Last year, we had thought about a fall trip to Knoxville, but it didn’t happen for one reason or ten. Still, I’d put together a small to-do list since it looked as though we’d be visiting the town of Loudon on that trip, and a small canopied drive-in stood out as a must. Well, it’s either a drive-in or a drive-inn; even the building’s own signage is confused on that point. Carl Whited, who passed away in 2012, opened this place in April of 1960. We’re always happy to visit a 56 year-old restaurant. Continue reading “Carl’s Drive-Inn, Loudon TN”
Category: tennessee
Good Dog, Chattanooga TN (take two)
Before we left Chattanooga and picked up our daughter, I wanted to stop by one of the restaurants that we’ve featured before at our blog and see how it was doing. We picked Good Dog, which we first visited in 2011 and Marie got to try a couple of years later because our son absolutely loves hot dogs and it was time to give him the treat of something special here. Continue reading “Good Dog, Chattanooga TN (take two)”
Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant, Chattanooga TN
For our next stop in Chattanooga, I wanted to get some barbecue for a snack. Unfortunately, we were in town on a Sunday, and so our options were pretty limited. Every one of the new-to-us barbecue places in town that I know about are closed on Sunday, but then I noticed that Puckett’s Grocery has opened a new store, its fourth, downtown, just a block away from the Tennessee Aquarium. The restaurant opened in August and it follows the Puckett’s formula of live music, lots of branded merchandise, football on several TVs, and pretty good barbecue. To be clear, this is a slightly upscale chain, and while the original store is said to still have some of its downhome charm, this is a pretty corporate kind of place. We visited the Puckett’s in downtown Nashville three years ago, so we had a good idea what to expect. Continue reading “Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant, Chattanooga TN”
Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine, Chattanooga TN
Over the course of the last few weeks, we shared stories from a trip to western Kentucky. This trip was intended to end with a stop at Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine on Brainerd Road in Chattanooga, but we were so absurdly late on the trip that we canceled the stop and came on home. Eight days later, though, we were back in Tennessee to pick up my daughter, and so we selected Sweet Basil as the first of three restaurants that we would visit. Continue reading “Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine, Chattanooga TN”
Elliston Place Soda Shop, Nashville TN
Longtime readers may remember that we have some good friends in the Music City, and that I like to leave a blank or two in the schedule, where possible, to go where they recommend when we visit. Last month, as I’ll discuss in subsequent chapters, I made a return trip to western Kentucky to dig a little bit deeper into the region’s food, and, this time, I brought Marie and our son. I also brought our daughter for a short part of the trip; she went to spend Thanksgiving with some of her family up that way, and all four of us settled down for supper with some of our friends at one of Nashville’s oldest surviving restaurants. Elliston Place Soda Shop originally opened in 1939. It survived a landlord-induced closure scare four years ago, and we hope that it’s around for a long time to come, because it’s really good. Continue reading “Elliston Place Soda Shop, Nashville TN”
Rib & Loin, Hixson TN
Our June trip to Chattanooga was not on a very hot day, but after we ate at Zarzour’s, we cooled off anyway, with a trip to Coolidge Park to play in the fountain. Our son got good and drenched and had a terrific time. After about an hour of that, we drove north to Red Bank to visit Dub’s Place once again and dig into one of their “crumble burgers.” (We just updated that original post with a few lines and pictures rather than writing a new post, so check that out!) Continue reading “Rib & Loin, Hixson TN”
Zarzour’s Cafe, Chattanooga TN (take two)
Regular readers might have noticed that on most of our many recent trips to Chattanooga, we’ve chosen to make a second stop at a place that we highlighted once in the earlier days of the blog. This is deliberate; as I’ve mentioned before, some of those 2010-11 chapters need a refresh. So, the next on the list due for a return trip was the legendary Zarzour’s, which I first visited with my older son a little more than four years ago. I told Marie a time or two over the years that the burgers here were excellent, and I suppose that she got so tired of hearing about them that she decided to order something different instead! Continue reading “Zarzour’s Cafe, Chattanooga TN (take two)”
Marie, Let's Eat! 