April 24, 2024 • 50 mins
Chattanooga, Tennessee, is called Scenic City thanks to its location on the Tennessee River and its expansive mountain vistas. Popular with outdoor enthusiasts and Civil War history buffs, the city offers many family-friendly attractions. Chattanooga is also an historic Snack City where both Moon-Pies and Little Debbie Snack Cakes in nearby Collegedale were created in the early 1900s. Melanie grew up in Chattanooga. She and David share their dining recommendations and favorite attractions.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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W FOURCY Radio. Hello, andwelcome to the Connected Table Live. We're
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your hosts, Melanie Young and DavidRansom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple.
We enjoy bringing you the people wemeet and the places we visit around the
world to encourage you to spread yourwings and taste and save your life at
It's full. You're listening on Wfour CY Radio Live every Wednesday at two
pm Eastern, but you can hearall the shows anytime anywhere on demand on
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more than forty six podcast channels,including some of your favorite Well, we're
going to take you on a triptoday. We like doing that sometimes.
No guests, it's just David andI and where are we going. We're
going to actually your hometown, Melanie. Yeah, a place that you know
quite a lot about, and placethat I got to know over the last
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couple of years as we were theretaking care of your mother. And so
we're going to take a little roadtrip up Route fifty nine from New Orleans
to Chattanooga. Today we're broadcasting fromNew Orleans, which happens to be our
new home, but we're going totake you to my former home where I
was born and raised. It's acity that has had quite the phoenix rising
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from the ashes in many ways.Many cities in the United States have it
was. It's a very historic TOWNAuh, this is a fun fact.
What do R and B performer Usher, actor Samuel L. Jackson, the
late blues singer Bessie Smith, andthe popular Lake comedic actors Leslie Jordan and
Jim Naghbors aka Gomer Pile all havingcoming. They're former Chattanoogas. That's right,
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fun fact. Usher was just there, Yes, he was just there.
Actually after the Super Bowl he wentthere, right. It's a big
to do. It's frequently referred toas the scenic city or locals like me
called it Nooga. Chattanooga sits ina very strategic location in southeastern Tennessee because
Tennessee is a very long state eastto west, very different. Chattanooga is
close to the Georgia and Alabama statelines. In fact, driving down to
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New Orleans, I think we gothrough three states Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama,
and you leave from Tennessee. It'son the Tennessee River and at the
foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains,so you can get to the most Smoky
mountains within two hours. North lineis close by three hours, or you
can go south and continue along torecreational hiking and beautiful areas in north Georgia
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and Alabama. The name Chattanooga isderived from the satunoogi Satunogi, which is
a Cherokee Indian language meaning rock comingto a point or end of the mountain,
and it is a city surrounded bymountains. Right David is surrounded by
a bunch of mountains, and theTennessee River goes right through it as well,
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so it divides the north side ofChattanooga from the south side of Chattanooga,
although it's still one city on bothsides of the river, which of
course, many cities are not.You know, they may be a metropolitan
area, but they divide at theriver, and this does not. So
you may be wondering while we werevisiting it after we Jeff's left, Well,
sometimes you have clarity when you goand spend time at a place,
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You leave the place and you canreflect back. And we felt that Chattanooga
deserved a show because it's an interestingplace to visit. And as David said,
and I know, it was whereI was born and raised. I
left after many, many years toexpand my wings and spread my horizons and
establish my own imprint in New YorkCity. But as David noted, we
came back to take care of mymother, and the city that we actually
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moved back to and in for twoyears was dramatically different. I bet it
was. It was so just thelittle grown a lot over the last twenty
years or so. But let's takeit back further. Actually, Chattanooga was
a very strategic and major played amajor role in the War between the States.
It was a battlefield for three conflicts, the Battle of Lookout Mountain,
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the Battle of Missionary Ridge, andthe Battle of Orchard Not in fact,
Lookout Mountain. Sigma Mountain were namedthat because that they will lookouts and signals
to warn people of impending troops comingin you. Today you can find Civil
War eeric cannons and historic markers inall these locations and a little further over
the border in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, because I remember I said Chadoock was
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right on the border of other states. You can go to the beautiful Chattanooga
Battlefield and Chattanooga National Military Park tosit and reflect on the magnitude of where
Chattanooga played in this war in somevery historic battles. So a lot of
history that seems to surround you inthis area. Yeah, that's a lot
of history. You know. It'sinteresting because we drove down when we left
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Chattanooga last earlier this month, wedrove down through or was it last month
last month? Yeah, we drovedown through Mississippi and we went to Vicksburg,
which has another one of those militaryparks from a very famous battle,
and the one in Chickamauga is alot like that. Lots of markers,
lots of historical facts and figures thatyou can go and check out along the
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way. It's really a beautiful andkind of serene place, even though a
lot of horror took place in thosefields. So, like many cities in
the war between the state's southern cities. After the war and the south loss
and many southerns about that, Northernerscame down and started building and there was
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a massive rebuilding and Chattnooga, becauseof its strategic location on the Tennessee River
with access to waterways, became amajor trading area and a lot of manufacturing
developed. Also strategic was the locationof Southern Railway. Chattanooga, in addition
to being on the water was acentral center for the Southern Railway. And
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you know this is the Chadnooga ChuChuo, the song immortalized by Glenn Miller.
So there was that was highways werebeing built and Chattanooga became a major
center for highways, railways and waterways. So the city grew into a manufacturing
center. David where there's a proand a con. The pro was many
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people made a lot of money,and a lot of New Yorkers came in
and Midwesterns came in and set upbusiness and became very very wealthy. Land
was cheap, labor was cheap,and the city became very, very wealthy,
and there's some very wealthy families thatlive in Chattanooga today based on coming
from outside of the South as wellas Southerners. The downside to that,
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David, was when I was growingup, Channooga was named one of the
most polluted cities in the United States, I think by one of the major
business magazines, and I can't rememberwhich one, but it was known for
not having not taken care of thelocal environment. And so the downside to
that was a couple of things.People left because they wanted to go elsewhere.
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The stores. It was you eitherworked for a family run manufacturing company
or something like that, but therewas not a lot of opportunity and a
lot of people left. Downtown wasvery different. There were beautiful department stores,
Loveman's Millers where the big ones,Pickets and Ira Rivers were the especially
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stores for women and men. Butyou'd also see drunks and vagrants on the
street corners with empty bottles of youknow, Underberg or whatever they drink.
You know, No, I don'tknow what eat of that one though,
mad Dog, mad Dog, sorrymad Dog. You would see that.
On another corner there would be likeBible belt or something and preaching doom and
gloom, and it became kind oficky to go downtown. And Mole started
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getting built and actually chatting Goes nowhome one of the largest malls in the
southeast Hamilton Place. So long storyshort, I, like many young people,
left to go spread my wings,to go elsewhere because I didn't see
a future in Chattanooga. Then whenyou came into my life and we came
back, I started spending a littlemore time there with my family. As
my parents, you know, gettingolder, it became a vastly different city.
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Why because a lot of the peoplestarted to invest back into the infrastructure.
There were the town elders as theylike to call themselves, and your
mother included, took it upon themselvesto say, if we're going to save
the city and get people to stay, we're going to have to invest in
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the infrastructure and rebuild it to bea more desirable place to live. And
that's exactly what they did. Andit was really a long term plan.
I mean we're talking about I leftin the late seventies early eighties and Chattnoga
really was not in great shape andit was becoming down trot. It had
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been impacted by inflation and all thethings are going on in the rest of
the United States with these southern cities, and this is something you see everywhere,
not just Chattanooga. It happens,and we've traveled a lot. We've
seen some cities that still haven't comeback. But the city elders invested and
they invested in making Chattanooga cleaner andgreener, so you know, more energy
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efficient, a faster internet service.When the technology took off, they knew
that would attract people and businesses,and it certainly has because it's a big
mecca for remote workers. Now.They rebuilt the waterfront, which was when
I grew up, just littered withtrash. You would never go down on
the waterfront. It was just emptyyards, industrial yard. You would just
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never go there. And they rebuiltand now there's a great bike path.
You can go from Chickamauga Dam,Chattanooga's home from the Tennessee Valley Authority,
which is a major employer in thedam. You can bike from the dam
all the way to the foot oflook I'm Mountain into the Georgia border,
which we've kind of done in parts, but it's very green and they did
that on both sides of the river. They invested in parks, They invested
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in cleaning up the city and makingit more family friendly, community focused,
a lot of investment arts and culture. You mentioned my mother. She was
very involved in bringing the arts tothe Chattanooga community with a great theater,
opera, symphony, ballet, andthe Hunter Museum, which is the largest
museum dedicated to American art in thesoutheast. So this did not happen overnight.
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So I left in technically nineteen seventyseven eighty it was still in com
So when I headed out and landin my first shop in Atlanta in eighty
two, I never went back exceptfor like holidays. Then we came back,
as you said, to take careof my mother, and it was
a vasi different place and we couldgo biking and do things. And the
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areas that you would never go to, remember those never go to lock your
doors, have now been revitalized andthey include like the South Side and former
Martin and Martin Luther King Boulevard whichused to be Ninth Street, and Saint
Elmo. These were areas you wouldjust never go, but now they're filled
with little boutiques and cafes, andthe inacral tattoo and vape shops because there
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is a university there. There's acouple of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
It's a big employer and so youget a lot of young people, right
absolutely, you know, I wantto go back to Chattanooga's early history too
and just touch on the fact thatthe Chattanooga National Cemetery, which is a
military cemetery where you're with your parentsare buried. My father was buried there
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because he was a World War aKorean War veteran, and a West Point
grad. And your mother was buriedwith him when she passed away as well.
Last in twenty twenty two, Iwanted to point out that it's the
largest military cemetery outside of Arlington NationalCemetery. It's a great point. So
it's a beautiful, beautiful, scenic, beautiful place, very Bucolic. My
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parents' graves are buried together. It'sa beautiful view, and there's also a
it's interestingly near there, there's aConfederate cemetery and then there's a separate seminary
for Afro Americans. It's still segrating. Chantanooga was very segregated growing up.
I mean, there was where theAfro Americans lived and it was a definitely
ghetto, and the whites and LookoutMountains where wealthy people lived. The wealthy
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people lived high on the mountains,on Missionary Ridge and Elder Mountain and Rakou
Mountain and on and on. Nowit's much more integrated and it's totally a
different place. So things speaking ofhistory, and I did want to point
it out, and then we'll getinto the food part because this is the
connected table. But also important andI'm kind of proud about, is that
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Chattanooga is the home to the NewYork Times. And growing up, I
wanted to be a journalist more thananything. And I got my first gig
writing for the local paper. Itwas not the Chattanooga Times, it was
their competitor, the Chatnooga News FreePress. In the days of newspapers,
there was two daily newspapers, andI got one. The Exhem family,
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Helen Exhem, gave me my firstjob, which I'll always be grateful for.
