinegar mix which is surely one of the best in the state. The secret here is simply to do the basics and do them really, really well. Their potato-packed Brunswick stew is one of my favorites, and their baked beans a match for Boston’s best. With everybody ordering different sides, we also enjoyed very good sweet potato fries and lima beans this trip.

The simplicity of Jomax’s approach has worked very well for them over the years. I think that my first visit, the place was a little quiet and slow, but every subsequent trip, they’ve had a fairly packed house and a staff of excellent servers positively hopping from table to table. I can’t imagine anybody traveling from Macon to Savannah not knowing about Jomax. It’s just where you get lunch on this road, simple as that.

Also, I’d be remiss if I did not mention that it’s an open secret that most weeks during the football season, Sonny Seiler is known to stop in on his way from Savannah to Athens, with the University of Georgia’s mascot, Uga, in tow. Joe and Maxine are big Bulldog fans and decorate their place accordingly, and while I’ve never been here at the right time for a meeting myself, I hear the Georgia faithful will often see off our puppy with a cheer and a wave. I figure, I got to talk with Coach Richt a couple of times at my favorite restaurant before it closed, so I’ve had my brush with Bulldog greatness. I also once got to confirm a confused tailback’s suspicion that Thanksgiving might be in November, but we won’t talk about that; it’s a bit embarrassing.

Kelly’s BBQ, Walnut Grove GA

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, we’re attempting to visit as many of the Georgia restaurants that are featured at Roadfood.com as we can. Coming back I-20 from Madison, we had lunch at a second such restaurant in a day. Madison itself was as fun as ever, although planning to have an early breakfast there and an early lunch in another town doesn’t allow you a lot of opportunities when many of the stores don’t open ’til eleven. Well, we did a little window shopping at least, and enjoyed some of the pretty buildings and houses while taking a nice walk.

Now, it turns out that the roadfood list does have a small error in it. It suggests that Kelly’s BBQ is in Covington, and I don’t believe that’s true at all. It’s actually ten miles north of there in a small crossroads community called Walnut Grove, which is actually closer to Loganville than Covington. And Urbanspoon’s no better; it says the restaurant’s in Covington, too! It’s at the intersection of state highways 81 and 138 and, sensibly, when it first opened in the 1970s, it was a restaurant called Crossroads. The man who rechristened it Kelly’s took over in the mid-80s, and he sold it three years ago to new owners who have kept the menu, the recipes and, where possible, the low prices – Marie and our daughter and I ate for $15 – but have expanded the building to allow more indoor seating. It no longer looks quite the way it appears in the photos at Roadfood.com, so it’s missing a little bit of the quaint, roadside stand feel.

Also missing from Kelly’s these days is a giant pig. The restaurant used to have a really enormous sculpted pig next to the building that weighed several hundred pounds, but a couple of years ago, some fast-moving criminals came by in a truck in the dead of night and spirited it away. The Walton County sheriff’s department would appreciate any information.

A large plate of chopped pork here gives you plenty to share. There’s more than enough pork for one, along with bread, fries, slaw and Brunswick stew. There are three sauces available, mild, hot and sweet, and the pork already comes wet with the house’s mild sauce. I’d recommend you order it dry and sauce it up to your liking. The sauces are all vinegar-tomato blends and guests can buy them by the bottle.

The only disappointment that any of us had was with the slaw. Now me, I like any style, variety or recipe of slaw just fine. Mayo, vinegar, red, mustard, it’s all good to me. But the closer it gets to that really finely-diced, mayo-heavy Chick-fil-A style slaw, the less Marie likes it. She ordered a small cup with her chopped pork sandwich, and I knew as soon as they brought the tray to our table that she wasn’t going to enjoy it. So I gave her most of my stew, which was very good, and tasted heavily and delightfully of corn.

Kelly’s offers a lot more than just barbecue; they have burgers and steaks and plenty of other things which, if they’re as good as the tasty chopped pork, are probably worth a try. On the other hand, ever since I was old enough to understand what the heck one is supposed to order at a barbecue restaurant, I’ve kind of figured that burgers are there in lieu of a kid’s menu. Don’t get me wrong; I like burgers more than most, but chopped pork this wonderful, tender and moist is going to win out every time.

