For the final stop on the Eastern Suburban BBQ Tour, the children and I visited Glenn’s, a restaurant with a lot of local history which is hanging in there despite a long series of setbacks. As I enjoyed the finely chopped, hickory-smoked pork, I was reminded of the flavor and consistency of what I think of as “classic Atlanta barbecue,” as exemplified by such older restaurants as Old Hickory House. But it is not only the food; Glenn’s backstory also reminds me of that restaurant. Glenn and Jean Yontz opened the first location of this chain in 1987 and, over the next decade, various family members opened satellite locations throughout the suburbs. At its peak, there were five stores in the chain, stretching from Snellville to Stockbridge. The chain failed in 2005. Continue reading “Glenn’s Bar-B-Que, Conyers GA (CLOSED)”
Tag: atlanta
Where There’s Smoke BBQ, Mansfield GA
For the second stop on our Eastern Suburban BBQ Tour, the kids and I drove further out I-20 to what Urbanspoon defines as the extreme outer edge of the Atlanta region. A little past Covington, exit 98 brings you to GA-11. Four miles north of the highway is Social Circle, the home of the celebrated Blue Willow Inn. Seven miles south of the highway is Mansfield, a very tiny town of about 400. Deer hunting is very big in this community on Saturdays. Just about everybody that we saw, either at the restaurant or at a small convenience grocery store on the town square – the only other place open for business on a Saturday in the immediate area – was dressed in wintertime camouflage. Continue reading “Where There’s Smoke BBQ, Mansfield GA”
Bradley’s Bar-B-Que, Conyers GA
If our statistics are any indication, the barbecue map that I built for the CommunityWalk site is one of the most popular features on our site. There’s a link to it at the bottom of just about every chapter about a barbecue restaurant that we’ve posted over the last couple of years and it gets a lot of traffic from barbecue lovers. I was looking at it a few months ago and decided that the eastern suburbs were underrepresented on it. I picked four to visit, stopped by one of them in October, and, one Saturday last month while Marie was working, I took the kids out for an indulgent day of three lunches. Continue reading “Bradley’s Bar-B-Que, Conyers GA”
Timone’s Local Pizza Joint, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)
Last month, Marie and I enjoyed that rarest of treats: a date night. The kids were being watched and we had time to stretch our legs and enjoy each other’s company without worrying about our respective Baby Alarms going off. The weather outside was pretty awful, blustery and cold with just enough rain to make driving a small aggravation, but by the time we made it to Timone’s Local Pizza Joint in the Morningside neighborhood, it dried up a bit. Continue reading “Timone’s Local Pizza Joint, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)”
Big Easy Grille, Atlanta GA
Every once in a while, Marie and I can be spontaneous! We don’t always plan our trips and visits and meals months in advance, only sometimes. Okay, most of the time. But once in a while, like a Sunday last month, we dropped the girlchild off with her godmother so the two of them could see a movie and had no plans whatever for supper. We just drove around the Howell Mill / Westside neighborhoods looking for anything that struck our fancy. (Between you and me, I was totally in the mood for Nuevo Laredo, and drove past it, smiling, “Well, hey! Look! Nuevo Laredo’s open on Sundays!” Marie said that she did not want Mexican. Hmph. I would have to wait a few days to manage my Mxyzptlk-timed three-month craving for Tex-Mex.) Continue reading “Big Easy Grille, Atlanta GA”
Osteria Cibo Rustico, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)
Earlier this month, Marie and I were invited to visit Osteria Cibo Rustico, a new restaurant in the Toco Hill shopping center on North Druid Hills Road. It opened in November in the space previously occupied by Mirko Pasta. It’s a new concept from the company that runs some well-known Atlanta restaurants like The Big Ketch and Tin Lizzy, but close-ish enough to what Mirko had been offering that they could, after a very short downtime, reopen with many of the same staffers in place, and count on a very loyal customer base to come back and give them a try. Marie and I were quite impressed to see so many people visiting on a Wednesday evening; the place was nearly full and with a pair of large parties. It says great things about a staff to see so many of their previous incarnation’s customers willing to come sample the new product. Continue reading “Osteria Cibo Rustico, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)”
Olympic Flame, Atlanta GA
It felt like an unusually long shoot while it was here, but most of the location work for the film Anchorman 2 was done here in Atlanta between March and May, with our city apparently filling in for both 1970s San Diego and New York. Back in March, always thinking about what might make an interesting story, I read that a restaurant called Olympic Flame on Marietta Street had been transformed, via that Hollywood magic!, into a fried chicken restaurant owned by David Koechner’s character, Champ Kind. I rushed over with my camera as soon as I could, but was too late. The film crews had used the location for one day and promptly removed the fake signage. Other bloggers got there with more speed than me, and links to them can be found below. Soon after, production was seen at The Silver Skillet on 14th Street. I don’t know whether any restaurant in this town has served as a location as often as the Skillet has. Continue reading “Olympic Flame, Atlanta GA”
Marie, Let's Eat! 