But what's interesting is Adolph Ox,who was one of the small but
important members of Chattanooga's Jewish community,which my family was. They came over
in the eighteen hundreds. After thewar Civil War, he invested in a
failing newspaper in Chattanooga, built theChattanooga Times, and then took his profits
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and invested in a failing New Yorkpaper and called it the New York Times
and the Ox Saltzburger Family because therewas marriages in there. Still family run
is from Chattanooga, and the Chattanoogais probably home to the New York Times,
which a lot of people don't know. Yeah, it's a great story.
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Actually, yeah, I feel theChattanooga Times. Of course it no
longer exists, but the New YorkTimes certainly does. The Chattanooga Times is
now the Chattanooga Times Free Press.So in the world of diminishing newspapers,
the two merged the xems and nowit's one paper. And it used to
be great. You get the paperand you could get the Sunday paper.
Remember the other days you read thepaper. And now it's all digital and
pooh pooh and not fun anymore.Because I miss newspapers, I'm going to
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go out and them. I missnewspapers. I love thumbing through papers.
But I guess I'm in a minority, right, No, you're not in
a minority. It's just unfortunately itdoesn't pay the print. I know.
And we used to have great radiostations there, just because we're on a
podcast, really fun radio stations andstill there Wgow, Gary McKee, I
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think he passed, but Wgow andthen we had a weatherman, Luther Massingill,
and I have to throw him outbecause we love local TV. We're
kind of getting into the New Orleanswas now. But there was a station
called WDEF and Luther was the longtimeweatherman and also the announcer of lost Animals
and pets and whenever there was anysign of a snowflake, because one snowflake
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could bring the entire city down becausenobody knew how to drive in the snow.
You would hear teachers and parents alikesay, listen to Luther. You
always listen to Luther. There's actuallya street named after him. Interestingly,
he passed when I was visiting mymother and I remember screaming, Mom,
Luther and died. I mean,we thought Luther was going to last forever.
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But now there's a Luther masson GillParkway. Anyway, fun facts on
to food. Did you know thatChadnooga probably is one of the snack kingdoms
of the United States. Oh,I can believe that him. So what's
it? What is it? Invented? Well in the food area, and
then we'll get to drink. Chattanoogais home to the moonpie, very famous.
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Yeah, what do you think aboutmoonpies? I like moon pies.
Do you like a microwave your regularOh? I don't think I've ever had
one microwave? Oh yeah, trythat. So what is a moon pie?
It is a cookie with a marshmallowin between, kind of like a
cookie, snack cake, and we'reof a snack cake, slack cookie,
all coated and chocolate and all coatedand chocolate. There's different flavors because sometimes
they're in like yellow banana thing.There's different flavors now. But Moonpie was
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established in nineteen seventeen by Chattanooga Bakery, which made like over one hundred things.
It was a baking company, butit was created at the request of
a Kentucky coal miner who asked thetraveling salesman if the company could bakery could
create a handheld snack is as roundand big as the moon. And they
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did, and it became the officialcoal miner snack. I think is ticket
in a lunch pile, and itbecame the day labor snack. And the
traditional way to eat the moon piewas in one hand was your moon pie
and the other is your Coca Colaor your rc cola, which was a
vetted in Columbus or invented in Chattanooga, your double Cola. Chattanooga is home
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to not only the Double Cola Company, which is over one hundred years old
and makes Double Cola, light,Double Cola, and an orange drink.
Started actually a grape soda company.It's still there, but Chattanooga is also
home I love this story to theChattanoga Coca Cola Bottling Company. And why
is that significant? Well, it'ssignificant because it was there were forward thinking
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people that lived in Chattanooga that hadheard of this soda fountain down in Atlanta
that was creating a soft drink andthey went to the owner of it and
said, we'd like to buy therights to bottle Coca Cola. So Coca
Cola was founded in Atlanta. TheCoca Cola bottling was started in Chattanoo Go
by four people, that's right,and they bought the rice for a dollar.
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Now what's interesting is So Coca Cola, the cola drink, was invented
by a pharmacist, Asa Kandler,And interestingly enough, so was Arca Cola,
which is in Columbus. So there'sArca Cola and Columbus. Coca Cola
and double Cola invented in Chattanooga,and then there's Corus. There's pepsi,
but we Chattanoogas don't care about pepsibecause it's all about Coca Cola. But
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it was invented by a pharmacist.Is a cure on for people who had,
you know, issues, digestive issues. In the original formula, which
is super secret, had supposedly cocainein it. That's the had a lot
of cocaine in it, of course, and now it doesn't. It just
has a lot of caffeine. Butso Chattanooga is not only the home of
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a Coca Cola bottling company and thebottles that signature bottle, but also the
packaging to ship. And because Chattanoogais a major shipping and trucking distribution center,
as we talked to out, itbecame the major distribution chain for Coca
Cola, the packaging and the bottling. So a lot of people made a
lot of money in Chindaa on bottlingand then because they built bottling systems all
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over the country. But that's therewere homes. My mother used to say,
the homes that Coca Cola built therewere mansions. So the other food
I remember, we said snack Kingdom. Little Debbie, Oh yeah, Little
Debbie snack Cakes in nearby Collegdale,Tennessee, was invented by the McKee family.
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It's still family owned. McKey Foodsis home to Little Debbie Snacks.
It was founded during the Great Depression. O. D. McKee founded his
business selling five cent moonpies were alsofive cent by the way, they must
have been the price back then.Five cent snack cakes from the back of
his truck. They cobbled. Heand his wife Ruth cobbled together enough money
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in nineteen thirty four to buy afailing bake because that was around the Great
Depression. They bought the family breaker. They turned the business around and in
nineteen sixty they started packaging their snackcakes, which now have pinwhills and all
sorts of snack cakes a whole line. They named it after their granddaughter Interesting
in It. Almost thirty five yearspasted until or twenty five years past before
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they actually started to package it.Yeah, so it's just a bakery for
a long time. It was Ithink it was the Great Depression, wasn't
it around this time. Yeah,they started the business during the Great Depression,
so they had to recover from theGreat Depression. I would think it
was pretty hard back then. Andfive cents you got to sell a lot
of five cent you got, soa lot of five cent cakes to make
a profit. I call that doingit the hard way. Anyway, the
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company is still run by fourth generation. There is a Little Debbie that so
the company was named after their granddaughterDebbie, And there is a Debbie McKee
and recently on Facebook somebody posted aphoto of her. I swear to god
were the same age, and she'svery involved in philanthropic opportunities. And it's
a beloved company. And you canactually when I was a little girl,
you could go visit Little Debbie.Oh yeah, yeah. You could also
visit the Mayfield Dairy Company, whichwas like a big deal. So Chattanooga
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is also near a lot of dairyfarms and up towards Sequatchie County there's a
great cheese of Quatchie County cheese anda lot of dairy and we used to
go see the milk getting bottle.I thought it was like so cool.
So that was a big lot offarming. So those are businesses that still
exist in the non food area.Do you know that Chattanooga's home Chatham Labs.
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They make Bullfrog? Remember Bullfrog thebomb? No, I have no
idea what that. Yeah, it'sa bomb. And they also make sun
in here. Oh really yeah,I've heard of yeah, yeah, yeah,
anyway, very popular in the eighties. Basically it was bleach for your
hair, right, yeah, mymom put it on me. So now
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Chattanoga, you know, flash forward, what thirty five years forty years now,
Chattoga has you know, like Kamatsutractor and a big Volkswagen plant,
and they're bidding on big things andVolkswagen it's a big one because they just
announced that they're unionizing their workers andthat's kind of conning a ripple effect all
over the South. And the airport, which is really rinky dinky, is
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now expanding and is really quite nice. I think they're doubling the size of
the airport in chat I actually reallyenjoyed flying out of because it's get in
and out of It is a niceairports. Actually easier to fly out of
Chattanooga than it was to fly outof New York. Well, I live
there. Anywhere it is easier,that's true, true, but needless to
say, I kind of enjoyed theChattanooga airport. Well, well, you
actually get to know the people thatserve you there. You're probably wondering why
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we laugh, but anyway, solet's get to the food. We talked
about the snack cakes, the food, and you know, there's a do
you know there's a I think there'ssome other little types of snacks in Chantiga,
but those are the big ones.So where to eat, So we're
going to talk about where to eat, but also what to do. It's
a great place to visit. It'svery family friendly, it's affordable. Like
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all cities with growing pains Shtniga.Because of all these wonderful things we're talking
about, it's been added to thebest of lists best places for family vacations,
best places to retire, best placesto work remotely. Because the high
speed internets, Tennessee doesn't have astate income tax, it does have a
high sales tax. Blah, blahblah. Property. You know, it's
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getting expensive because with success comes growth, and with growth comes to higher property
value. But but we're going totalk about where to eat. So,
as I mentioned earlier, David,downtown, nobody ever went. The only
thing I remember going downtown, we'dgo to Morrison's Cafeteria, old fashion cafeteria,
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get your tray like school, Ohyeah yeah. And then there was
a place I love called Fens,which is now like a condo place.
And all the places I loved you'regone, however, And I mean all
the places I loved are gone.Somebody mentioned the Wimberley and it's Satyr the
other night, and I'm like,oh yeah, that place, the Mount
Vernon. One place still left whichI actually never web but my dad did
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was Zarzors. But you and Iactually went there. Yeah, So why
was Zarzors such a big deal?What's a local institution? A really adopt
dive? Right, it's tiny?It's a meet in three? What's a
meet and three, David? Threeis basically like you would get in Nashville
where you get a tray and youwalk down the cafeteria style line and you
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say I want this meat and theygive you three sides. That's a meeting
three. So a meet and threewas invented in Tennessee. Nashville's the hub,
but they go out throughout Tennessee,particularly East Tennessee, and like that
moon pie for the workers. Meetingthrees for those day laborers and day workers
who needed an affordable, nutritious meatand three sides, and it was usually
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very inexpensive. I took our friendMarissa may to one. She's Italian and
had a very high end restaurant inNew York and she was like, Mama
Maya, this is amazing because youcould eat for like eight dollars and it's
amazing. And Nashville does have thebest ones. But Zarzarus is a local
institution owned by I think a LebaneseI know. They're a Middle Eastern family.
