Marietta Diner, Marietta GA

So the day after our new baby boy was born, I wasn’t going to rest on my laurels and have any more lousy hospital or chain food like I did on the day he arrived. I still had two other kids to take care of while Marie recuperated in the hospital, and so I came back to Marietta to give them some more attention and some supper.

My daughter chose to go out with friends, so my older son and I went over to Marietta Diner for the first time in ages. I have mentioned this place a couple of times before; this is the flagship location for a group that runs some of Cobb County’s most well-known restaurants. We’ve covered their sister locations Marietta Fish Market and Cherokee Cattle Company in this blog before. While each of the other stores pick one style of cuisine and does an efficient, if sometimes larger-than-sense job of it, the Marietta Diner elects to do everything, and do it pretty well.

One thing that potential guests need to know is that there is always a crowd here. I’ve never had to wait for more than a few minutes, and occasionally, like last Wednesday, not at all, but I’ve never seen the place without plenty of people and an almost full lot. That’s any hour of the day. The Atlanta area is home to quite a few neon-and-chrome diners, but this place is easily the most popular and beloved of them all. Somehow, the army of staffers employed here manage to provide quite excellent hands-on attention to detail, fixing errors instantly and providing really prompt service while being pulled in many directions. The difference in customer service here and at any equally busy place – say, last month’s trip to La Fonda Latina – is like night and day.

I told my son up front that I’d allow him a gigantic treat from the gigantic dessert menu if he would keep his dinner selection on the cheap side. That’s never easy to do here. With a menu the size of a small phone book, and with a list of daily specials longer than many other places’ entire offering, it’s hard to narrow down what you want and find the right price. Reveling in humongous portions, some of the offerings are somewhat pricier than I might like.

We came, incidentally, because for some reason a few hours before, I found myself having the oddest craving for a gigantic deli sandwich, the likes of which are best found at The Square Bagel. That place is not open for supper, but I found a reasonable facsimile of what I wanted at the Marietta Diner. Called a Sloppy John, it’s a huge stack of corned beef, melted cheese and cole slaw served with Russian dressing and fries. Already satisfied by the spanikopita and the bread they bring to each table, and the salad that I enjoyed, I ended up having half this sandwich for breakfast the next morning.

The salad was a good example of the staff proving how on the ball they are. I had asked for the Greek-styled side salad, but they brought me this unbelievable thing that was assuredly priced higher than the $4-odd on the menu. It was served in a bowl the size of a basketball, featured a towering leaf of lettuce positioned like the feather of a garish headdress, and included several grape leaves and anchovies. It looked terrific, but far more than I could eat! I pointed out the error and it was corrected almost instantly.

My son had a burger, served with fries, a side of slaw and a couple of onion rings, and for dessert, he went up to the showcase and wasn’t seen again for several minutes. Slices of cake here are priced around seven dollars each and are just tremendous. He finally decided on Butterfinger flavor and could not finish it. We ended up taking three boxes home for leftovers the next day.

This place isn’t really for people who are looking for something inexpensive, or sensible portion sizes. It’s all about conspicuous consumption here, and the restaurant’s enormous popularity proves they’re doing right by their crowd. It’s genuinely good stuff, and while I’m hardly a regular here, I’ve certainly never had a bad meal.

Thumbs Up Diner, Atlanta GA

The problem with mile-long to-do lists, like mine, is that I cannot remember how on earth some of the things that have been on there the longest got there in the first place. Take Thumbs Up Diner, for instance. I haven’t been in Decatur in months, but one time I was there, I pointed out the Thumbs Up location there – it is one of five in the Atlanta area – to Marie and told her that I had heard you can get a really good breakfast here and that we need to stop in one of these days. Not long afterward, our friend David, who’s always looking out for a good place to eat, forwarded me a link to the restaurant’s web site. “Yep,” I said. “It’s on the list!” So are, if we’re honest, something like fifty other places. I have really got to get up to Cincinnati to take care of the three or four places up there I want to try.

The problem, as ever, is finding the free time and the pennies to make it to any place at the same time that my enthusiasm and curiosity push a place up to the top of the wishlist. It helps that Thumbs Up has a location about a mile from where I work, and so, with a short day last week, I decided to drive over to the Marietta Street location for a late breakfast. It has a beautiful view of the midtown skyline, except some guy at Georgia Tech decided to stick the backside of some big athletic facility in the way.

