San Antonio Taco Company, Nashville TN

On one of those whirlwind tours around Nashville that I experienced from the back seat of one of my friends’ cars in the early 2000s, we whizzed past San Antonio Taco Company and I said that I must try them one day. It took me a few years, and while I was never a regular, I ate there three or four times before we began blogging. It is a fun and very busy place that goes a small way toward remedying the inescapable reality of being a Vanderbilt undergrad. Nashville isn’t a college town. There’s no culture here, like you see in Oxford or Athens, of small, quirky, inexpensive places for college students to go off campus and eat dirt cheap. Well, there’s a stretch a little down the road in the Belcourt neighborhood, where Pancake Pantry is, that almost feels right, but on the north end of campus, there’s Rotier’s and Hog Heaven and the Ellison Place Soda Shop going one direction, and this place and Noshville on another, but it’s all spread out across very busy roads and punctuated by lots of national chains. Continue reading “San Antonio Taco Company, Nashville TN”

Rick’s Barbecue, Murfreesboro TN

So the road took us back to Tennessee for a couple of days. Marie had some time off and wanted to visit her family, and I didn’t quite have the hours accrued to take the days that she wanted, so instead, she took the baby and went south, and I took the girlchild and went north. I even did the good deed, perhaps, of ringing the girlchild’s mother and offering to let the two of ’em have a few hours together. Continue reading “Rick’s Barbecue, Murfreesboro TN”

Nikki’s Drive Inn, Chattanooga TN

No city has generated as many suggestions from our readers and friends as Chattanooga has, and on this most recent trip, I wanted to be sure to visit one of them. It’s actually a place that an acquaintance from the Roadfood.com message boards, “Littleman,” first suggested a couple of years ago, but we’ve also got emails from three different people assuring us that it fits our sensibilities just perfectly. Longtime readers with long memories may recall that “Littleman” has pointed us in the right directions several times before (we have him to thank for Green Acres and The Little Dooey, among others), and he’s still batting a thousand. Everybody has told us that we needed to try the shrimp and the onion rings, and here they are, printed right on front of the menu: “World Famous Jumbo Shrimp and Onion Rings.” Continue reading “Nikki’s Drive Inn, Chattanooga TN”

Pure Sodaworks in Bottles

The second best move that the good people at Pure Sodaworks have made lately has been the employment of a young fellow whom our girlchild finds radiant and dreamy. I’m not sure what the fellow’s name is, but he sure does keep the girlchild excited to go to Tennessee. Continue reading “Pure Sodaworks in Bottles”

Community Pie, Chattanooga TN

This is Marie, suitably contributing an article about dessert. Our daughter and I enjoyed a very good one on our trip to Chattanooga, and we were in serious need of a recharge when we came to it. We had visited the Creative Discovery Museum with our friends from The Boys Made Me Do It, and completely wore out the baby. This was our third or fourth visit to this children’s museum, and it is great fun seeing the baby grow up and explore new areas of it. Continue reading “Community Pie, Chattanooga TN”

Lupi’s Pizza Pies, Chattanooga TN

We had been wanting to visit McKay in Chattanooga for another round of book selling. We are in the process of changing our plans to relocate to Asheville from “pipe dream” to “possibility,” and one thing that definitely needs to change first is the size of our material world. So, over the last several weeks, we have filled four diaper boxes with old paperbacks. On the last Saturday in February, we made plans for another day trip to one of our favorite cities, incorporating stops at our usual places, including Pure Sodaworks and the Creative Discovery Museum, along with some new restaurants. Best of all, we met up with some of the team from The Boys Made Me Do It, a terrifically fun blog, to break some bread and play at the children’s museum. Continue reading “Lupi’s Pizza Pies, Chattanooga TN”

Mojo Burrito, Chattanooga TN

On our previous trip to Tennessee, we stopped for supper at Mojo Burrito in Red Bank and enjoyed the visit a lot. This small chain has three stores, and one of them, conveniently, is not far from I-75, absolutely perfect for people traveling between Knoxville and Atlanta who don’t have lots of time to detour into Chattanooga properly. That described our situation just perfectly. Continue reading “Mojo Burrito, Chattanooga TN”