The owner's name is Joe, buthe's called Dixie Fuller, and they've
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run this institution for over one hundredyears. Okay, the family run small,
tiny you go eat your meat three. They're known for their chicken and
dumplings, very very local. Andthen in twenty twenty three they almost closed
and made a big to do Whybecause his wife, Joe Fuller's wife,
Shannon Fuller, died of cancer.They had to do a big go fund
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race. She had cancer. AsRay said, there was billboards tributes all
over. And then he was havingfinancial problems. He lost his job at
the river Bed Festival, which isa big festival, and he said he's
done, and he had a buyer. There was a big to do,
a big going, you know,big closing party. I think we were
in Italy when it was happening,and every business orser was closing. It's
so sad. And then guess whathappened. The buyer backed out right,
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and so he ended up he endedup reopening and rededicating himself to Zarsorus uh
huh and so, which I like. Yeah, So it's back and it's
definitely worth going to from lunch,very local and casual. And I think
the oldest restaurant in Chattanooga going back. The only other one that exists from
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my childhood, what's that one withthe Great Salmon Cake owned by the Moonies.
I can't remember the name of it, anyway, it will come to
me in the middle of this.But there's a couple of old like yesterdays
is still there, and the YellowDeli, the Yellow Deli, The Yellow
Deli, best salmon cake sandwich.Crazy weird people, but really good near
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the university. So where do welike to eat? Well, you know,
given given the Chattanooga's on the water, where do we recommend any place
near the water. But there's onlylike one restaurant. But you know,
it's interesting because Chattanooga, obviously withan influx of a younger generation of people
that have wanted to come back andkind of reinvest their lives in there and
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raise their Chattanoogas obviously come quite away in the dining scene as well.
I mean there's, first of all, there's a lot of building going on
in Chattanooga, a lot of buildingand too much building. Yeah, I
think it's a little bit too muchbuilding. Yeah, However, they'll they'll
get a handle on it and I'llfigure it out. So like like Nashville
went through that boom about ten yearsago where all of a sudden they were
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just building everywhere, That's what Chattanoogais doing right now. But they're going
to need the they'll need the infrastructurewith the resources that people need to live
as well, so they're investing inthat as well. Absolutely building a new
stadium they're gonna There's still a lotof land that needs to be developed,
a lot of scrappy land that needsto be developed, but they do need
to protect that waterfront. So speakingof waterfront, our favorite restaurant, one
(27:44):
of our favorite restaurant owners is theBoathouse for tissyri and grill. Hands down,
no reservations, hands down the bestwaterfront dining possible. You can bike
there if you want from the museum. It's right in the Riverfront Park.
Yeah, and very easily except it'sa great spot. And our friend owns
it and hay Good and his wife, Karen Haygod, they own a couple
(28:06):
of restaurants, including Sidetrack and abarbecue place, Sugar's Barbecue and Sugar's Ribs,
really good ribs, and they dovery well. We like the boat
House because you can just go yoube patient, get a great bloody Mary
or margarita, hang will buzz youwhen your time is ready, or you
(28:26):
can go sit at the bar,which we'd love to do. Lawton invented
we've had him on the show.He invented a patented way of wood grilling
that makes his wood grilled brisket andwood grilled oysters, wood grilled salmon taste
unlike anything. Well, he actuallyinvented the grill itself, yes, which
uses would and sold that and Ithink, you know, he obviously made
(28:49):
a lot of money off of thatbecause he sold it to many of the
great chefs in the United States,including Wolgang Puck right, who have used
that grill and for years and yearsand years too. So Lawton's first claim
to fame was creating that grill andthat system for you doing wood grilling in
restaurants. And then he's also branchedout into the restaurant business himself, and
(29:12):
he's got he's been very successful atthat as well, over over the years,
very so. His restaurants are theBoat House, Rochester and Grill on
the Tennessee River on the Amnacola Highwayside and then in North Chattanooga, much
more neighborhoodly is a little restaurant calledside Track, Great Hamburgers, great specials.
(29:33):
I just like the chicken pacata.We tend to order the same thing
we go. I love the chard, yes, and the charlgrilled little gems
of the salad. They do achar grilled salad that's just a divine.
I mean think about warm salad,but go there and get it. And
then sugar's ribs, which you cando take out as well, and just
fantastic. We've done a lot withthem, so that's hands down our favorite
(29:56):
when we would go out to eatwith a go grabb bite. In the
revitalized South Side area which is large, I mean this was an area there's
still a poultry manufacturing company which sadlyyou can smell, and a lot the
former Schultz tannery. It was allmanufacturing. It's all been changes. Also
where the railroad is. Let's startwith the Chattanooga chu Choo. Why because
(30:19):
this is you know, as Isaid, immortalized by the Glenn Miller song.
It was the number one song acrossthe United States in December nineteen forty
one. And that's actually a railroadterminus for the for the actual Chattanooga Railroad
which went through the region and stilldoes for freight trains, but not for
(30:40):
passenger trains anymore. But the chuChuo is a huge building in the South
Side which has been transformed into kindof a museum. They have an ice
rink in the back where some ofthe railroad tracks used to be in the
wintertime. They also have a coupleThey also have a distillery in there,
and they have a couple of greatrestaurants in there as well. Yeah,
and the Frothy Monkey Little Brewery.And they still have the big chat n
(31:02):
you get che Choo signed over thetop that you can see for miles and
it contains the largest freestanding brick domein the world with eighty foot high.
That seems a little strange, Ithought the Pantheon, I mean, you
know, but it is quite Itis quite beautiful. And a Christmas they
have this big Christmas tree. Andwhen I was a little girl. When
I was a little girl, Ihad my eighteenth birthday party, and when
(31:23):
had the chu Choo cars because youcould rent them. There used to be
the chu Chuo Hilton. There wasa chu Choo holiday in I don't know
if you can stay there or notanymore, but you can go. And
the restaurant there is called Stir.You can get good raw oysters, a
lot of sheer food. Kind ofa gathering place type bar pubby and within
walking distance of the Guitar Museum andSongbirds which recently reopened, which is an
(31:47):
entertainment venue which we never had thechance to go. And then there's a
Frothy Monkey, which is a brewery, coffee shop, a lot going on.
I'm actually surprised there's not more activitydown there. Whenever we go.
It seems empty, don't you think. Yeah, it's active at night,
maybe reaches out on the weekends.Yeah. And Sture also has some outdoor
dining, so in the same vicinityyou can go sample some Chattanooga whiskey.
(32:08):
So Channa Go's home to the ChattanoogaWhiskey Company. There's a big plant over
toward the water, kind of nearthe bike path we like, but you
can also there's a little tasting roomarea across from the Chu Chuo and the
Chantniga whiskey is pretty good. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah Yeah,
And they do all the distilling thereand they do the aging there too.
(32:29):
So if you're looking for a uniqueonly in Chattanooga, pick up a bottle
of Chattanooga whisky. So in thissame area, let's talk about some of
the restaurants. We like. FeedOh, I love Feed, very casual,
but it's it's in an old granaryand an old old feed shop or
feed warehouse, right, hence thename Feed, and it's actually one of
(32:52):
three restaurants that these owners own,one down in Saint Elmo eighteen eighty five,
and then there's another one up onthe north side, which is our
favorite little hamburgers spot, Tremont Tavern. Tremont Tavern is so yummy. That's
just a great burger spot and theyhave a good veggie burger and it is
(33:13):
a local hangout in Northchaga. SoFeed's part of that restaurant group. And
then they also have the Fraser fiveand Dime too, right, Yeah,
I don't know if they're them ornot, but I do like Fraser five
at Dime. I can't there's there'slike three companies that own all the restaurants.
Old family run the UH and theyown different things. So I'm not
sure if that's the Feed people orthe people that own Parkway tab Parkway poh
(33:37):
Boy, Parkway po House. Sorry, we're in New Orleans and Parkway,
Parkway, Porthhouse is not owned bythat's owned by the partially owned by the
Tremont guys. Yeah, yeah,so I think that's the I needless to
say, Feed love it. It'svery casual, kind of sports barish inside,
but there's They've got a great terraceoutside that you sit at and have
meals. Another place that I likeis The Easy, very good Place,
(34:01):
very very good, very good,very good food, great staff. Yeah.
The owners are Eric and Amanda Neil. One of the few chef owners
ever given a slight nod by theJames Bear Foundation Awards because Shannic is never
on the list, but these folksare. It's like French classics with a
(34:21):
Southern spin. My mother and Iused to I used to love to go
there on Mother's Day with my mother. They always had the best oysters,
really good, really good desserts becauseshe always liked to save room for desserts,
and charcouterie and really good seafood.It moved from its original location.
It's now closer to believing at theWestern Hotel, which is a very nice
(34:42):
hotel and really very lovely place,highly recommended. And another place that we
like is Hello Monty. We've beenthere a couple of times. M that's
also very nice. Also locally ownedrob Gentry. They do a fun wine
night, they do a lot ofit's very all these places are very casual.
There's no really there's only like oneformal or two formal dining places in
(35:06):
Chattanooga, so you're thinking pubfair.The dishes do tend to be a little
repetitive. Everywhere we go, you'llget You'll always find a shrimp and grit.
You always find Springer Mountain chicken.Springer Mountain is the local farm raised
chickens. I particularly like the oneto feed. I also like the one
in another place that we'll mention publichouse, very very low, very good,
(35:29):
contemporary, southern modern. Also literallythese are all within walking distance.
In the south side downtown area towardthe Chuu Chu. You will find a
trout because trout is the local fish, or a catfish. Those are the
local fish in Chattanoga. The difficultywith Chandog because you don't get a lot
of seafood because it's landlocked. Andyou'll always get a great burger and a
(35:52):
fried chicken dish somewhere and usually friedgreen tomatoes. Right absolutely, I thought,
hello, Monty, though, youknow what I liked is there charm
tomato brus gotta. We always gotthat and it was always a consistent,
really good place. I'm going tobring up a few that we didn't go
to together, but you know,southern living is like the Bible, it's
(36:12):
like what everybody reads in the South. And they in October eighteen, twenty
twenty three did a list. I'mgoing to suggest some that we've both been
to and I and I'll tell youif I agree or not. The first
on the list is the fine diningplace that we used to go with my
mom and dad on special occasions ofvery happy memories. And once I saw
Peyton Manning there because here's a funfact. Football player Peyton Manning went to
(36:35):
University of Tennessee and he has ahome there too, and he was a
vall. He was a vall,played in the Valls and he's a home
in Harrison. And so I washaving dinner with my mom at Saint John,
which is really fabulous, higher endyou want to get dressed up to
go there, very elegant, moreelevated food, and there was Peyton Manning
(36:55):
and I'm like, wow, myservers. Yeah, and Daniel Linley,
who is the chef and owner ofSaint John. Right, and also Aliah,
by the way, has been meetingnominated for James Beard Award as well,
a semi finalist, right well,yeah, and he also he also
does a lot of work in Nashvilleas well, so this is a historic
(37:17):
it's named after his hotel called theSaint John Hotel. Remember, a lot
of these hotels in this area werefor traveling salesmen and workers who had come
in on the railroad and leave,so they were kind of like not great
hotels. But it has been transformed. It's a beautiful hotel. It's a
beautiful restaurant. I kind of wishwe'd gone as a grand finale. Aliyah,
as you mentioned, is the otherrestaurant owned by the Lindleys. It
(37:40):
is rustic Italian and very nice ifyou want. It's probably the premier Italian
restaurant in Chattanooga. I think there'sonly two Italian restaurants in Chandoga, so
this is the premier one in Chattanooga. And it's literally all within walking distance.
