As part of revisiting childhood memories, I was happy to share stories last year about the last remaining Kay’s Kastles in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, and its distant relation, Ice Castle in Dalton, Georgia. You should probably read those before continuing; it’ll save me having to recount the history of the chain. As I wrote both chapters, I looked forward to finding a chance to visit Knoxville and see the last remaining Kay’s Ice Cream store. Continue reading “Kay’s Ice Cream, Knoxville TN”
Category: knoxville
Cardin’s Drive-In, Knoxville TN
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”
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”
Kay’s Kastles, Soddy-Daisy TN
Revisiting Kay’s Kastles has reconnected me with another part of my past, and, reading up on the very small ice cream parlor, I’ve learned a lot about this very old company, and how its fortunes have withered so badly. There is only one Kay’s Kastles store left, north of Chattanooga up US 27 in Soddy-Daisy, and it is a shadow of its former self, but I’m so glad that I stopped by to say hello to an old friend. Continue reading “Kay’s Kastles, Soddy-Daisy TN”
The Tomato Head, Knoxville TN
If you’ve been following our stories here, you’ve read that my son has returned to the Atlanta area and is living with us again. When we started the blog about a year ago, my son had been with his mother in Louisville, Kentucky, for about five months. We were glad to have him back for spring break last year, and for a few months in the summer, and anticipated him returning this coming fall for high school. He decided over Christmas break, a few days before my father passed, that he wanted to stay with us, and not return to Louisville. Continue reading “The Tomato Head, Knoxville TN”
Pizza Palace, Knoxville TN
So I was reading the tie-in book for Guy Fieri’s Food Network TV series Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and I told myself, “Self, you totally need to eat at some of these places.” A few months after that, in the summer of ’09, Marie and I started talking about where we’d like to go for our honeymoon and we settled on a big old road trip. As I’m recounting in my first-of-each-month honeymoon flashbacks, this trip started in Charlotte, wound its way up to Montreal and finished, ten days later, in one of our favorite towns, Knoxville, where we met up with the children after they spent two weeks’ summer vacation with their mom. There, we settled in for supper at one of three Triple-D restaurants that were featured on Fieri’s show and book which we were able to visit on our trip. Continue reading “Pizza Palace, Knoxville TN”
The French Market Crêperie, Knoxville TN
Oh, heck, I might have created a monster here.
This past Saturday, Marie and I returned to Knoxville, one of our favorite cities, for a few hours to pick up my son for the Christmas break. We’d planned to leave my daughter in the care of her aunt and cousins, go have a couple of meals and shop and have a good time, and then collect both kids after lunch. So that left us looking for a very good breakfast for the two of us after starting the day at the very early hour of five. I kind of figured that making Marie wake that early for a Knoxville-and-back road trip was going to require penance in the form of an awesome meal. Continue reading “The French Market Crêperie, Knoxville TN”
Marie, Let's Eat! 