Ye Olde Colonial Restaurant, Madison GA (CLOSED)

Here’s a place that took me the better part of eternity to get around to visiting. I first spotted Ye Olde Colonial – and yeah, let’s go ahead and acknowledge just how silly that awful name is – about fifteen years ago, when I was living in Athens and occasionally visiting Madison every couple of months. There are some amazing antique stores in and around the town square, and I remember coveting some really neat walking sticks with silver wolf’s heads and things atop them. I’m still not completely convinced that I should not, when I hit age fifty, always go out in a very nice, old-fashioned suit and a walking cane with a silver wolf’s head. But, if we’re strictly honest, the coolest thing I found back then was my Dr. Shrinker jigsaw puzzle. Continue reading “Ye Olde Colonial Restaurant, Madison GA (CLOSED)” →

The Silver Skillet, Atlanta GA

Let me tell you how to get one of the most decadent breakfasts that you’ve ever had. Go on down to the Silver Skillet. It’s an old-fashioned greasy spoon in Atlanta’s midtown, on 14th Street just west of the downtown connector. That’s what we call the stretch of Interstates 75 and 85 when they merge. The building has barely changed in fifty years, with faded prints of show horses on the walls and the old hand-painted signs with the daily specials behind the bar. You’ll want country ham with red-eye gravy, and two biscuits with white gravy, and a couple of eggs, preferably scrambled. And you’re probably going to want some sweet tea with it. If you’re the sort who likes coffee with your breakfast, trust me this once, you’ll want to pass this time around.

Red-eye gravy is most often made from mixing the drippings of the fried country ham with coffee. To hear my mother tell it, that’s why in northern Alabama, where she grew up, this was called, not very appetizingly, “grease gravy.” At the Silver Skillet, they apparently let their country ham, which is center-sliced and bone-in, marinate for several hours in a stew that includes – if you’re ready for this – soy sauce, brown sugar, paprika and Coca-Cola before they fry it. So it’s the grease from that marinate that gets mixed with coffee. I think that it works best as a dip. Have a small piece of ham dipped in gravy, followed by a small piece of biscuit dipped in the white gravy. Somehow manage to keep the current week’s Creative Loafing balanced in your lap under the formica table.

This ham is, by leagues, the best country ham that I’ve ever had. It is tender but chewy, and incredibly salty. You’re then dipping this salty meat into a gravy that’s at least one part soy sauce. You are going to need sweet tea, and not coffee. Probably about three glasses. And you’re still going to be licking your lips and smacking from salt overload about ninety minutes later.

At any rate, the Silver Skillet has been family-owned since 1967. The late George Decker bought the restaurant from its original owner and his daughter has run it since his passing in 1988. Open from 6 until 2 in the afternoon, there is usually a short wait during the week and a much longer one on weekends or during big events in the city that bring in the tourists. For my birthday last week, I treated myself to breakfast here. I got there just in time to claim one of two available tables, kicked back with my paper, had a very nice server call me “sweetie” and “hon” as she refilled my tea enough times for me to float away when I was finished.

Much later, after I had gassed up and stopped by someplace in the ‘burbs for some Christmas shopping, I went by a grocery store where my bank has a branch. I was still smacking my lips. It was that tasty and that salty. Clearly that’s not a meal for everybody, nor a meal for every day, but when the opportunity strikes to indulge just a little, how can anyone resist?

Loveless Cafe, Nashville TN

Apart from waking at three in the morning feeling pretty awful, I really enjoyed the trip that Marie and I took to Nashville a couple of weeks ago. We got to visit some friends and meet some of their buddies at a party, and see the last vestiges of fall color, and the hotel where we stayed was not at all bad. I guess one other downside was that I neglected to consider that we might have done better to check the Tennessee Titans’ schedule, and not book a hotel that was on the other side of the Adelphia or, what the heck’s it called now, LP Field, from our lunch plans. Continue reading “Loveless Cafe, Nashville TN” →

Bill Spoon’s Barbecue, Charlotte NC

(Honeymoon flashback: In July 2009, Marie and I took a road trip up to Montreal and back, enjoying some really terrific meals over our ten-day expedition. I’ve selected some of those great restaurants, and, once per month, I’ll tell you about them.)

We no sooner pulled into Charlotte, North Carolina than Marie and I concluded that there was no reason why we shouldn’t come back regularly. It’s a really nice looking town, and only about three and a half hours away. Nevertheless, despite all the great sounding restaurants and bookstores and things to do, the road hasn’t taken us back that way since our honeymoon road trip. We agree that we have so much in the Carolinas to do and see, but there never seems to be time or money. Continue reading “Bill Spoon’s Barbecue, Charlotte NC” →