We mentioned a boat House and Lawton'sMargarita, which they sold more than
(38:04):
eighty thousand according to the website.Because the Lawton Rita is fantastic easy bistro.
You mentioned, David, very verygood. Okay, the Flying Squirrel,
now this is a Southern living Octobertwenty twenty three. Flying Squirrel was
great. Now it's kind of aChinese restaurant which you missed, but they
had this. They changed the name. They changed any I wonder they had
that great pancake. I don't knowthey had this rice pancake. It was
(38:27):
to die for. It really was. I can't pronounce it. It's it
was to die for. A reallygood cocktail program. Also Fraser finem and
Die. You mentioned that, Sothis is kind of a cool place.
It used to be something else,a gastro pub. It's a lot of
small plates. They have a verygood crawfish salad in a biscuit that is
(38:47):
as good as any I would gethere in New Orleans. I love that
dish and a lot of fish frittersand smoke. I love the smoked mushrooms
and the blistered green beans. Thisis a place where you want to sit
at the bar, but we've we'vebeen at both places. We've sat at
the table and at the bar.Really terrific. It was in an old
(39:08):
I forgot was it a five anddime store? I guess it was a
five and dime store before it becamebecame this little restaurant, but highly recommended.
Fraser Avenue is a fun place tovisit. There's a lot of little
boutiques and shops along the way.You can go to Champi and the Clumpies
to get really good ice cream.And we like mess call was it mess
(39:30):
Call? The Mexican place on thecorner, isn't it Meskla mess Club mess
Club Mescla. We kind of stumbledupon because there's a couple of Mexican restaurants.
This one is definitely our favorite.And it is also on the north
(39:51):
side, so China has got yougot north of the river and south of
the river. So we've been talkingabout south side, south of the river,
and now we've kind of skipped overto the north side and Fraser Avenue
I knew, which is another bustlingarea of fun things to do, all
bordered by river walking. You canwalk, you can bike, so very
outdoors. Love their pasoli soup delicious, just the best, just delicious that
(40:15):
I think there's not a time thatwe've gone to Mescalo that we haven't had
that. Boli locally owned. Theowners are inspired by Mexican. We never
met them. They were always away, really great places, always sit at
the bar, great guacamole, reallygood song gria. You get the Margarita.
There's nothing. This is a mustif you want good Mexican. There's
some other Mexican restaurants in Chinago,but for us, this was the it,
(40:37):
the it. And then can wetalk about the best pizza in town?
Yes, because if we're going tohave Mexican food on the list,
we have to have pizza on lYes. Yes, So Pizzeria Cortili,
which is not actually in Chattanooga proper, but it's in Red Bang. Well
that's Chanoga, which is the whichis the village just above Chattanooga, but
it's really the same area. PizzeriaCortilli is just fabulous. It's owned by
(41:00):
a couple. They It's a Neapolitanstyle pizza with amazing toppings. We discovered
this place so Chaanoga basically is acity with a lot of little villages,
okay, all in Hamilton County.This is a young couple. They wanted
to They love supporting their community.They live in Red Bank, they work
in Red Bank. This place isterrific. The pizza could stand up to
(41:23):
any Neapolitan pizzas we've had anywhere.And they also do just a very good
bun min sandwiches. Oh yeah,I had one actually one night. Yeah,
no reservations. I don't think youjust go, you just go.
But it's so good and the pizzasreally are out of this world and they're
just delicious and it's they started asa food just an Amanda Bennett or the
owners of Pizzeria Cortilia, and theyjust do a fabulous job. You know.
(41:46):
It started as a food truck.A lot of really terrific restaurants start
as food trucks. Actually, onethat you know we really like, Kedjetta
Neutral Ground. So this is aninteresting story. Uh, I forgot his
last name. Kanyada our friend.We have a family member who mentors Kenyada,
(42:07):
but he has a uh. Itstarted as a pop up in a
location on Martin Luther King that cateredto pop ups. The place is no
longer, it's now a Middle EasternIt was a food incubator and Kenyata is
from New Orleans and he decided toopen up in Chattanooga. And he makes
(42:32):
something called yak a Main, whichis an iconic New Orleans dish. He
does it with a smoked brisket.The Yakaman lady here is very very famous.
Love to have her on the show. Miss Linda and it's it's actually
been called Old Sober because Yaka Man, which has got noodles and lots of
(42:54):
different you know, uh meats,and it was actually created to get over
on us for a Sunday after hungover, so he named his pop up and
now it's actually I think it hasits uh it's now much more permanent.
Kenyada Ashford, Nada Ashford. Weactually met him online at Whole Foods right
and he had he had and hesaid, oh, I make it every
(43:20):
night downtown and that's how you methim, and we went there. He's
a great guy. His website isneutral ground chat chatt dot com. I
think when we met him he wastrying to get a brick and mortar and
thanks to some very good mentorship,he was able to do it. Ken
YadA Ashford. He studied at theCulinary Institute of America and worked in New
(43:43):
Orleans, also Rhode Island, andin New Hampshire and then came back to
Channooga. He got a grant,the Jean Louis Paladin Professional Work Study Grant
by the James Spear Foundation to studythe cuisines of the African American diaspora.
In West Africa, really talented andI think this is a chef to watch
that's catering too, Yes, itdoes. It's neutral ground is an interesting
(44:07):
term. It's in one of thosewonderful New Orleans terms that we looked up.
Neutral ground is the slightly raised,elevated, often landscaped, tree,
leafy tree area in the center medianof the streets. You know, New
Orleans has very wide boulevards like othercities, and that's where people sometimes gather
(44:30):
and have picnics, they'll play chess. It's also where cars park when they
want to get out from under thestorm the storm, and it's neutral.
It's needed to the left of theright. There's a whole nother story there
about troops and fighting and everything,but we'll go. But that's that's the
term neutral ground. And really I'mreally happy to see that Kenyada has brick
and mortar. That the company wascalled Proof. There was an incubator.
(44:53):
We were actually thinking about doing astory with them. It's it's now another
It's a Middle Eastern restaurant that's reallygood. I to get the name of
it. I went there without you. It was called Proof Incubator. They
may still exist, they're just notat this particular place. So I think
(45:14):
we've covered a number of restaurants.I think we may have missed a few.
I think we were there any otherrestaurants we loved. I'm sure there
are, but those are some ofa couple of other things before we pat
You know, Chainooga's a rock climbingparadise. It is. It's great rock
(45:34):
climbing. The East is filled withgreat rocking climbing places as well, and
we lived in one for ourselves fora number of time. Heres in New
Paul's, New York, where theShuwankunk Mountains are, But the Tennessee River
Gorge has a lot of great rockthat people flog all over from the especially
in the southeast to go climb out. But it's got a lot of outdoor
stuff, beautle state parks and beautifulhiking trails, hiking trailso kayaking and canoeing
(45:58):
as well. Right there's the LulaLake Land Trust, which is on the
backside Amazing, which is only openone weekend a month, but it's a
beautiful place. First weekend a monthyou can join and it's just a it's
an outside thrill seekers dream place.I think I just love it. I
love it there. But lots ofthings to do, lots of walking,
(46:19):
biking, lots of we like CloudCanyon used to do on the river as
well, and jet skiing. Saley. It's it's an outdoor it's also great.
It's also great. It's also agreat family destination too, because because
the infrastructure was revitalized so much overthe years, a lot of people have
family vacations and they take their youngchildren to Chattanooga from all over the Southeast,
(46:45):
and just to underscore some places wewould recommend that are family friendly and
fine. There's the Chattanooga Children's Museumand Activity Center. It's very good.
There's actually an indoor rock climbing wallso kids learn how to climb. They
see aquarium is the largest I thinkfreshwater aquarium in the country. Maybe I'm
not or at least the southeast,but there's also a seawater aquarium. There's
(47:08):
like two buildings, have great butterflyexhibit. Yeah, I love that butterfly
exhibit. And then we mentioned theHunter Museum of American Art. There's two
buildings there, the older art themore contemporary art, and it's all in
an area called bluffew which was anotherdown trodden area, and over there that
a Ford thinking doctor, doctor Priceatook bought the land and developed an in
(47:30):
which we stayed in a little coupleof restaurants. Wonderful restaurant Tony's also a
very good handmade pasta restaurant with outdoorcity in Rembrandt's Coffee. And we did
not mention and should because you canactually buy this. The need Loves is
a local baker that makes a greatU sour dough baguettes, baguettes and it's
(47:51):
a great artistan bakery, artis andbakery just like all uh in New York,
say Sullivan Street Bakery. Well,it's really that quality. You can
buy the need Loves. It sellsout quickly, but you can buy the
loaves and local grocery stores. Andwe fell in love with buying that and
getting Silaquatchia County Cheese, which isa local cheese from Sulquatchie County, another
county nearby. So we would beenremiss if we didn't do another great thing
(48:15):
for kids, which is the ChattanoogaZoo. Oh, which is which is
it's a zoo. Great way toend, it's not a big zoo,
but it's a really wonderful zoo.And of course your mom was instrumental in
creating and raising the money for theGiraffic exhibit at the zoo. There's three
giraffes, George Porter and Party Band they came from New Orleans Autumn Zoo,
(48:37):
and so there's a strong New Orleansconnection and it is a wonderful place.
With The nice thing about the ChattanoogaZoo, it's a community zoo.
It's city owned and volunteer run,and estaff is great and it's open day
and night. My favorite time togo actually is night to see the night
you know, the night animals.But it is special and thank you for
bringing it up to the zoo.The aquarium, the Children's Discovery Museum,
(49:00):
the climbing wall, the biking,the hiking. Makes me a little sad
that we left, but we arein a new city and we look forward
to going back and we love totravel. But for all of you experience
a while, and for all ofyou do put Shannooga on your lists of
places to visit in the Southeast.You will not be disappointed. You will
(49:22):
love it and your family will loveit and we'd love to hear from you.
So we're the Connected Table Melanie Youngand David Rants, and we hope
you enjoyed this show and our takeon a city that we think should be
on your travel itinerary if you're roadtripping, so hope to hear from you.
Follow us at the Connected Table onInstagram. Listen to all our shows
(49:43):
on iHeart Spotify, Apple are yourfavorite podcast channel and has always stay insatiably
curious. Thank you, no no, no,
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(00:20):
W FOURCY Radio. Hello, andwelcome to the Connected Table Live. We're
(00:44):
your hosts, Melanie Young and DavidRansom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple.