I spent what seemed like a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted. I hear that their pancakes and waffles are really good, and thought about trying one, but I went with one of the house specialties, The Heap, instead. This is a skillet filled with cheesy potatoes, scrambled eggs, onions and peppers, and I added chicken. I’m very glad that I resisted the temptation to get a waffle with it, because the Heap alone was considerably more food than any one person needs, and I was not able to finish it. It wasn’t at all bad, but it needed some salt and pepper and Texas Pete hot sauce to bring things to life. It came with a very tasty biscuit. That, I did finish.

My little breakfast was a very pleasant getaway. I didn’t learn anything much about the diner; even if the waitresses weren’t busy refilling coffee throughout their near-full house, I really just felt like relaxing in a nice, reasonably quiet place and watching the world pass by. Sadly, there’s not a lot of pedestrian traffic on this stretch of Marietta Street, so I couldn’t do much in the way of people watching. But for sitting back with a good book and watching the world go by, this is a fine place to do it. Might have to do it again sometime soon, now that it’s no longer collecting dust on a to-do list.

The Silver Skillet, Atlanta GA

Let me tell you how to get one of the most decadent breakfasts that you’ve ever had. Go on down to the Silver Skillet. It’s an old-fashioned greasy spoon in Atlanta’s midtown, on 14th Street just west of the downtown connector. That’s what we call the stretch of Interstates 75 and 85 when they merge. The building has barely changed in fifty years, with faded prints of show horses on the walls and the old hand-painted signs with the daily specials behind the bar. You’ll want country ham with red-eye gravy, and two biscuits with white gravy, and a couple of eggs, preferably scrambled. And you’re probably going to want some sweet tea with it. If you’re the sort who likes coffee with your breakfast, trust me this once, you’ll want to pass this time around.

Red-eye gravy is most often made from mixing the drippings of the fried country ham with coffee. To hear my mother tell it, that’s why in northern Alabama, where she grew up, this was called, not very appetizingly, “grease gravy.” At the Silver Skillet, they apparently let their country ham, which is center-sliced and bone-in, marinate for several hours in a stew that includes – if you’re ready for this – soy sauce, brown sugar, paprika and Coca-Cola before they fry it. So it’s the grease from that marinate that gets mixed with coffee. I think that it works best as a dip. Have a small piece of ham dipped in gravy, followed by a small piece of biscuit dipped in the white gravy. Somehow manage to keep the current week’s Creative Loafing balanced in your lap under the formica table.

This ham is, by leagues, the best country ham that I’ve ever had. It is tender but chewy, and incredibly salty. You’re then dipping this salty meat into a gravy that’s at least one part soy sauce. You are going to need sweet tea, and not coffee. Probably about three glasses. And you’re still going to be licking your lips and smacking from salt overload about ninety minutes later.

At any rate, the Silver Skillet has been family-owned since 1967. The late George Decker bought the restaurant from its original owner and his daughter has run it since his passing in 1988. Open from 6 until 2 in the afternoon, there is usually a short wait during the week and a much longer one on weekends or during big events in the city that bring in the tourists. For my birthday last week, I treated myself to breakfast here. I got there just in time to claim one of two available tables, kicked back with my paper, had a very nice server call me “sweetie” and “hon” as she refilled my tea enough times for me to float away when I was finished.

Much later, after I had gassed up and stopped by someplace in the ‘burbs for some Christmas shopping, I went by a grocery store where my bank has a branch. I was still smacking my lips. It was that tasty and that salty. Clearly that’s not a meal for everybody, nor a meal for every day, but when the opportunity strikes to indulge just a little, how can anyone resist?

Metro Cafe Diner, Atlanta GA

This is Marie, returning to my usual specialty of sweet things. This entry is on the Metro Cafe Diner in downtown Atlanta. As we’ve mentioned previously, it’s really not terribly fair to judge a place based on its performance when there is a convention the size of Dragon*Con right around the corner. On both corners, actually; it’s a huge con. Nevertheless, the place did well. I actually had breakfast there twice in one day due to the sleep schedules of the folks I was meeting, and it was fine both times. The service was a little faster in the early morning before all the tables were full, but only very slightly. There was less amusing rushing around, though.

