Our son fell asleep, finally, on the road back from Johnson City as we returned to I-40. He snoozed and Marie and I braced ourselves for Knoxville’s Friday 5:00 traffic, which never came. We lucked out, I suppose, and our route, which brought us into town from the east and around the top of the I-640 half-a-loop to I-75, is outside whatever the local rush hour crushes. So we checked into our hotel without trouble, and carried him, sleeping, up to our room, where we kicked back for about an hour while he finished his nap. Continue reading “Litton’s and Denton’s, Knoxville TN”
Tag: tennessee
Dixie Barbeque Company, Johnson City TN (CLOSED)
When we went to the Tri-Cities, I knew that we’d be having some very unique and original barbecue at Ridgewood, but I wanted to try some more traditional pulled pork in the area as well. We arrived at Dixie Barbeque Company, a couple of miles north of downtown Johnson City and on our way back to I-81, in a quiet lull between their lunch and dinner rushes. A gentleman named Alan Howell opened this place in 1990, after spending almost twenty years in a couple of other restaurant jobs. In the 1980s, he owned a burger joint called Richard A’s, but eventually realized that he enjoyed barbecue even more than burgers. Apparently, some of the locals howled in protest when he closed Richard A’s, no matter how good his barbecue is, because while barbecue will always spark friendly disagreement, everybody concurs that the Tri-Cities haven’t had a hamburger as good as the ones that he used to make. Continue reading “Dixie Barbeque Company, Johnson City TN (CLOSED)”
Pal’s Sudden Service, Johnson City TN
So our spring trip was truncated from four days in western Tennessee to two days in eastern Tennessee. We started the road trip with the main destination, a very good restaurant that I’d wanted to visit for many years, but we weren’t about to leave the Tri-Cities area without a visit to a very neat little restaurant chain. Continue reading “Pal’s Sudden Service, Johnson City TN”
The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, Bluff City TN
Last month, the girlchild went to Knoxville for a week to spend her spring break with some of her other family up there. When it came time to retrieve her, I proposed a fun little two-day trip. We had originally planned to spend a long family weekend in Memphis when she returned, but some unplanned expenses killed that idea. We still needed to pick her up from her trip, but instead of a quick there-and-back day trip, I suggested that we take a little of the money that we didn’t spend and go visit northeastern Tennessee, come back to Knoxville in the evening and stay one night. We’d only driven through the northeastern region in a rush about five years before, on a long trip down I-81 from Baltimore to Asheville on our honeymoon. Continue reading “The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, Bluff City TN”
Community Pie, Chattanooga TN (take two)
While we enjoyed Community Pie, it had not been on our radar for an immediate return visit. Late last year, they reached out to us and let us know about an interesting change to their menu and insisted that we pay them a visit on their dime. I said that another trip to Chattanooga wasn’t on the immediate agenda, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer and sent us a gift certificate anyway. Continue reading “Community Pie, Chattanooga TN (take two)”
Tremont Tavern, Chattanooga TN
Department of long stories department: I really enjoy and respect blogs that are started with a specific goal and timeline in mind, so that they can tell their story and bring it to a close. One of these is Chattaburger. Over the spring and summer of last year, three guys picked seventeen of the best-known burger joints in and around the Scenic City, visited and wrote up each, and brought their blog to a satisfying, planned finale. That is a million times better than what often happens to blogs. Most of us hobbyists reach a sad conclusion where there’s a six-month gap in posting, and then the final entry is one that says “Sorry I’ve been away, life has been soooooo busy, but I’ve got a lot more to say and will be back with more soon!” That was in 2012. Continue reading “Tremont Tavern, Chattanooga TN”
Mad Donna’s, Nashville TN (CLOSED)
In the early 2000s, our friend Tory drove this wonderful clunker of a car that filled the air with toxic fumes and which she called Answers. I was in Nashville to visit her and she took me to supper at the celebrated Radio Cafe. This seems to have been in late 2003; the Cafe was closed for a couple of years but reopened around that time. I remember having a wonderful evening and seeing some live music. I also remember, when she started Answers’ engine at the end of the evening, the emissions-failing schlepcar instantly killed the bush that we’d parked next to. She took the regular ribbing over Answers being such a threat to our environment with good humor. Answers has since gone to that big junkyard in the sky. Antarctica thanks her. Continue reading “Mad Donna’s, Nashville TN (CLOSED)”
Marie, Let's Eat! 