Vandy’s Bar-B-Q, Statesboro GA

Sadly, Vandy’s Bar-B-Q might well hold my personal, unfortunate record for longest time between being recommended a restaurant and actually visiting it. I have mentioned that, once upon a time, I maintained a small Geocities web page about barbecue restaurants in Georgia. Some reader wrote me in what might have been late 1999 – I seem to remember mentioning it to a classmate during that period – and urged me to come down to Statesboro to give it a try. Oh, it only took me the better part of twelve years, but I made it.

Over the years, I’ve seen many more references to Vandy’s. It is one of the state’s best-known barbecue joints. It was opened by Vandy Boyd in 1929, and moved to its present location in 1943. The building is quite remarkable. It manages to look like the bad side of town in a town that does not, in fact, seem to have a bad side. What we saw of Statesboro was a charming small middle Georgia college town – and yes, I do consider this still to be middle Georgia. It’s north of I-16 and Savannah, so it’s not strictly south Georgia in my book. Anyway, Statesboro looks like a quite nice little town, and while I’m sure there must have been a break-in or three over the decades to account for the bars on the windows and the industrial door, this restaurant looks almost comically out of place.

The business remained in family hands until Vandy Boyd’s son sold it in 1984. It was sold again in 2006. It has remained an essential part of Statesboro and Georgia Southern University life ever since. It really seems that whether they eat downtown or at the satellite location at the nearby mall – which keeps much more traveler-friendly hours, is open for supper and on Sundays – everybody in the region will visit Vandy’s at least once.

When we stopped in for lunch a couple of Saturdays back, apart from the mild comedic shock of seeing such an out-of-place building, we were most impressed by the Brunswick stew. This is much more like Kentucky’s burgoo than any other stew that we have tried in Georgia. It was absolutely packed with extra ingredients that you don’t usually see in stew, including pinto beans, carrots and peas.

The chopped pork is very moist and didn’t really have the flavor that I personally prefer, but I did enjoy it all the same. It did, admittedly, go better with the sauce than dry, and this sauce is one of the region’s best-known concoctions. It’s a South Carolina-style mustard-based sauce, but it is both sweet and spicy. It reflects the light like honey. The sauce resembles the house sauce used at Turner’s or Beaver Creek or whatever the heck that very good place out past Six Flags is calling itself this month. This was interesting and a really tasty meal. I won’t hype it up and claim it is one of my favorites, but it is certainly worth checking out if you’re interested in experiencing more of the striking variations in barbecue styles in this state.

I spoke briefly with our server and some of the staff behind the counter as Marie and my daughter left to get the start the engine and get the car cooled down before we loaded the baby in it. I think that we were all a little more interested in talking about my adorable son than about barbecue, so I didn’t really learn much more about the place than I had read online, but I was amused by the big ole shelf stacked with loafs of Sunbeam white bread. They go through a lot of that over the course of a week.

I loaded up on sweet tea and we got back out on the road. Neither Marie nor I had really driven through much of this part of the state before. If eastern middle Georgia can be described, and not completely without cause, as nowhere, then we drove through the middle of it. State Route 17 really is something to see if you’re one of those weird people who insists on seeing things that nobody needs to see. Louisville, Georgia, which, like Louisville, Kentucky is the seat of a county named Jefferson, might warrant another spin through to try a place called Purvis that I once read somebody praising. Marie had actually driven part of this run, on US-1, a few times driving from Augusta down to Saint Simons Island, but that corridor avoids GA-17.

Our last stop of the trip was, coincidentally, a place on the outskirts of Augusta, and it would prove to be the food highlight of our trip. More about that in the next chapter.

Palmer’s Village Cafe, Saint Simons Island GA

I find a lot of things frustrating about writing, and one of them is communicating that something is enjoyable, and sometimes very enjoyable, without being the number one absolute favorite thing that I’ve ever eaten. Part of me chalks this up to poor expression on my part, but I think that the reality is that it’s really poor reading comprehension on the part of one or two people who get the wrong end of the tail. I have been blogging or journalling for more than a decade now, and I’ve seen it happen quite a lot, even from close friends who glance over something that I’ve written and completely misunderstand it. I would much rather say that I must have been unclear than blame them for being numbskulls. Well, I guess it depends who is reading. I know one or two numbskulls. Continue reading “Palmer’s Village Cafe, Saint Simons Island GA” →

Another Visit to Saint Simons Island GA

As many of our readers know, Marie and I are fortunate and happy to make four or five trips to the Georgia coast each year to visit her mother and her father, who are very happy to have a grandson come and visit. Saint Simons Island is packed with very good restaurants. There are, disagreeably, a few chains on the place, but a couple of them are local chains, so we give those guys a little business. Continue reading “Another Visit to Saint Simons Island GA” →