The place is something of a hybrid. There are black marble walls, and there is a bar on the ground floor where apparently karaoke is inflicted upon the diners. I can’t imagine the acoustics are all that great, but we were able to converse comfortably at the tables despite the music so I may be wrong. You walk up this odd triangular staircase past a display of cakes big enough to rival the Marietta Diner’s offerings, and then get packed into one of two little side passages filled with booths. It is not the most spacious of places.

The prices seemed a trifle high, and they didn’t even boost them for the crowds. However, presentation is pretty and the quality of the food was good. I enjoyed my French Toast with strawberries sans the usual Radioactive Red Stuff that comes with such fare. The slices of bread were thick and buttery and if they could possibly have done with a bit of my favorite cinnamon, that is only because I like my cinnamon just a little hotter than usual. My brother seriously got into his Eggs Benedict Florentine. The eggs were cooked perfectly.

Overall this is a place I would recommend, especially since my sister reported favorably on the cakes, but it is a little on the odd side.

Evans Fine Foods, Decatur GA (CLOSED)

Located on North Decatur Road in front of a Publix strip mall, Evans Fine Foods seems to have been here forever. I don’t know whether this was their original location – they opened in 1946 – but they’ve certainly been here as long as I can remember. They’re so easy to overlook that while I’ve been telling myself for many years that I should try them out, it wasn’t until this past week that I finally made myself stop in.

I knew nothing at all about Evans apart from a lingering sense of them being a little timelost. It’s very much an older-styled pay-at-the-counter diner and meat-and-two. It is visibly more popular with older customers than young folk. When I arrived for lunch, shortly after 11, the dining room was about half-full. Until a lady arrived with her grandchild, I was the youngest there.

Evans has a pretty small menu, but my server suggested I consider the specials instead. These are detailed on boards above the large open window separating the dining room from the kitchen, where you can easily see the frantic activity of the cooks. I chose the smothered chicken with sides of pinto beans and tomatoes and okra. It turned out to be the ugliest and least photogenic meal you ever saw, so I have not included a picture of it here. Flatly, you would never believe me if I told you it tasted good.

Honestly, the food really isn’t anything remarkable, but I was nevertheless taken with the gravy on the smothered chicken. It was a thick, yellow cream sauce that I quite enjoyed. It really called for more bread to sop it up than the restaurant serves. I had the cornbread, but they offer this as simple three-bite muffins. I probably could have used a couple of big biscuits.

It’s more than just the decor and the basic layout that suggests “timelost” as a good descriptor for Evans. A lot of these older-styled meat-and-twos taste similar because they use considerably more canned vegetables than fresh. That’s why there’s nothing remarkable about them. Still, the service was attentive and the staff was polite and it proved itself a fine little place to kick back and read Rex Stout for half an hour before I needed to move on. I can’t swear that I’m in a huge rush to return, but it’s nice to know that this business has been thriving for more than sixty years.

Alpha Soda, Alpharetta GA

Alpha Soda is the oldest surviving restaurant still doing business in the northern suburb of Alpharetta, and is celebrating its ninetieth birthday this year. That’s pretty amazing, and it’s a good place to eat, but I somehow wonder whether the place’s glory days are many years behind it, back before they moved to their current location and changed their format somewhat.

When it opened, it was what we’d call today an olde-fashioned soda counter and sandwich shop, although in 1920, such things were hip and modern. It has moved at least five times over the years. I heard that the original location on Main Street was later the site of another long-lived restaurant, the Dixie Diner, which closed in 2002 after several decades, but I wouldn’t swear to it. After all, the first I heard of Alpha Soda was that it wasn’t worth visiting, and that proved not to be true at all.

Well, I should have known better than to take the word of a teenager. Ten years ago, I was tutoring high school kids prepping for the SAT and considering moving to their community in north Fulton County. I once asked one of my students where to get something to eat and he replied “Anywhere but Alpha Soda” and went on to describe everything that the wrong-headed fellow didn’t like about the place. He was mistaken on every front; years later, I gave it a try, enjoyed it thoroughly, and longed to give that kid a kick in the hindquarters for costing me several decent meals here.

When Alpha Soda moved to their present location in 1995, the latest owners elected to spruce it up a bit and transform it into a somewhat upscale family restaurant, with an inspired interior design that evokes the fashionable Art Deco style of the 1920s. The menu apparently more than tripled in size, with several additions from the Greek-American school of dining that serves many of the region’s large family diners well. A meal here is quite similar to what you can receive at the famous Marietta Diner, only I find Alpha Soda much quieter and laid-back.

