I decided that after we collected the girlchild, we’d take a long way home. We were in no particular hurry. US-411 runs parallel to I-75 for most of the way home, so we drove a little south to the town of Maryville, one of Knoxville’s suburbs, and stopped at a classic drive-in for a snack. Continue reading “Two Tennessee Drive-Ins”
Category: tennessee
The French Market Crêperie, Knoxville TN (take two)
This is Marie, writing a take two on a restaurant we had an incredibly positive experience with the last time we visited. It’s always good to check back and make sure things are still going well. Spoiler alert – it was even better this time. Continue reading “The French Market Crêperie, Knoxville TN (take two)”
Litton’s and Denton’s, Knoxville TN
Our son fell asleep, finally, on the road back from Johnson City as we returned to I-40. He snoozed and Marie and I braced ourselves for Knoxville’s Friday 5:00 traffic, which never came. We lucked out, I suppose, and our route, which brought us into town from the east and around the top of the I-640 half-a-loop to I-75, is outside whatever the local rush hour crushes. So we checked into our hotel without trouble, and carried him, sleeping, up to our room, where we kicked back for about an hour while he finished his nap. Continue reading “Litton’s and Denton’s, Knoxville TN”
Dixie Barbeque Company, Johnson City TN (CLOSED)
When we went to the Tri-Cities, I knew that we’d be having some very unique and original barbecue at Ridgewood, but I wanted to try some more traditional pulled pork in the area as well. We arrived at Dixie Barbeque Company, a couple of miles north of downtown Johnson City and on our way back to I-81, in a quiet lull between their lunch and dinner rushes. A gentleman named Alan Howell opened this place in 1990, after spending almost twenty years in a couple of other restaurant jobs. In the 1980s, he owned a burger joint called Richard A’s, but eventually realized that he enjoyed barbecue even more than burgers. Apparently, some of the locals howled in protest when he closed Richard A’s, no matter how good his barbecue is, because while barbecue will always spark friendly disagreement, everybody concurs that the Tri-Cities haven’t had a hamburger as good as the ones that he used to make. Continue reading “Dixie Barbeque Company, Johnson City TN (CLOSED)”
Pal’s Sudden Service, Johnson City TN
So our spring trip was truncated from four days in western Tennessee to two days in eastern Tennessee. We started the road trip with the main destination, a very good restaurant that I’d wanted to visit for many years, but we weren’t about to leave the Tri-Cities area without a visit to a very neat little restaurant chain. Continue reading “Pal’s Sudden Service, Johnson City TN”
The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, Bluff City TN
Last month, the girlchild went to Knoxville for a week to spend her spring break with some of her other family up there. When it came time to retrieve her, I proposed a fun little two-day trip. We had originally planned to spend a long family weekend in Memphis when she returned, but some unplanned expenses killed that idea. We still needed to pick her up from her trip, but instead of a quick there-and-back day trip, I suggested that we take a little of the money that we didn’t spend and go visit northeastern Tennessee, come back to Knoxville in the evening and stay one night. We’d only driven through the northeastern region in a rush about five years before, on a long trip down I-81 from Baltimore to Asheville on our honeymoon. Continue reading “The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, Bluff City TN”
Community Pie, Chattanooga TN (take two)
While we enjoyed Community Pie, it had not been on our radar for an immediate return visit. Late last year, they reached out to us and let us know about an interesting change to their menu and insisted that we pay them a visit on their dime. I said that another trip to Chattanooga wasn’t on the immediate agenda, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer and sent us a gift certificate anyway. Continue reading “Community Pie, Chattanooga TN (take two)”
Marie, Let's Eat! 