Bell Street Burritos, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)

Every once in a while, objectivity flies right out the window here at our blog in favor of wild, emphatic gushing. This is one of those chapters.

When I was living in Athens, and waxing eloquent about the amazing Mean Bean to anybody who would listen, I would occasionally get reports back from Atlanta about a place called Tortillas. They predated the Mean Bean by a few years, long enough to already have an imitator, Frijoleros, that I tried once in the late eighties. Somehow, though, possibly because high schoolers have far less of an awareness of the world around them than they would like to think, I never heard of Tortillas, or it never registered, until the early nineties, when I started reading papers like Creative Loafing and hearing every one of the burrito joints in Atlanta compared, unfavorably, to the mighty Tortillas. In time, there was a craze that started. Raging Burrito, Z-Teca (which became Qdoba), Chipotle, Willy’s, Moe’s and plenty of others started up, and, in time, Tortillas started feeling the effects. They shuttered in the spring of 2003, after a 19-year run. Continue reading “Bell Street Burritos, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)” →

Mot’s Bar-B-Que, Augusta GA

We’ve come to the end of our 520-mile road trip. The seventh and final stop of the day, or night, as it were, came a little north of Augusta, between the suburbs of Martinez and Evans at a business that had a different name than what I was expecting. It’s called Mot’s Bar-B-Que, but in one of those silly little Urbanspoon quirks, it was, for some reason, misidentified there as simply “Motty.” Continue reading “Mot’s Bar-B-Que, Augusta GA” →

Luigi’s, Augusta GA

This is Marie, contributing an article about a place that my father and I went to together when he lived in Augusta. My dad liked Luigi’s because it had Greek chicken, was convenient, and had a plate on the floor in front of the door stating “On this date in 1870 nothing happened”. (It is possible I may have slightly misremembered the date.) My dad is the kind of person for whom a tickle to the funny bone is worth twelve great meals. And this place seems to have offered him more than twelve. Grant had originally scheduled a popular burrito place, Nacho Mama’s, to sample as we drove through Augusta, but, protesting that he’d reached his limit, asked whether I’d mind having the burrito and telling him how it was. If that was going to be the case, I would rather visit a restaurant that’s important to my memory.

Luigi’s is a family type restaurant on the bad side of downtown. The restaurant has been in place since 1949, and a lot of bad things have happened to downtowns since then; Augusta doesn’t seem to have escaped from even one. For goodness sakes, there’s even a pillar that is supposedly able to strike you dead. The pillar does seem somewhat forgiving to work crews that move or repair it, so I have to assume that the curse was displaced onto the downtown itself. There’s even a pool hall, a tattoo parlor and a strip club in the otherwise mostly empty row of shop fronts where Luigi’s lives. And it does live – the place was packed, and early, when we got there with only two booths left available, and a wait list swiftly built up while we waited for our food to arrive. Local legend has it that the actor Jackie Gleason, in town for the Masters in the 1970s, followed up his meal at Luigi’s with an all-night hustling in the pool hall next door.

The original owner’s son currently runs the place. Curiously, neither of them was actually named Luigi. He’d been in an entirely different field of work and moved back to town to take care of his Dad, and wound up taking over the business. The decor is very strongly influenced by golf and ’50s music. The booth where we sat had in a large frame an almost uninterrupted run of Masters badges going back to the early ’60s, including one labeled as being a counterfeit. The kitsch is amusing and the juke box by the door works.

Reviews of the food vary from highly positive to lukewarm; there seems to be some variability in the quality. The menu has a curious combination of American Italian and Greek recipes, and my dad’s choice was generally the Greek chicken. That is a half chicken, roasted for at least 2 hours, and served with salad, rolls, a side, and lots of gravy. The meat is tender and flavorful without being overspiced. Of course there was no reason for me to buy anything except that for this visit.

This chicken was one of the few things he mentioned missing when he moved away from Augusta. One time when I was still living in Athens, I decided on a whim to drop by Luigi’s “on my way” to St. Simons Island and bring my Dad some Greek chicken. It only added a couple of hours to the trip, but it connected me with my grandfather, who was known to drive five hours or more out of his way (he would regularly drive between Minnesota and Mexico) to have a cup of coffee in my mother’s kitchen for twenty minutes. On the whole, I don’t know that anyone else would need to go that far out of the way for this place, but it made me happy to visit.

Falafel King, Decatur GA

A couple of Fridays ago, my plans got changed. There’s a restaurant – it would be churlish to name them before I give them another try, so let their identity slide – that I had hoped to visit some time ago. Now, I knew that I wanted to go get some lunch on Friday, but not where. On Thursday evening, I opened the brand new issue of Southern Living that had arrived in our mailbox, and wowed at the description of an item that this place makes. It isn’t on their menu; you have to know to ask for it. So at eleven sharp, I arrived, ready to eat, and grumbled that they didn’t open for another half hour. I sat in Starbuck’s with a mediocre doughnut and read for a bit. Eventually, I walked over, placed my order, paid my money, and was then told that, oh, me oh my, they weren’t going to have this interesting item today after all. I got my money back and looked for something else to eat. Continue reading “Falafel King, Decatur GA” →

Keba Spitfire Grill, Athens GA

Here is a restaurant that I remember well from back when it had an even sillier name. See, about three years ago, Achim Reus, who, before he became a restaurateur, was once the principal French horn player in the Stuttgart Philharmonic, decided that it was time to corporatize the restaurants that he’d been running since 1999 or 2000 or so. Back then, he had two in Athens and they were called Achim’s K-Bobs. There was one downtown and one by the track and the football practice fields and I really enjoyed them. They were proper, ramshackle restaurants for a college town and I ate at each of the two frequently. Continue reading “Keba Spitfire Grill, Athens GA” →

J. Christopher’s, Kennesaw GA

This is Marie, contributing an article about breakfast. Recently, my brother came for a visit. He is more of a hearty eater than I am. For one thing, he likes bacon. Although we have a number of excellent breakfast places, my current dietary limitations mean it’s not quite as much fun to go to places like the delightful Stilesboro Biscuits. On his first day here, we went to a national chain restaurant. I decided that for his second day here that an alternate had to be found. Which is ironic, because we wound up going to a chain after all – the difference being that it was a local chain that started right here in Marietta. Karl suggested J. Christopher’s, and I am glad he pointed it out because otherwise I might not have known it was that local. They currently have 22 stores in Georgia and Tennessee. Continue reading “J. Christopher’s, Kennesaw GA” →

Lucky’s Burgers and Brew, Roswell GA

Marie’s brother Karl was in town a couple of Saturdays ago and in the mood for a burger. I don’t know that Marie and I were being the best of hosts by not taking him to a reliable favorite instead of taking the chance on something untried, but we wanted to visit someplace new for our blog and so passed on a trip to Farm Burger or something excellent like that, and instead looked on Urbanspoon for the highest-ranked burger joint in Atlanta within a reasonable drive where we had not visited. Continue reading “Lucky’s Burgers and Brew, Roswell GA” →