The drive back from Henderson KY to home was a very long one, and there was a lengthy detour in Manchester TN that messed up my late dinner plans. I stopped at the Russell Stover outlet just off I-24, looking for a certain package of caramel seconds that Marie loves. The two employees working the evening shift tried their best to help me, and looked everywhere for them, but it took a long time and we didn’t find any. I got a reasonable alternative, filled the gas tank, checked Waze, and realized that I was not going to make it to Ankar’s Hoagies in Chattanooga before they closed. Darn the central / eastern time split. It’s messed me up in the past, too. Continue reading “Shenanigans, Sewanee TN”
Category: tennessee
McNamara’s Irish Pub and Restaurant, Nashville TN
I love it when a newspaper puts together a nice and entertaining backstory about a restaurant. A few months ago, Brad Schmitt at The Tennessean did a nice little writeup about Sean and Paula McNamara, and the story of how the two met, he a singer who was performing about 300 shows a year around town, and she a visitor from Northern Ireland who came by Mulligan’s, where Sean fronted the house band, and happened to hear him sing. They married three years after that and opened their pub, McNamara’s, a little more than a decade later. Sean still sings with his group Nosey Flynn four nights a week in the main room of the large restaurant. If this were not a weekday evening and our hosts had to get up at disagreeable hours and go to their jobs Friday morning, I’d have liked to have stayed and heard them play. Continue reading “McNamara’s Irish Pub and Restaurant, Nashville TN”
Ed’s Fish and Pizza House, Nashville TN
When you read article after article about hot chicken in Nashville, you’re certain to find references to hot fish as well. There are a few older restaurants that serve both of these, including a couple that have been on my wishlist for an age, but I still have a little daydream about tackling several of these joints, one after another, on one glorious and possibly painful Saturday. Continue reading “Ed’s Fish and Pizza House, Nashville TN”
Center Point Pit Barbecue, Hendersonville TN
After lunching in Chattanooga, my daughter and I continued up I-24 listening to her Eighties Alternative station on Pandora, prompting her to note, after the station played “Blue Monday” and “How Soon is Now” back to back, that songs were really long in the 1980s. Our next stop was in Antioch, where we picked up our friends Brooke and Matt. Regular readers might recall that the last time we were in the Nashville area, it was to attend their wedding. They helped schedule an afternoon of shopping and finding a few vintage and thrift places for my girlchild to look at clothes. Appropriately, considering how she’s been enjoying New Order and The Smiths, she picked up a very, very 1980s sweater. Continue reading “Center Point Pit Barbecue, Hendersonville TN”
The Yellow Deli, Chattanooga TN
Since 2012, I’ve taken five “circumnavigations,” little two-day eating fests around areas that we don’t often visit. I checked the calendar, and another one was coming up on the horizon as a maybe, and my daughter expressed a desire to see her mother in Kentucky for a little while. I decided to turn the traditional circumnavigation into a drop-off trip instead and expanded it with extra time in Nashville on the way up and a great big wonderful detour on the way back. Continue reading “The Yellow Deli, Chattanooga TN”
Ankar’s Hoagies, Chattanooga TN
In his book Southern Belly, John T. Edge wrote about the Jacksonville-area “camel rider” pita sandwiches. This served as background for a longer 2012 story in The New York Times, in which he mentioned that the riders have been spotted in a few other cities around the southeast. Edge mentioned Birmingham and Columbus (where, our friend Matt pointed out, camel riders have been a staple at a restaurant called Speakeasy for decades), but it turns out that camel riders have also made it as far as Chattanooga. Continue reading “Ankar’s Hoagies, Chattanooga TN”
Mean Mug Coffeehouse and The Hot Chocolatier, Chattanooga TN
Some days, you just can’t get away from people! We had the most amusing run of luck on our Saturday in Chattanooga. After lunch, we’d gone by McKay to spend some time shopping for books and music. Across the store, I spotted my old friend Darius, whom I’d not seen in ages. Turned out he had tagged along with our friends Matt and Kelley, whom we had seen a little more recently than we’d seen Darius, to sell some of their books and CDs and things to buy more. So we caught up with our buddies for a few minutes and made our way onto our snack at Dub’s Place. Continue reading “Mean Mug Coffeehouse and The Hot Chocolatier, Chattanooga TN”
Marie, Let's Eat! 