Dining Out times Two…

I keep a list of Knoxville area restaurants that we want to try out… Some of them are new to the area and others have been recommended to us or have received a positive review in the local press… We are always looking for something new...and good!

Laurie and I were in Knoxville shopping at Costco… In order to have enough energy to shop, we decided to try out Knoxville’s new Egg and I Restaurant. It had opened in a small strip center on the property adjacent to Costco.

The interior of the Egg and I was ‘homey’, pleasant and clean. 

The Egg and I restaurant chain is a franchised operation that was founded in Fort Collins Colorado back in 1987.  They currently have roughly 100 locations in 21 states… Ten new Egg and I restaurants are scheduled to open before the end of this year.

This view was from our table looking out at the patio/curbside dining and across the parking lot toward Costco.

The Egg and I has its largest presence in Colorado, (25 locations with another one later this year), and in Texas. (30 locations with 2 more coming this year) If you’d like to learn more about this company…perhaps buy a franchise…just go to the company’s website at http://www.theeggandirestaurants.com/.

Laurie ordered a variation of one of her favorites…Eggs Benedict.  In this case, it was named “Parisian Benedict”. ($9.29) This version has a buttery croissant half layered with smoked ham, sautéed portabella mushrooms and melted Swiss cheese…which is then topped with 2 poached eggs, hollandaise sauce and green onions.  She chose ranch potatoes as her side.

Laurie gave her breakfast two thumbs up…although we both prefer crispy shredded hash browns vs. ranch potatoes.

I was trying to eat a relatively healthy breakfast.  Also, I’m not that fond of ranch potatoes and I’m not crazy about grits.  I created my own omelette. ($8.99) I added bacon, sausage and pepper jack cheese to my 3-egg creation.  I opted for a fruit cup instead of the ‘bad’ carbs.  I have to say that the best part of my breakfast was the fruit cup… The edges of my English muffin were burnt and my omelette was just OK.  I would have preferred the pepper jack cheese on the inside just to keep the eggs more moist.

One win out of two… To be fair, Laurie and I will have to return to The Egg and I for lunch in order to provide a better appraisal of this restaurant’s offerings.  Reviews on Urban Spoon, Yelp and Trip Advisor have been mixed as well.  Time will tell.  This Egg and I restaurant is located at 111 Lovell Road in Farragut Tennessee.  Phone: 865-671-3447.  This location’s website and the menu is found at:  http://www.theeggandirestaurants.com/locations/lovellroad.html.

When Laurie’s sister Bonnie and her husband Bill visited us recently, one of our casual dining choices was Wild Wings Café. (Not to be confused with that ‘other’ chain…’Buffalo Wild Wings’.) I ‘grabbed’ this photo of the exterior of Wild Wings Café from the Internet…

This is the only Wild Wings Café we’ve ever been in and it is a big place!  There are 35 Wild Wings Café location scattered across 7 southeastern states.  This is a combination sport bar, family dining experience and entertainment venue…

The décor is sports bar plus…with a lot going on!  There always seem to be specials for drinks and food…plus in the evenings these restaurants feature live music several times each week.

We stopped by for lunch… Bill and I ate so much food that dinner was not necessary!  The special for the day was All the Wings You Can Eat plus a Grilled Cheese Sandwich, a Cup of Soup and French Fries.  Cost?  How about $10.00 each!

We both skipped the grilled cheese sandwich but we did have a cup of chicken rice soup… It was nothing special but just OK.

 

Bonnie and Laurie were more controlled than their husbands… They shared an order of Mile High Ultimate Nachos…with spicy taco beef, queso, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, black beans, corn and poblano peppers. ($10.49) They were very happy and content with their choice…and their accompanying beers.

Bill and I each started out with a 10-wing order accompanied with French fries, celery and blue cheese dipping sauce.  The wings at Wild Wings Café are very good indeed!  A total of 34 sauces are available.  The sauces range from gentle, (1 ‘pepper’), to killer hot… The hottest sauces are named Fireball, China Syndrome, (both with 4 ‘peppers’), Habanero Hots, (5 ‘peppers’) and Braveheart. (6 ‘peppers’) Braveheart is described as being “So hot you can lose your head over it!”

Bill and I both like a bit of heat but we weren’t in a suicidal mood.  My favorite sauce was “The Slayer - This hot garlic wing helps Buffy kick some demon butt!”  All the wings were very good…and we managed to eat another 6 wings each before we gave up!