We enjoy bringing you the people wemeet and the places we visit around the
world to encourage you to spread yourwings and taste and save your life at
It's full. You're listening on Wfour CY Radio Live every Wednesday at two
pm Eastern, but you can hearall the shows anytime anywhere on demand on
(01:10):
more than forty six podcast channels,including some of your favorite Well, we're
going to take you on a triptoday. We like doing that sometimes.
No guests, it's just David andI and where are we going. We're
going to actually your hometown, Melanie. Yeah, a place that you know
quite a lot about, and placethat I got to know over the last
(01:30):
couple of years as we were theretaking care of your mother. And so
we're going to take a little roadtrip up Route fifty nine from New Orleans
to Chattanooga. Today we're broadcasting fromNew Orleans, which happens to be our
new home, but we're going totake you to my former home where I
was born and raised. It's acity that has had quite the phoenix rising
(01:53):
from the ashes in many ways.Many cities in the United States have it
was. It's a very historic TOWNAuh, this is a fun fact.
What do R and B performer Usher, actor Samuel L. Jackson, the
late blues singer Bessie Smith, andthe popular Lake comedic actors Leslie Jordan and
Jim Naghbors aka Gomer Pile all havingcoming. They're former Chattanoogas. That's right,
(02:20):
fun fact. Usher was just there, Yes, he was just there.
Actually after the Super Bowl he wentthere, right. It's a big
to do. It's frequently referred toas the scenic city or locals like me
called it Nooga. Chattanooga sits ina very strategic location in southeastern Tennessee because
Tennessee is a very long state eastto west, very different. Chattanooga is
close to the Georgia and Alabama statelines. In fact, driving down to
(02:45):
New Orleans, I think we gothrough three states Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama,
and you leave from Tennessee. It'son the Tennessee River and at the
foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains,so you can get to the most Smoky
mountains within two hours. North lineis close by three hours, or you
can go south and continue along torecreational hiking and beautiful areas in north Georgia
(03:07):
and Alabama. The name Chattanooga isderived from the satunoogi Satunogi, which is
a Cherokee Indian language meaning rock comingto a point or end of the mountain,
and it is a city surrounded bymountains. Right David is surrounded by
a bunch of mountains, and theTennessee River goes right through it as well,
(03:29):
so it divides the north side ofChattanooga from the south side of Chattanooga,
although it's still one city on bothsides of the river, which of
course, many cities are not.You know, they may be a metropolitan
area, but they divide at theriver, and this does not. So
you may be wondering while we werevisiting it after we Jeff's left, Well,
sometimes you have clarity when you goand spend time at a place,
(03:51):
You leave the place and you canreflect back. And we felt that Chattanooga
deserved a show because it's an interestingplace to visit. And as David said,
and I know, it was whereI was born and raised. I
left after many, many years toexpand my wings and spread my horizons and
establish my own imprint in New YorkCity. But as David noted, we
came back to take care of mymother, and the city that we actually
(04:13):
moved back to and in for twoyears was dramatically different. I bet it
was. It was so just thelittle grown a lot over the last twenty
years or so. But let's takeit back further. Actually, Chattanooga was
a very strategic and major played amajor role in the War between the States.
It was a battlefield for three conflicts, the Battle of Lookout Mountain,
(04:36):
the Battle of Missionary Ridge, andthe Battle of Orchard Not in fact,
Lookout Mountain. Sigma Mountain were namedthat because that they will lookouts and signals
to warn people of impending troops comingin you. Today you can find Civil
War eeric cannons and historic markers inall these locations and a little further over
the border in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, because I remember I said Chadoock was
(04:58):
right on the border of other states. You can go to the beautiful Chattanooga
Battlefield and Chattanooga National Military Park tosit and reflect on the magnitude of where
Chattanooga played in this war in somevery historic battles. So a lot of
history that seems to surround you inthis area. Yeah, that's a lot
of history. You know. It'sinteresting because we drove down when we left
(05:20):
Chattanooga last earlier this month, wedrove down through or was it last month
last month? Yeah, we drovedown through Mississippi and we went to Vicksburg,
which has another one of those militaryparks from a very famous battle,
and the one in Chickamauga is alot like that. Lots of markers,
lots of historical facts and figures thatyou can go and check out along the
(05:44):
way. It's really a beautiful andkind of serene place, even though a
lot of horror took place in thosefields. So, like many cities in
the war between the state's southern cities. After the war and the south loss
and many southerns about that, Northernerscame down and started building and there was
(06:04):
a massive rebuilding and Chattnooga, becauseof its strategic location on the Tennessee River
with access to waterways, became amajor trading area and a lot of manufacturing
developed. Also strategic was the locationof Southern Railway. Chattanooga, in addition
to being on the water was acentral center for the Southern Railway. And
(06:27):
you know this is the Chadnooga ChuChuo, the song immortalized by Glenn Miller.
So there was that was highways werebeing built and Chattanooga became a major
center for highways, railways and waterways. So the city grew into a manufacturing
center. David where there's a proand a con. The pro was many
(06:48):
people made a lot of money,and a lot of New Yorkers came in
and Midwesterns came in and set upbusiness and became very very wealthy. Land
was cheap, labor was cheap,and the city became very, very wealthy,
and there's some very wealthy families thatlive in Chattanooga today based on coming
from outside of the South as wellas Southerners. The downside to that,
(07:11):
David, was when I was growingup, Channooga was named one of the
most polluted cities in the United States, I think by one of the major
business magazines, and I can't rememberwhich one, but it was known for
not having not taken care of thelocal environment. And so the downside to
that was a couple of things.People left because they wanted to go elsewhere.
(07:32):
The stores. It was you eitherworked for a family run manufacturing company
or something like that, but therewas not a lot of opportunity and a
lot of people left. Downtown wasvery different. There were beautiful department stores,
Loveman's Millers where the big ones,Pickets and Ira Rivers were the especially
(07:53):
stores for women and men. Butyou'd also see drunks and vagrants on the
street corners with empty bottles of youknow, Underberg or whatever they drink.
You know, No, I don'tknow what eat of that one though,
mad Dog, mad Dog, sorrymad Dog. You would see that.
On another corner there would be likeBible belt or something and preaching doom and
gloom, and it became kind oficky to go downtown. And Mole started
(08:16):
getting built and actually chatting Goes nowhome one of the largest malls in the
southeast Hamilton Place. So long storyshort, I, like many young people,
left to go spread my wings,to go elsewhere because I didn't see
a future in Chattanooga. Then whenyou came into my life and we came
back, I started spending a littlemore time there with my family. As
my parents, you know, gettingolder, it became a vastly different city.
(08:39):
Why because a lot of the peoplestarted to invest back into the infrastructure.
There were the town elders as theylike to call themselves, and your
mother included, took it upon themselvesto say, if we're going to save
the city and get people to stay, we're going to have to invest in
(09:00):
the infrastructure and rebuild it to bea more desirable place to live. And
that's exactly what they did. Andit was really a long term plan.
I mean we're talking about I leftin the late seventies early eighties and Chattnoga
really was not in great shape andit was becoming down trot. It had
(09:20):
been impacted by inflation and all thethings are going on in the rest of
the United States with these southern cities, and this is something you see everywhere,
not just Chattanooga. It happens,and we've traveled a lot. We've
seen some cities that still haven't comeback. But the city elders invested and
they invested in making Chattanooga cleaner andgreener, so you know, more energy
(09:43):
efficient, a faster internet service.When the technology took off, they knew
that would attract people and businesses,and it certainly has because it's a big
mecca for remote workers. Now.They rebuilt the waterfront, which was when
I grew up, just littered withtrash. You would never go down on
the waterfront. It was just emptyyards, industrial yard. You would just
(10:09):
never go there. And they rebuiltand now there's a great bike path.
You can go from Chickamauga Dam,Chattanooga's home from the Tennessee Valley Authority,
which is a major employer in thedam. You can bike from the dam
all the way to the foot oflook I'm Mountain into the Georgia border,
which we've kind of done in parts, but it's very green and they did
that on both sides of the river. They invested in parks, They invested
(10:31):
in cleaning up the city and makingit more family friendly, community focused,
a lot of investment arts and culture. You mentioned my mother. She was
very involved in bringing the arts tothe Chattanooga community with a great theater,
opera, symphony, ballet, andthe Hunter Museum, which is the largest
museum dedicated to American art in thesoutheast. So this did not happen overnight.
(10:54):
So I left in technically nineteen seventyseven eighty it was still in com
So when I headed out and landin my first shop in Atlanta in eighty
two, I never went back exceptfor like holidays. Then we came back,
as you said, to take careof my mother, and it was
a vasi different place and we couldgo biking and do things. And the
(11:15):
areas that you would never go to, remember those never go to lock your
doors, have now been revitalized andthey include like the South Side and former
Martin and Martin Luther King Boulevard whichused to be Ninth Street, and Saint
Elmo. These were areas you wouldjust never go, but now they're filled
with little boutiques and cafes, andthe inacral tattoo and vape shops because there
(11:37):
is a university there. There's acouple of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
It's a big employer and so youget a lot of young people, right
absolutely, you know, I wantto go back to Chattanooga's early history too
and just touch on the fact thatthe Chattanooga National Cemetery, which is a
military cemetery where you're with your parentsare buried. My father was buried there
(12:01):
because he was a World War aKorean War veteran, and a West Point
grad. And your mother was buriedwith him when she passed away as well.
Last in twenty twenty two, Iwanted to point out that it's the
largest military cemetery outside of Arlington NationalCemetery. It's a great point. So
it's a beautiful, beautiful, scenic, beautiful place, very Bucolic. My
(12:24):
parents' graves are buried together. It'sa beautiful view, and there's also a
it's interestingly near there, there's aConfederate cemetery and then there's a separate seminary
for Afro Americans. It's still segrating. Chantanooga was very segregated growing up.
I mean, there was where theAfro Americans lived and it was a definitely
ghetto, and the whites and LookoutMountains where wealthy people lived. The wealthy
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people lived high on the mountains,on Missionary Ridge and Elder Mountain and Rakou
Mountain and on and on. Nowit's much more integrated and it's totally a
different place. So things speaking ofhistory, and I did want to point
it out, and then we'll getinto the food part because this is the
connected table. But also important andI'm kind of proud about, is that
(13:07):
Chattanooga is the home to the NewYork Times. And growing up, I
wanted to be a journalist more thananything. And I got my first gig
writing for the local paper. Itwas not the Chattanooga Times, it was
their competitor, the Chatnooga News FreePress. In the days of newspapers,
there was two daily newspapers, andI got one. The Exhem family,
(13:28):
Helen Exhem, gave me my firstjob, which I'll always be grateful for.