This past week, it was our friend Matt’s turn to pick some socializin’ activity for us to enjoy, and he suggested we get a small group together here, as it’s a little closer to his place in Gainesville than the rest of us in Cobb County. Illness and work prevented a very large crowd, but Kimberly came by to eat before heading back into Atlanta to teach a class at Oglethorpe, and Marie came straight up 400 from work, and my daughter and I made the fun overland trek across Post Oak Tritt Road.

Everybody seemed to enjoy their meals, although I was left with a little menu envy yet again. I had the pecan-encrusted tilapia, which was okay. The beets and the cucumber and tomato salad that I had as side dishes were more tasty, and the great big order of homemade potato chips sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning were even better. Matt had a terrific-looking London broil and Marie enjoyed an ugly-but-delicious meatloaf sandwich served with a very good, thick marinara sauce. Heck, even Kimberly’s big chicken caesar salad was better than my tilapia. Now what’s fair about that?

Fortunately, my comparatively disappointing meal was more than made up for by the dessert. We don’t often have a dessert when we go out, but, in deference to Alpha Soda’s fountain origins, I felt it appropriate to have some ice cream. They don’t mess around with these treats.

This was one heck of a good banana split. Marie and Ivy and I, combined, couldn’t quite finish it, but we enjoyed every second of the trying. It makes me wonder what the original, olde-timey 1920s version of Alpha Soda was like, and whether it wasn’t a more consistently fun and delightful experience.

The Majestic Diner, Atlanta GA

One of Atlanta’s signature restaurants, the Majestic has been sobering up drunken twentysomethings for about eighty years now. It seems like exactly the sort of place that, if I was traveling, I would wish to visit in some other town. In point of fact, it is reminiscent of the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire, and I can imagine food lovers in other cities putting the Majestic on their to-do list just as Marie and I did when we drove through New England last year.

Surprisingly, though, it just never occurs to me to eat at the Majestic. I’ve driven past the place hundreds of times on my way to somewhere else. I’m pretty certain that the first time that I ever stopped in was in late 2007, when Neal and I went down to the Landmark to see The Life of Reilly, a terrific film that recorded the great Charles Nelson Reilly’s final performance in his one-man play.

The Majestic, I realized then, is an absolutely perfect place to sit with an old friend late in the evening and talk about the film you’ve just seen. Its presence in the strip mall that houses the Plaza, Atlanta’s oldest running movie house and last independent cinema standing, is just the most wonderful bit of planning anybody could ask for. Whether you’re looking for a quiet sitdown and a cup of coffee after something impenetrable and foreign, or you’re needing to come down after watching the Lips Down on Dixie crew perform Rocky Horror, the Majestic’s doors are always open. It’s real estate like this that brings a brief twinge of envy into my suburban situation. When you live this far out and have to arrange evening plans around PTA meetings and band practice, it’s not quite so easy to enjoy a movie and a late meal without some advance planning.

After far too many years of not visiting the Plaza – the kids and I did go to an exhibition of rarely-seen wartime cartoons there a few years back, but as I recall, we ate at the Zesto in Little Five Points beforehand – last weekend, I got a hankering to see the Silver Scream Spook Show’s presentation of Godzilla on Monster Island. My son and I had a terrific time, completely unprepared as we were for the low-budget lunacy of the costumes and craziness before the film. I did guess, however, that expecting Marie and our daughter to sit through a Godzilla movie – especially a 1970s Jun Fukuda Godzilla movie – was a little much. I suggested that we all have lunch at the Majestic and then they could go shopping while my son and I enjoyed the movie.

We’ll all argue until doomsday who had the better afternoon, but we all agree that lunch was pretty great. My son had woken late and so had breakfast after everybody else, and so he just enjoyed a “Ponce de le Orange” milkshake which was fantastically tasty. Marie had a great chili dog and I had a Majestic Special, two patties with cheese. Oddly, Marie and I ended up ordering an unplanned reversal of the lunch we’d had the week before at Green Acres in Carnesville.

The Silver Scream Spook Show is performing again in October. Maybe I can convince the ladies they need to see that, and maybe I’ll have one of those orange milkshakes when we go. I had a sip of my son’s, you see, and it was really good.