The Knoxville Wild Wings Café is located at the west end of the Turkey Creek Shopping area at I-40 and Campbell Station Road.  Prices are very reasonable.  The restaurant is actually in Farragut Tennessee at 11335 Campbell Lakes Drive.  Phone: 865-777-9464.  The specific website for the Farragut location is: http://www.wildwingcafe.com/locations/knoxville-tn. The corporate website is at http://www.wildwingcafe.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Fishing and “The” Blogger Party

Back in early June, Laurie and I were happy to attend Larry (Big Dude) and Bev’s Blogger Dock Party.  They have a great party dock in a cove on Tellico Lake and it’s been a great source of entertainment…parties and socializing for us and fishing for me and an occasional visitor.

I do like to go fishing!

Fishing on Big Dude and Bev’s dock earlier this spring, I caught this nice catfish.  I was using a minnow with a bobber.  It was a heck of a fight on light fishing gear!

Recently, Laurie’s sister Bonnie and her husband Bill came over from St. Louis Missouri and they spent a week with us.  Bill and I went fishing on Larry and Bev’s party dock on 3 occasions… While we didn’t catch any big fish, we had a good time!  Bill is an aggressive fisherman, working constantly to find a lure or bait that will attract the big one.  He caught this bass on a spinning lure.  He must have cast lures over 500 times in our 3 outings.  I prefer to use a minnow as bait with a bobber…and just relax.  Of course, his methods yield more and bigger fish!

In any case, note the scene behind and around Bill… Not a bad setting!

On to the Blogger Party…

Each year for the past few years, Big Dude and his patient and supportive wife Bev, host a Blogger Party at their home here in East Tennessee.  Guests have come from as far away as Florida and Kansas City.  Big Dude…AKA Larry…has already posted a blog with the food photos, describing what we had to eat at this year’s event.  In the collage above, you can revisit the sumptuous buffet that we gorged on over a 4-hour period, one course at a time. 

For more details and close up photos of each of the dishes shown, just go to Big Dude’s blog at http://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com/2014/06/blogger-party-2014-lets-eat.html.  

Like I said, this is a party dock!  That’s Big Dude in the green shirt with his co-host Chris G. in the white shirt to his left.  

Chris is a pro-blogger and ‘grillmaster’!  He’s based in Knoxville Tennessee and he’s published a cookbook, available at Amazon, entitled ‘The Kamado Smoker and Grill Cookbook: Recipes and Techniques for the World's Best Barbecue’.  To learn more about Chris and to check out his blog, you can go to: http://www.nibblemethis.com/p/about-me.html. He and his wife Alexis contributed a Puttanesca Sauce for our pasta ‘bar’.

This photo was taken after several bouts of eating and drinking… It was a pretty relaxed gathering.  We started with a few liquid refreshments, then grilled pizzas and an antipasto salad…followed by several pasta offerings plus meatballs and a couple of decadent desserts.  It’s a good thing that we spread this feast out because there was so much food.  Now I know why Roman banquets took so long! 

A couple of the guests took Larry’s Sea-Doo out for a spin on the lake!

Another ‘pro’ blogger that was in attendance was Penny who publishes “Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen”.  Her blog features great recipes and food photos.  Check out Penny’s blog at http://lakelurecottagekitchen.com/. She and her husband David furnished the Linguini with Spicy Tuscan Sausage Ragu for our feast.

Here’s another view of the group and the party dock… Seating in the background to the left is another blogger that I follow.  Sam is in the yellow blouse with the red necklace.  Her attractive and well-designed blog is called “My Carolina Kitchen”.  Sam writes a food column, “From My Carolina Kitchen”, for her local newspaper.  Her recipes are terrific and her food photos are spectacular…

You can check out Sam’s blog at http://mycarolinakitchen.blogspot.com/.  She and her husband Meakin served Chicken Marbella at Big Dude and Bev’s blogger party.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Flying in an Antique Airplane!

For several years now, I’ve been trying to find a way to give Laurie the experience of flying on a DC-3.  We’ve flown on helicopters, gliders, single engine float planes, DC-9’s, 737’s, 767’s, DC-10’s and 747’s… We’ve been inside passenger equipped DC-3’s, Martin 404’s and Lockheed Constellations.  Frustratingly, the only airline I’ve been able to find in North America that still has DC-3 flights is Buffalo Airlines up in northern Canada.  I personally had flown DC-3’s back in the late 1950’s on  a Lake Central Airlines route from Detroit Michigan over to Erie Pennsylvania and then on to Buffalo New York.