But what's interesting is Adolph Ox,who was one of the small but
important members of Chattanooga's Jewish community,which my family was. They came over
in the eighteen hundreds. After thewar Civil War, he invested in a
failing newspaper in Chattanooga, built theChattanooga Times, and then took his profits
(13:54):
and invested in a failing New Yorkpaper and called it the New York Times
and the Ox Saltzburger Family because therewas marriages in there. Still family run
is from Chattanooga, and the Chattanoogais probably home to the New York Times,
which a lot of people don't know. Yeah, it's a great story.
(14:16):
Actually, yeah, I feel theChattanooga Times. Of course it no
longer exists, but the New YorkTimes certainly does. The Chattanooga Times is
now the Chattanooga Times Free Press.So in the world of diminishing newspapers,
the two merged the xems and nowit's one paper. And it used to
be great. You get the paperand you could get the Sunday paper.
Remember the other days you read thepaper. And now it's all digital and
pooh pooh and not fun anymore.Because I miss newspapers, I'm going to
(14:39):
go out and them. I missnewspapers. I love thumbing through papers.
But I guess I'm in a minority, right, No, you're not in
a minority. It's just unfortunately itdoesn't pay the print. I know.
And we used to have great radiostations there, just because we're on a
podcast, really fun radio stations andstill there Wgow, Gary McKee, I
(15:01):
think he passed, but Wgow andthen we had a weatherman, Luther Massingill,
and I have to throw him outbecause we love local TV. We're
kind of getting into the New Orleanswas now. But there was a station
called WDEF and Luther was the longtimeweatherman and also the announcer of lost Animals
and pets and whenever there was anysign of a snowflake, because one snowflake
(15:24):
could bring the entire city down becausenobody knew how to drive in the snow.
You would hear teachers and parents alikesay, listen to Luther. You
always listen to Luther. There's actuallya street named after him. Interestingly,
he passed when I was visiting mymother and I remember screaming, Mom,
Luther and died. I mean,we thought Luther was going to last forever.
(15:45):
But now there's a Luther masson GillParkway. Anyway, fun facts on
to food. Did you know thatChadnooga probably is one of the snack kingdoms
of the United States. Oh,I can believe that him. So what's
it? What is it? Invented? Well in the food area, and
then we'll get to drink. Chattanoogais home to the moonpie, very famous.
(16:10):
Yeah, what do you think aboutmoonpies? I like moon pies.
Do you like a microwave your regularOh? I don't think I've ever had
one microwave? Oh yeah, trythat. So what is a moon pie?
It is a cookie with a marshmallowin between, kind of like a
cookie, snack cake, and we'reof a snack cake, slack cookie,
all coated and chocolate and all coatedand chocolate. There's different flavors because sometimes
they're in like yellow banana thing.There's different flavors now. But Moonpie was
(16:33):
established in nineteen seventeen by Chattanooga Bakery, which made like over one hundred things.
It was a baking company, butit was created at the request of
a Kentucky coal miner who asked thetraveling salesman if the company could bakery could
create a handheld snack is as roundand big as the moon. And they
(16:55):
did, and it became the officialcoal miner snack. I think is ticket
in a lunch pile, and itbecame the day labor snack. And the
traditional way to eat the moon piewas in one hand was your moon pie
and the other is your Coca Colaor your rc cola, which was a
vetted in Columbus or invented in Chattanooga, your double Cola. Chattanooga is home
(17:17):
to not only the Double Cola Company, which is over one hundred years old
and makes Double Cola, light,Double Cola, and an orange drink.
Started actually a grape soda company.It's still there, but Chattanooga is also
home I love this story to theChattanoga Coca Cola Bottling Company. And why
is that significant? Well, it'ssignificant because it was there were forward thinking
(17:41):
people that lived in Chattanooga that hadheard of this soda fountain down in Atlanta
that was creating a soft drink andthey went to the owner of it and
said, we'd like to buy therights to bottle Coca Cola. So Coca
Cola was founded in Atlanta. TheCoca Cola bottling was started in Chattanoo Go
by four people, that's right,and they bought the rice for a dollar.
(18:03):
Now what's interesting is So Coca Cola, the cola drink, was invented
by a pharmacist, Asa Kandler,And interestingly enough, so was Arca Cola,
which is in Columbus. So there'sArca Cola and Columbus. Coca Cola
and double Cola invented in Chattanooga,and then there's Corus. There's pepsi,
but we Chattanoogas don't care about pepsibecause it's all about Coca Cola. But
(18:27):
it was invented by a pharmacist.Is a cure on for people who had,
you know, issues, digestive issues. In the original formula, which
is super secret, had supposedly cocainein it. That's the had a lot
of cocaine in it, of course, and now it doesn't. It just
has a lot of caffeine. Butso Chattanooga is not only the home of
(18:48):
a Coca Cola bottling company and thebottles that signature bottle, but also the
packaging to ship. And because Chattanoogais a major shipping and trucking distribution center,
as we talked to out, itbecame the major distribution chain for Coca
Cola, the packaging and the bottling. So a lot of people made a
lot of money in Chindaa on bottlingand then because they built bottling systems all
(19:11):
over the country. But that's therewere homes. My mother used to say,
the homes that Coca Cola built therewere mansions. So the other food
I remember, we said snack Kingdom. Little Debbie, Oh yeah, Little
Debbie snack Cakes in nearby Collegdale,Tennessee, was invented by the McKee family.
(19:33):
It's still family owned. McKey Foodsis home to Little Debbie Snacks.
It was founded during the Great Depression. O. D. McKee founded his
business selling five cent moonpies were alsofive cent by the way, they must
have been the price back then.Five cent snack cakes from the back of
his truck. They cobbled. Heand his wife Ruth cobbled together enough money
(19:55):
in nineteen thirty four to buy afailing bake because that was around the Great
Depression. They bought the family breaker. They turned the business around and in
nineteen sixty they started packaging their snackcakes, which now have pinwhills and all
sorts of snack cakes a whole line. They named it after their granddaughter Interesting
in It. Almost thirty five yearspasted until or twenty five years past before
(20:22):
they actually started to package it.Yeah, so it's just a bakery for
a long time. It was Ithink it was the Great Depression, wasn't
it around this time. Yeah,they started the business during the Great Depression,
so they had to recover from theGreat Depression. I would think it
was pretty hard back then. Andfive cents you got to sell a lot
of five cent you got, soa lot of five cent cakes to make
a profit. I call that doingit the hard way. Anyway, the
(20:45):
company is still run by fourth generation. There is a Little Debbie that so
the company was named after their granddaughterDebbie, And there is a Debbie McKee
and recently on Facebook somebody posted aphoto of her. I swear to god
were the same age, and she'svery involved in philanthropic opportunities. And it's
a beloved company. And you canactually when I was a little girl,
you could go visit Little Debbie.Oh yeah, yeah. You could also
visit the Mayfield Dairy Company, whichwas like a big deal. So Chattanooga
(21:07):
is also near a lot of dairyfarms and up towards Sequatchie County there's a
great cheese of Quatchie County cheese anda lot of dairy and we used to
go see the milk getting bottle.I thought it was like so cool.
So that was a big lot offarming. So those are businesses that still
exist in the non food area.Do you know that Chattanooga's home Chatham Labs.
(21:30):
They make Bullfrog? Remember Bullfrog thebomb? No, I have no
idea what that. Yeah, it'sa bomb. And they also make sun
in here. Oh really yeah,I've heard of yeah, yeah, yeah,
anyway, very popular in the eighties. Basically it was bleach for your
hair, right, yeah, mymom put it on me. So now
(21:51):
Chattanoga, you know, flash forward, what thirty five years forty years now,
Chattoga has you know, like Kamatsutractor and a big Volkswagen plant,
and they're bidding on big things andVolkswagen it's a big one because they just
announced that they're unionizing their workers andthat's kind of conning a ripple effect all
over the South. And the airport, which is really rinky dinky, is
(22:14):
now expanding and is really quite nice. I think they're doubling the size of
the airport in chat I actually reallyenjoyed flying out of because it's get in
and out of It is a niceairports. Actually easier to fly out of
Chattanooga than it was to fly outof New York. Well, I live
there. Anywhere it is easier,that's true, true, but needless to
say, I kind of enjoyed theChattanooga airport. Well, well, you
actually get to know the people thatserve you there. You're probably wondering why
(22:37):
we laugh, but anyway, solet's get to the food. We talked
about the snack cakes, the food, and you know, there's a do
you know there's a I think there'ssome other little types of snacks in Chantiga,
but those are the big ones.So where to eat, So we're
going to talk about where to eat, but also what to do. It's
a great place to visit. It'svery family friendly, it's affordable. Like
(22:57):
all cities with growing pains Shtniga.Because of all these wonderful things we're talking
about, it's been added to thebest of lists best places for family vacations,
best places to retire, best placesto work remotely. Because the high
speed internets, Tennessee doesn't have astate income tax, it does have a
high sales tax. Blah, blahblah. Property. You know, it's
(23:18):
getting expensive because with success comes growth, and with growth comes to higher property
value. But but we're going totalk about where to eat. So,
as I mentioned earlier, David,downtown, nobody ever went. The only
thing I remember going downtown, we'dgo to Morrison's Cafeteria, old fashion cafeteria,
(23:41):
get your tray like school, Ohyeah yeah. And then there was
a place I love called Fens,which is now like a condo place.
And all the places I loved you'regone, however, And I mean all
the places I loved are gone.Somebody mentioned the Wimberley and it's Satyr the
other night, and I'm like,oh yeah, that place, the Mount
Vernon. One place still left whichI actually never web but my dad did
(24:03):
was Zarzors. But you and Iactually went there. Yeah, So why
was Zarzors such a big deal?What's a local institution? A really adopt
dive? Right, it's tiny?It's a meet in three? What's a
meet and three, David? Threeis basically like you would get in Nashville
where you get a tray and youwalk down the cafeteria style line and you
(24:25):
say I want this meat and theygive you three sides. That's a meeting
three. So a meet and threewas invented in Tennessee. Nashville's the hub,
but they go out throughout Tennessee,particularly East Tennessee, and like that
moon pie for the workers. Meetingthrees for those day laborers and day workers
who needed an affordable, nutritious meatand three sides, and it was usually
(24:45):
very inexpensive. I took our friendMarissa may to one. She's Italian and
had a very high end restaurant inNew York and she was like, Mama
Maya, this is amazing because youcould eat for like eight dollars and it's
amazing. And Nashville does have thebest ones. But Zarzarus is a local
institution owned by I think a LebaneseI know. They're a Middle Eastern family.