Willie’s Wee-Nee Wagon, Brunswick GA

I have mentioned that I keep a little to-do list of restaurants that I hope to visit one day. Actually, it’s gone a little past the point where we can call it a list. It is more like a novella. Towards the end of February, I read a short mention of Brunswick’s famous Willie’s Wee Nee Wagon and decided that we needed to stop by. At that point, we were actually just about two weeks from a visit to the coast, but, as you might have ascertained, Marie and I sort of plan our trips out somewhat in advance, and I already had plans that didn’t include swinging past the Wagon. So I was a little surprised when we did. Continue reading “Willie’s Wee-Nee Wagon, Brunswick GA” →

Peachtree Cafe at Lane Southern Orchards, Ft. Valley GA

We are achingly close to a full set of the Georgia restaurants reviewed at Roadfood.com. One on their list had long confused me a little about when best to stop by for a visit. It’s Lane Southern Orchards, a gigantic agribusiness about fifteen miles south of Macon near the town of Fort Valley. I wasn’t entirely sure what would be good to eat here other than fresh peaches. Turns out that they do have a cafeteria, so we just needed to wait for a trip down to the coast to visit Marie’s mother and her father that coincided with our state’s peach season, and we could mark it off our list. Continue reading “Peachtree Cafe at Lane Southern Orchards, Ft. Valley GA” →

Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, Atlanta GA

Fat Matt’s is one of those places that is so small and so popular that I have never been a regular. I really don’t enjoy the challenge of parking at a place where it is such a chore to either get in or get out, and there have been more occasions in the past where I had planned to eat there, been discouraged and left than there have actual instances of me sitting down to some food and, most evenings, live blues. This is a pretty good place to eat, though. Sometimes, that discouragement that I’ve felt has bubbled into serious aggravation that the fates were against me.

For many years, they operated a second business in the building next door. Fat Matt’s Chicken Shack is now closed, but for a good while there, you could enjoy some of the best fried chicken in Atlanta. The only plus side to it shuttering is that there are one or two extra parking spaces available now.

Well, lines out the door are usually not a green flag for me to come eat, and indeed it had been many years since we’d stopped by for some food. Early last month, however, Roadfood.com added a couple more places to their small library of Georgia restaurants. So Marie and I buckled up the baby, promised my daughter a bowl of stew, and asked David to come along and eat with us. We arrived at 11.30 on a Saturday, right as they opened. There was one space available to park – behind the old Chicken Shack – and a line out the door. There’s always a line out the door.

The review at Roadfood.com suggests that the building once housed a Krispy Kreme. It is certainly an old one, and it doesn’t seat very many, even with a patio. When there’s a band playing, it is packed and loud and sweaty and all kinds of wonderful, if you enjoy a slab of very good ribs in the company of lots of strangers guzzling beer.

How Fat Matt’s manages to make such tasty barbecue is a genuine mystery, as they roast over charcoal rather than wood. The meat is moist – perhaps overly so, as it comes presauced with their tangy red tomato-based mixture – and flavorful, but that unmistakable smoked wood taste that informs the best barbecue is not present here. For many years, fans have been marveling at how this place can break whatever rules that people hold dearest about barbecue so casually and still turn out such tasty food.

For my part, while the chopped pork is very good despite not being what I’m usually looking for in barbecue, I really wish they would not presauce it. I’d love to try it dry one day. The Brunswick stew is pretty good, but not among any of our favorites. The rum baked beans are just terrific, though. There’s just enough of a hint of rum to be noticeable, and they make an excellent accompaniment to the meat. I really love these! Honestly, the only thing this place does that I cannot get behind is serving up boring old Lay’s potato chips. If they must offer chips from a bag, I wish that they were Golden Flake brand.

After lunch, we drove the hop and skip – it’s not even an “and jump” away – over to Grindhouse Killer Burgers for dessert. David wanted to try one of these burgers that everybody’s talking about and pronounced it pretty good, while the rest of us enjoyed some malts. Marie had already made the bold claim that the chocolate malt here is one of the very best in the city. I had a vanilla and, honestly, it was pretty darn good, but not even close to being as good as the amazing malts at Chapman Drugs.

There’s a heck of a lot of good eating within walking distance on this leg of Piedmont and Cheshire Bridge. I’m curious to try Sheik Burritos some day soon. I’ll probably have to follow that up with a malt from Grindhouse as well.

Sr. Sol, Athens GA

Two weeks after he was born, Marie and I took a trip to Athens to show off the baby. A month later, we made a somewhat more low-key trip to just visit a new-to-me restaurant and swing by the place where Marie and I used to work to see some old co-workers and friends. She and I did not start dating until 2006, but we first met around 1995 or so. I left that job in the spring of 2000 and she eight years later. Naturally, darn near all the people that I knew have moved on in the last eleven years since I was there, but I did get to speak with four people from all that time ago. Continue reading “Sr. Sol, Athens GA” →