Then I saw a brief news item on one of the local TV stations in Knoxville… An organization based in Wisconsin was offering flights at a local Tennessee airport on a true antique airplane…

What if I could buy us tickets for a flight on a plane that pre-dates the DC-3 airplanes…or even the DC-2’s!?  The plane in the sky above is not your typical passenger plane!  It is a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor…

These planes were nicknamed “The Tin Goose”.  To overcome concerns about engine reliability, they added a third engine.  Another major step forward for passenger comfort at that time was the fully enclosed cabin!  The first 3 Tri-Motors produced actually had open cockpits…as many doubted that a plane could be flown without direct “feel of the wind”!

In this photo, the Ford Tri-Motor passenger plane is landing at Knoxville’s Downtown Island Airport…

Back in the 1920’s, Henry Ford decided to get into the fast growing aviation business.  He purchased the Stout Aviation Company in 1925.  William Stout had studied the successful German Junkers airliner and he designed a commercial aircraft along the same lines. 

Above, the Ford Tri-Motor is rolling along the tarmac to the spot where it would stop to let passengers off and then pick up another load…

Unlike many of the aircraft of its time, the Ford Tri-Motor was all metal, rather than fabric and metal.  As was Henry Ford’s practice, the Tri-Motor was inexpensive to produce and operate as an airliner.  This one, Model 4-AT-E, (NC8407), cost $55,000 new.  She was the 146^th off the assembly line and her first flight was on August 21, 1929. 

The pilot of the Tri-Motor, Colin Soucy, is a retired airline captain and an Experimental Aircraft Association Volunteer.  The EAA is based in Oshkosh Wisconsin, which is the home of the annual EAA AirVenture Oshkosh air show…one of the largest and most extensive air shows in the world.  This year it will run from July 28^th through August 3^rd.  To learn more about AirVenture Oshkosh, you can check it out at https://www.eaa.org/en/airventure.

Despite minimal coverage by the local media, EAA volunteers weren’t having any trouble filling up the plane with airplane enthusiasts. Between flights, folks walked around the plane and took lots of photos…both inside and out…

The Tri-Motor’s corrugated skin gives the metal added stiffness while reducing weight.  The plane was and is reliable and rugged, at least partially due to their simple design and construction.  A total of 199 of these aircraft were built between 1926 and1933.  At this point, 18 of them are still intact and based on 2012 information, 8 are still flying.  However, this is the only one that flies on a regular basis during most of the year.

 

We needed fuel before our flight could take us on our little journey.  That’s the pilot pumping the fuel…

Henry Ford never made a profit from aircraft production and the last Ford Tri-Motor rolled off the assembly line in 1933.  Aircraft competition heated up that year with the introduction of the Boeing 247. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_247) The Douglas DC-2 entered the marketplace in 1934. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-2) The DC-3, which was one of the world’s most successful airliners, was introduced in 1935; only a year after the DC-2 debuted. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3)

This little girl found refuge from the sun in the shade provided by the horizontal stabilizer or tailplane.  She was one of the passengers on our flight and this was her first flight ever! She did great!

Children under 2 can be carried on an adult’s lap.  Weather permitting, flight times were from 9 AM until 5 PM daily while at the airport.  The cost per adult for a flight on the Tri-Motor was $75.00.  The airplane holds up to 9 passengers…

Here’s the view inside the Ford Tri-Motor’s passenger cabin.  Note the wood work and the big windows… Laurie sat right in front of me on the left and here she’s taking her own photo of the cabin and the cockpit.

This particular Ford Tri-Motor was originally sold to Pitcairn Aviation’s passenger division, Eastern Air Transport.  Eastern Air Transport later became Eastern Airlines which operated from 1926 to 1991.  To learn more about Pitcairn Aviation go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Aircraft_Company, and to learn more about Eastern Airlines, you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines.

This was Laurie’s view as we took off on our flight… She was sitting right behind 1 of the 3 Pratt and Whitney 9 cylinder 450 horsepower engines…2 mounted under the wings and 1 on the nose of the aircraft.  The Tri-Motor has a cruising speed of 90 mph, holds 230 gallons of aviation fuel and it has a range of 500 miles.

This was our view looking back at Knoxville’s Downtown Island Airport on Dickinson Island and the Tennessee River.  The airport, (designated DKX), handles more than 83,000 flight operations a year.  Over 140 aircraft are based here, including the Knox County Sheriff’s helicopters.  This airport began operations in 1930 and in the 1940’s, it served as a training facility for Army Air Cadets.  For more about Knoxville’s Downtown Island Airport, you can go to http://www.dkxairport.com/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxville_Downtown_Island_Airport.