The owner's name is Joe, buthe's called Dixie Fuller, and they've
(25:07):
run this institution for over one hundredyears. Okay, the family run small,
tiny you go eat your meat three. They're known for their chicken and
dumplings, very very local. Andthen in twenty twenty three they almost closed
and made a big to do Whybecause his wife, Joe Fuller's wife,
Shannon Fuller, died of cancer.They had to do a big go fund
(25:30):
race. She had cancer. AsRay said, there was billboards tributes all
over. And then he was havingfinancial problems. He lost his job at
the river Bed Festival, which isa big festival, and he said he's
done, and he had a buyer. There was a big to do,
a big going, you know,big closing party. I think we were
in Italy when it was happening,and every business orser was closing. It's
so sad. And then guess whathappened. The buyer backed out right,
(25:52):
and so he ended up he endedup reopening and rededicating himself to Zarsorus uh
huh and so, which I like. Yeah, So it's back and it's
definitely worth going to from lunch,very local and casual. And I think
the oldest restaurant in Chattanooga going back. The only other one that exists from
(26:15):
my childhood, what's that one withthe Great Salmon Cake owned by the Moonies.
I can't remember the name of it, anyway, it will come to
me in the middle of this.But there's a couple of old like yesterdays
is still there, and the YellowDeli, the Yellow Deli, The Yellow
Deli, best salmon cake sandwich.Crazy weird people, but really good near
(26:36):
the university. So where do welike to eat? Well, you know,
given given the Chattanooga's on the water, where do we recommend any place
near the water. But there's onlylike one restaurant. But you know,
it's interesting because Chattanooga, obviously withan influx of a younger generation of people
that have wanted to come back andkind of reinvest their lives in there and
(26:59):
raise their Chattanoogas obviously come quite away in the dining scene as well.
I mean there's, first of all, there's a lot of building going on
in Chattanooga, a lot of buildingand too much building. Yeah, I
think it's a little bit too muchbuilding. Yeah, However, they'll they'll
get a handle on it and I'llfigure it out. So like like Nashville
went through that boom about ten yearsago where all of a sudden they were
(27:21):
just building everywhere, That's what Chattanoogais doing right now. But they're going
to need the they'll need the infrastructurewith the resources that people need to live
as well, so they're investing inthat as well. Absolutely building a new
stadium they're gonna There's still a lotof land that needs to be developed,
a lot of scrappy land that needsto be developed, but they do need
to protect that waterfront. So speakingof waterfront, our favorite restaurant, one
(27:44):
of our favorite restaurant owners is theBoathouse for tissyri and grill. Hands down,
no reservations, hands down the bestwaterfront dining possible. You can bike
there if you want from the museum. It's right in the Riverfront Park.
Yeah, and very easily except it'sa great spot. And our friend owns
it and hay Good and his wife, Karen Haygod, they own a couple
(28:06):
of restaurants, including Sidetrack and abarbecue place, Sugar's Barbecue and Sugar's Ribs,
really good ribs, and they dovery well. We like the boat
House because you can just go yoube patient, get a great bloody Mary
or margarita, hang will buzz youwhen your time is ready, or you
(28:26):
can go sit at the bar,which we'd love to do. Lawton invented
we've had him on the show.He invented a patented way of wood grilling
that makes his wood grilled brisket andwood grilled oysters, wood grilled salmon taste
unlike anything. Well, he actuallyinvented the grill itself, yes, which
uses would and sold that and Ithink, you know, he obviously made
(28:49):
a lot of money off of thatbecause he sold it to many of the
great chefs in the United States,including Wolgang Puck right, who have used
that grill and for years and yearsand years too. So Lawton's first claim
to fame was creating that grill andthat system for you doing wood grilling in
restaurants. And then he's also branchedout into the restaurant business himself, and
(29:12):
he's got he's been very successful atthat as well, over over the years,
very so. His restaurants are theBoat House, Rochester and Grill on
the Tennessee River on the Amnacola Highwayside and then in North Chattanooga, much
more neighborhoodly is a little restaurant calledside Track, Great Hamburgers, great specials.
(29:33):
I just like the chicken pacata.We tend to order the same thing
we go. I love the chard, yes, and the charlgrilled little gems
of the salad. They do achar grilled salad that's just a divine.
I mean think about warm salad,but go there and get it. And
then sugar's ribs, which you cando take out as well, and just
fantastic. We've done a lot withthem, so that's hands down our favorite
(29:56):
when we would go out to eatwith a go grabb bite. In the
revitalized South Side area which is large, I mean this was an area there's
still a poultry manufacturing company which sadlyyou can smell, and a lot the
former Schultz tannery. It was allmanufacturing. It's all been changes. Also
where the railroad is. Let's startwith the Chattanooga chu Choo. Why because
(30:19):
this is you know, as Isaid, immortalized by the Glenn Miller song.
It was the number one song acrossthe United States in December nineteen forty
one. And that's actually a railroadterminus for the for the actual Chattanooga Railroad
which went through the region and stilldoes for freight trains, but not for
(30:40):
passenger trains anymore. But the chuChuo is a huge building in the South
Side which has been transformed into kindof a museum. They have an ice
rink in the back where some ofthe railroad tracks used to be in the
wintertime. They also have a coupleThey also have a distillery in there,
and they have a couple of greatrestaurants in there as well. Yeah,
and the Frothy Monkey Little Brewery.And they still have the big chat n
(31:02):
you get che Choo signed over thetop that you can see for miles and
it contains the largest freestanding brick domein the world with eighty foot high.
That seems a little strange, Ithought the Pantheon, I mean, you
know, but it is quite Itis quite beautiful. And a Christmas they
have this big Christmas tree. Andwhen I was a little girl. When
I was a little girl, Ihad my eighteenth birthday party, and when
(31:23):
had the chu Choo cars because youcould rent them. There used to be
the chu Chuo Hilton. There wasa chu Choo holiday in I don't know
if you can stay there or notanymore, but you can go. And
the restaurant there is called Stir.You can get good raw oysters, a
lot of sheer food. Kind ofa gathering place type bar pubby and within
walking distance of the Guitar Museum andSongbirds which recently reopened, which is an
(31:47):
entertainment venue which we never had thechance to go. And then there's a
Frothy Monkey, which is a brewery, coffee shop, a lot going on.
I'm actually surprised there's not more activitydown there. Whenever we go.
It seems empty, don't you think. Yeah, it's active at night,
maybe reaches out on the weekends.Yeah. And Sture also has some outdoor
dining, so in the same vicinityyou can go sample some Chattanooga whiskey.
(32:08):
So Channa Go's home to the ChattanoogaWhiskey Company. There's a big plant over
toward the water, kind of nearthe bike path we like, but you
can also there's a little tasting roomarea across from the Chu Chuo and the
Chantniga whiskey is pretty good. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah Yeah,
And they do all the distilling thereand they do the aging there too.
(32:29):
So if you're looking for a uniqueonly in Chattanooga, pick up a bottle
of Chattanooga whisky. So in thissame area, let's talk about some of
the restaurants. We like. FeedOh, I love Feed, very casual,
but it's it's in an old granaryand an old old feed shop or
feed warehouse, right, hence thename Feed, and it's actually one of
(32:52):
three restaurants that these owners own,one down in Saint Elmo eighteen eighty five,
and then there's another one up onthe north side, which is our
favorite little hamburgers spot, Tremont Tavern. Tremont Tavern is so yummy. That's
just a great burger spot and theyhave a good veggie burger and it is
(33:13):
a local hangout in Northchaga. SoFeed's part of that restaurant group. And
then they also have the Fraser fiveand Dime too, right, Yeah,
I don't know if they're them ornot, but I do like Fraser five
at Dime. I can't there's there'slike three companies that own all the restaurants.
Old family run the UH and theyown different things. So I'm not
sure if that's the Feed people orthe people that own Parkway tab Parkway poh
(33:37):
Boy, Parkway po House. Sorry, we're in New Orleans and Parkway,
Parkway, Porthhouse is not owned bythat's owned by the partially owned by the
Tremont guys. Yeah, yeah,so I think that's the I needless to
say, Feed love it. It'svery casual, kind of sports barish inside,
but there's They've got a great terraceoutside that you sit at and have
meals. Another place that I likeis The Easy, very good Place,
(34:01):
very very good, very good,very good food, great staff. Yeah.
The owners are Eric and Amanda Neil. One of the few chef owners
ever given a slight nod by theJames Bear Foundation Awards because Shannic is never
on the list, but these folksare. It's like French classics with a
(34:21):
Southern spin. My mother and Iused to I used to love to go
there on Mother's Day with my mother. They always had the best oysters,
really good, really good desserts becauseshe always liked to save room for desserts,
and charcouterie and really good seafood.It moved from its original location.
It's now closer to believing at theWestern Hotel, which is a very nice
(34:42):
hotel and really very lovely place,highly recommended. And another place that we
like is Hello Monty. We've beenthere a couple of times. M that's
also very nice. Also locally ownedrob Gentry. They do a fun wine
night, they do a lot ofit's very all these places are very casual.
There's no really there's only like oneformal or two formal dining places in
(35:06):
Chattanooga, so you're thinking pubfair.The dishes do tend to be a little
repetitive. Everywhere we go, you'llget You'll always find a shrimp and grit.
You always find Springer Mountain chicken.Springer Mountain is the local farm raised
chickens. I particularly like the oneto feed. I also like the one
in another place that we'll mention publichouse, very very low, very good,
(35:29):
contemporary, southern modern. Also literallythese are all within walking distance.
In the south side downtown area towardthe Chuu Chu. You will find a
trout because trout is the local fish, or a catfish. Those are the
local fish in Chattanoga. The difficultywith Chandog because you don't get a lot
of seafood because it's landlocked. Andyou'll always get a great burger and a
(35:52):
fried chicken dish somewhere and usually friedgreen tomatoes. Right absolutely, I thought,
hello, Monty, though, youknow what I liked is there charm
tomato brus gotta. We always gotthat and it was always a consistent,
really good place. I'm going tobring up a few that we didn't go
to together, but you know,southern living is like the Bible, it's
(36:12):
like what everybody reads in the South. And they in October eighteen, twenty
twenty three did a list. I'mgoing to suggest some that we've both been
to and I and I'll tell youif I agree or not. The first
on the list is the fine diningplace that we used to go with my
mom and dad on special occasions ofvery happy memories. And once I saw
Peyton Manning there because here's a funfact. Football player Peyton Manning went to
(36:35):
University of Tennessee and he has ahome there too, and he was a
vall. He was a vall,played in the Valls and he's a home
in Harrison. And so I washaving dinner with my mom at Saint John,
which is really fabulous, higher endyou want to get dressed up to
go there, very elegant, moreelevated food, and there was Peyton Manning
(36:55):
and I'm like, wow, myservers. Yeah, and Daniel Linley,
who is the chef and owner ofSaint John. Right, and also Aliah,
by the way, has been meetingnominated for James Beard Award as well,
a semi finalist, right well,yeah, and he also he also
does a lot of work in Nashvilleas well, so this is a historic
(37:17):
it's named after his hotel called theSaint John Hotel. Remember, a lot
of these hotels in this area werefor traveling salesmen and workers who had come
in on the railroad and leave,so they were kind of like not great
hotels. But it has been transformed. It's a beautiful hotel. It's a
beautiful restaurant. I kind of wishwe'd gone as a grand finale. Aliyah,
as you mentioned, is the otherrestaurant owned by the Lindleys. It
(37:40):
is rustic Italian and very nice ifyou want. It's probably the premier Italian
restaurant in Chattanooga. I think there'sonly two Italian restaurants in Chandoga, so
this is the premier one in Chattanooga. And it's literally all within walking distance.
