1968 at Cafe 101, Doraville GA (CLOSED)

Here’s a place that we’ve been intending to visit for ages now, and not necessarily because of the food. In fact, the restaurant has changed owners since I first thought about stopping in for a meal, and, slightly, changed names. Many, many different restaurants (and, apparently, a car dealership!) have found a home in the old Oogleblook building on Buford Highway. Sensational Subs – a very nearly defunct Atlanta chain with, apparently, only one location remaining – had a store here in the 1990s. It has been called Café 101 since at least 2005, but there have been at least three tenants in that time, with three different menus. It’s been a Chinese restaurant since late 2007. In August, the restaurant was quietly renamed 1968 at Café 101, after the year that Chef Kao began cooking in Taiwan. His partner, Chef Yang, specializes in northern Chinese dishes. Continue reading “1968 at Cafe 101, Doraville GA (CLOSED)” →

Shrimp Boats: The Story of a Shipwreck and its Survivors

(Second edition, Sept, 2015)

One of the most fun elements of our hobby has been researching long-lost southeastern restaurant chains. It’s comparatively easy to get a little backstory about a single business, but the story can become much more convoluted and fascinating when we’re digging into the past for little traces of what’s left when something distinctive and fun is trying to vanish. We’ve enjoyed learning about the story of Zesto in Atlanta and Columbia, and really loved tracking down what we found about Kay’s, Kay’s Kastles, and Ice Castle. Continue reading “Shrimp Boats: The Story of a Shipwreck and its Survivors” →

Sobban, Decatur GA (CLOSED)

I’ll cut straight to the point: Jiyeon Lee and Cody Taylor have opened another restaurant called Sobban, and, like their first, the mighty Heirloom Market Bar-B-Que, they are serving very good food that has a huge crowd of curious and impatient diners in far too small a space. I was mostly very pleased with our experience, but then again, I seem to tolerate the October cold better than some do. Continue reading “Sobban, Decatur GA (CLOSED)” →

Tostones Latin Cafe, Doraville GA (CLOSED)

This is Marie, contributing an article about Tostones Latin Cafe, a Carribean/Latin American style restaurant on Buford Highway. Strictly speaking, tostones are pounded fried plantains. This restaurant tops those with meat (chorizo, chicken, steak, etc.) and other ingredients. We were contrary and didn’t have any. Continue reading “Tostones Latin Cafe, Doraville GA (CLOSED)” →

Mr. D’s Barbeque, Austell GA (CLOSED)

One evening last month, while the girlchild was busy with football and friends, Marie and I took a badly overstimulated baby over to Austell to strike another Atlanta-area barbecue joint off our to-do list. The little fellow fell asleep in the car, exhausted after an afternoon spent refusing to nap, and so he missed all the deterioration and sprawl of the southern part of the county. After crossing the East-West Connector, Austell Road takes drivers through some really ugly dilapidation. I’ve always had a soft spot for South Cobb High School because I like the way their stadium is backed right up to and above the street, but all this blight around it and Clay Road is unfortunate. Continue reading “Mr. D’s Barbeque, Austell GA (CLOSED)” →

Martin’s, Austell GA

Ages back, sometime in this blog’s infancy, I intended to follow a metaphor to its conclusion and tell you good readers a little about Martin’s. As metaphors go, this is not the most accurate, but you know how Birmingham is home to a fast food chain called Milo’s and it is surrounded in the suburbs by another chain called Jack’s? Well, Zesto in Atlanta is similarly surrounded in this city’s suburbs by Martin’s. Kind of. I mean, there are something like 140 Jack’s all over north Alabama and peeking into neighboring states, and there are only fifteen Martin’s, almost all of which are in the northwestern suburbs and nowhere near an interstate exit, but it’s a little bit similar. Continue reading “Martin’s, Austell GA” →

Grillmaster, Perry GA

Let me take a few sentences to recap the background and reasoning behind this trip to middle Georgia. Marie’s mother and her father live on Saint Simons Island, and we often go and visit them. For many years, we had been taking various long ways, to see different places and things more interesting than I-16. Since we had the baby, however, I started to rethink our policy and decided that, in future, we should hammer down and stick to the interstate and get down there as quickly as possible, so the grandparents get more good baby-time, and so the baby doesn’t have such an incredibly long and meandering car trip. Continue reading “Grillmaster, Perry GA” →