We mentioned a boat House and Lawton'sMargarita, which they sold more than
(38:04):
eighty thousand according to the website.Because the Lawton Rita is fantastic easy bistro.
You mentioned, David, very verygood. Okay, the Flying Squirrel,
now this is a Southern living Octobertwenty twenty three. Flying Squirrel was
great. Now it's kind of aChinese restaurant which you missed, but they
had this. They changed the name. They changed any I wonder they had
that great pancake. I don't knowthey had this rice pancake. It was
(38:27):
to die for. It really was. I can't pronounce it. It's it
was to die for. A reallygood cocktail program. Also Fraser finem and
Die. You mentioned that, Sothis is kind of a cool place.
It used to be something else,a gastro pub. It's a lot of
small plates. They have a verygood crawfish salad in a biscuit that is
(38:47):
as good as any I would gethere in New Orleans. I love that
dish and a lot of fish frittersand smoke. I love the smoked mushrooms
and the blistered green beans. Thisis a place where you want to sit
at the bar, but we've we'vebeen at both places. We've sat at
the table and at the bar.Really terrific. It was in an old
(39:08):
I forgot was it a five anddime store? I guess it was a
five and dime store before it becamebecame this little restaurant, but highly recommended.
Fraser Avenue is a fun place tovisit. There's a lot of little
boutiques and shops along the way.You can go to Champi and the Clumpies
to get really good ice cream.And we like mess call was it mess
(39:30):
Call? The Mexican place on thecorner, isn't it Meskla mess Club mess
Club Mescla. We kind of stumbledupon because there's a couple of Mexican restaurants.
This one is definitely our favorite.And it is also on the north
(39:51):
side, so China has got yougot north of the river and south of
the river. So we've been talkingabout south side, south of the river,
and now we've kind of skipped overto the north side and Fraser Avenue
I knew, which is another bustlingarea of fun things to do, all
bordered by river walking. You canwalk, you can bike, so very
outdoors. Love their pasoli soup delicious, just the best, just delicious that
(40:15):
I think there's not a time thatwe've gone to Mescalo that we haven't had
that. Boli locally owned. Theowners are inspired by Mexican. We never
met them. They were always away, really great places, always sit at
the bar, great guacamole, reallygood song gria. You get the Margarita.
There's nothing. This is a mustif you want good Mexican. There's
some other Mexican restaurants in Chinago,but for us, this was the it,
(40:37):
the it. And then can wetalk about the best pizza in town?
Yes, because if we're going tohave Mexican food on the list,
we have to have pizza on lYes. Yes, So Pizzeria Cortili,
which is not actually in Chattanooga proper, but it's in Red Bang. Well
that's Chanoga, which is the whichis the village just above Chattanooga, but
it's really the same area. PizzeriaCortilli is just fabulous. It's owned by
(41:00):
a couple. They It's a Neapolitanstyle pizza with amazing toppings. We discovered
this place so Chaanoga basically is acity with a lot of little villages,
okay, all in Hamilton County.This is a young couple. They wanted
to They love supporting their community.They live in Red Bank, they work
in Red Bank. This place isterrific. The pizza could stand up to
(41:23):
any Neapolitan pizzas we've had anywhere.And they also do just a very good
bun min sandwiches. Oh yeah,I had one actually one night. Yeah,
no reservations. I don't think youjust go, you just go.
But it's so good and the pizzasreally are out of this world and they're
just delicious and it's they started asa food just an Amanda Bennett or the
owners of Pizzeria Cortilia, and theyjust do a fabulous job. You know.
(41:46):
It started as a food truck.A lot of really terrific restaurants start
as food trucks. Actually, onethat you know we really like, Kedjetta
Neutral Ground. So this is aninteresting story. Uh, I forgot his
last name. Kanyada our friend.We have a family member who mentors Kenyada,
(42:07):
but he has a uh. Itstarted as a pop up in a
location on Martin Luther King that cateredto pop ups. The place is no
longer, it's now a Middle EasternIt was a food incubator and Kenyata is
from New Orleans and he decided toopen up in Chattanooga. And he makes
(42:32):
something called yak a Main, whichis an iconic New Orleans dish. He
does it with a smoked brisket.The Yakaman lady here is very very famous.
Love to have her on the show. Miss Linda and it's it's actually
been called Old Sober because Yaka Man, which has got noodles and lots of
(42:54):
different you know, uh meats,and it was actually created to get over
on us for a Sunday after hungover, so he named his pop up and
now it's actually I think it hasits uh it's now much more permanent.
Kenyada Ashford, Nada Ashford. Weactually met him online at Whole Foods right
and he had he had and hesaid, oh, I make it every
(43:20):
night downtown and that's how you methim, and we went there. He's
a great guy. His website isneutral ground chat chatt dot com. I
think when we met him he wastrying to get a brick and mortar and
thanks to some very good mentorship,he was able to do it. Ken
YadA Ashford. He studied at theCulinary Institute of America and worked in New
(43:43):
Orleans, also Rhode Island, andin New Hampshire and then came back to
Channooga. He got a grant,the Jean Louis Paladin Professional Work Study Grant
by the James Spear Foundation to studythe cuisines of the African American diaspora.
In West Africa, really talented andI think this is a chef to watch
that's catering too, Yes, itdoes. It's neutral ground is an interesting
(44:07):
term. It's in one of thosewonderful New Orleans terms that we looked up.
Neutral ground is the slightly raised,elevated, often landscaped, tree,
leafy tree area in the center medianof the streets. You know, New
Orleans has very wide boulevards like othercities, and that's where people sometimes gather
(44:30):
and have picnics, they'll play chess. It's also where cars park when they
want to get out from under thestorm the storm, and it's neutral.
It's needed to the left of theright. There's a whole nother story there
about troops and fighting and everything,but we'll go. But that's that's the
term neutral ground. And really I'mreally happy to see that Kenyada has brick
and mortar. That the company wascalled Proof. There was an incubator.
(44:53):
We were actually thinking about doing astory with them. It's it's now another
It's a Middle Eastern restaurant that's reallygood. I to get the name of
it. I went there without you. It was called Proof Incubator. They
may still exist, they're just notat this particular place. So I think
(45:14):
we've covered a number of restaurants.I think we may have missed a few.
I think we were there any otherrestaurants we loved. I'm sure there
are, but those are some ofa couple of other things before we pat
You know, Chainooga's a rock climbingparadise. It is. It's great rock
(45:34):
climbing. The East is filled withgreat rocking climbing places as well, and
we lived in one for ourselves fora number of time. Heres in New
Paul's, New York, where theShuwankunk Mountains are, But the Tennessee River
Gorge has a lot of great rockthat people flog all over from the especially
in the southeast to go climb out. But it's got a lot of outdoor
stuff, beautle state parks and beautifulhiking trails, hiking trailso kayaking and canoeing
(45:58):
as well. Right there's the LulaLake Land Trust, which is on the
backside Amazing, which is only openone weekend a month, but it's a
beautiful place. First weekend a monthyou can join and it's just a it's
an outside thrill seekers dream place.I think I just love it. I
love it there. But lots ofthings to do, lots of walking,
(46:19):
biking, lots of we like CloudCanyon used to do on the river as
well, and jet skiing. Saley. It's it's an outdoor it's also great.
It's also great. It's also agreat family destination too, because because
the infrastructure was revitalized so much overthe years, a lot of people have
family vacations and they take their youngchildren to Chattanooga from all over the Southeast,
(46:45):
and just to underscore some places wewould recommend that are family friendly and
fine. There's the Chattanooga Children's Museumand Activity Center. It's very good.
There's actually an indoor rock climbing wallso kids learn how to climb. They
see aquarium is the largest I thinkfreshwater aquarium in the country. Maybe I'm
not or at least the southeast,but there's also a seawater aquarium. There's
(47:08):
like two buildings, have great butterflyexhibit. Yeah, I love that butterfly
exhibit. And then we mentioned theHunter Museum of American Art. There's two
buildings there, the older art themore contemporary art, and it's all in
an area called bluffew which was anotherdown trodden area, and over there that
a Ford thinking doctor, doctor Priceatook bought the land and developed an in
(47:30):
which we stayed in a little coupleof restaurants. Wonderful restaurant Tony's also a
very good handmade pasta restaurant with outdoorcity in Rembrandt's Coffee. And we did
not mention and should because you canactually buy this. The need Loves is
a local baker that makes a greatU sour dough baguettes, baguettes and it's
(47:51):
a great artistan bakery, artis andbakery just like all uh in New York,
say Sullivan Street Bakery. Well,it's really that quality. You can
buy the need Loves. It sellsout quickly, but you can buy the
loaves and local grocery stores. Andwe fell in love with buying that and
getting Silaquatchia County Cheese, which isa local cheese from Sulquatchie County, another
county nearby. So we would beenremiss if we didn't do another great thing
(48:15):
for kids, which is the ChattanoogaZoo. Oh, which is which is
it's a zoo. Great way toend, it's not a big zoo,
but it's a really wonderful zoo.And of course your mom was instrumental in
creating and raising the money for theGiraffic exhibit at the zoo. There's three
giraffes, George Porter and Party Band they came from New Orleans Autumn Zoo,
(48:37):
and so there's a strong New Orleansconnection and it is a wonderful place.
With The nice thing about the ChattanoogaZoo, it's a community zoo.
It's city owned and volunteer run,and estaff is great and it's open day
and night. My favorite time togo actually is night to see the night
you know, the night animals.But it is special and thank you for
bringing it up to the zoo.The aquarium, the Children's Discovery Museum,
(49:00):
the climbing wall, the biking,the hiking. Makes me a little sad
that we left, but we arein a new city and we look forward
to going back and we love totravel. But for all of you experience
a while, and for all ofyou do put Shannooga on your lists of
places to visit in the Southeast.You will not be disappointed. You will
(49:22):
love it and your family will loveit and we'd love to hear from you.
So we're the Connected Table Melanie Youngand David Rants, and we hope
you enjoyed this show and our takeon a city that we think should be
on your travel itinerary if you're roadtripping, so hope to hear from you.
Follow us at the Connected Table onInstagram. Listen to all our shows
(49:43):
on iHeart Spotify, Apple are yourfavorite podcast channel and has always stay insatiably
curious. Thank you, no no, no,
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