Here we’re flying over downtown Knoxville with its bridges over the Tennessee River.  Our altitude during this 15 minute flight was at roughly 1,000 feet, perfect for sightseeing and taking photos!

Here’s another view of the center of Knoxville, looking back the other way… Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 848,350 in 2012.

Settled in 1786, Knoxville served as the first capital of Tennessee. During the Civil War, the city was bitterly divided over the secession issue, and was occupied alternately by both Confederate and Union armies.  The 1982 World's Fair was held in Knoxville and it became one of the most popular world's fairs in U.S. history with 11 million visitors. To learn more about Knoxville Tennessee, just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxville,_Tennessee.

In this photo, you’re looking down at the campus of the University of Tennessee, home of the “Vols” and the university’s famous Neyland Stadium.  The university is attended by over 27,000 students… For more on the University, just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Tennessee#Main_campus.

Knoxville and nearby areas are also home to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee Valley Authority, the Smoky Mountain National Park, Fort Loudoun Lake, Tellico Lake and several major boat builders.  These include Master Craft, Sea Ray, Skier’s Choice, Colbalt, Bryant, Malibu, Bullet and Stroker boats.  To learn more about Knoxville, go to http://www.visitknoxville.com/ or   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxville,_Tennessee.

We got another nice view of the Knoxville Island Airport as we circled back and prepared to land…

Here are some Ford Tri-Motor facts:

• ·        First all-metal, multi-engine commercial airliner.
• ·        Led to the construction of the first airline terminal for passengers.
• ·        Was the first regularly scheduled passenger airliner to operate.
• ·        Led to the first hotel designed for air travelers, the Dearborn MI Inn.
• ·        Led to the creation of the first paved runway.
• ·        First airline that led to required crew training.

I

t    I took this photo of Laurie as we circled back to land… Between us, I think that we took over 150 photos!  We sure love digital photography…just snap away and delete or print the photos that you really want…

In 1930, this Tri-Motor was leased to Cubana Airlines where it inaugurated air service between Havana and Santiago de Cuba, another important Cuban city.  It was later flown by the government of the Dominican Republic.  It returned to the USA in 1949 for use in airshows. For a while it was used as a crop duster and then it was used as a chemical fire ‘bomber’ and later for use by smoke jumpers.  Then it was back to air shows and it was also used in the Jerry Lewis movie “Family Jewels”.  The plane was at the 1973 Oshkosh EAA Fly-In event when it was severely damaged in a thunderstorm.  EAA purchased the wreckage and after 12 years of restoration, it once again took to the air.  What a history!!

Laurie took this picture as we came down low over the Tennessee River on final approach to the Knoxville Downtown Island Airport.  Note that the landing gear on the Ford Tri-Motor is not retractable…

Here are some interesting factoids about America in 1929, (85 years ago), when this actual plane was first flown:

• ·        A Ford Model A cost $500.00.
• ·        The average house cost $8,000.00.
• ·        The gas price hit 20 cents a gallon!
• ·        In September of that year, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began.
• ·        Babe Ruth hit his 500^th home run.
• ·        Cleveland Ohio became the first airport with a control tower.
• ·        JC Penney opened its first store in Delaware, reaching all 48 states.
• ·        Herbert Hoover is President.
• ·        My father was only 18 and my mother was only 13… It would be several years before they even met.
• ·        Admiral Richard Byrd flew over the South Pole…in a Ford Tri-Motor!

Laurie took this photo of the air service/passenger terminal at Knoxville’s Downtown Island Airport as we taxied to the conclusion of our terrific flying adventure!  We had a great time flying in this historic airplane and the weather was perfect too… Now if we could only find a DC-3 to experience too!

To learn more about the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), just go to https://www.eaa.org/eaa.  To learn more about flying on the Ford Tri-Motor and to view its schedule of stops across the country, check it out at https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/flight-experiences/fly-the-ford-eaa-ford-tri-motor-airplane-tour.  This week it’s flying in Pontiac Michigan at the Oakland County International Airport…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by to join us on our flight in an antique airplane!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

     

Roadfood Along the Way + Critters

On our way back to paradise in East Tennessee, we looked for a place to stop, take a break from the highway and have some lunch.  We’d just crossed over the Kentucky border going south on I-24 and we were in Clarksville Tennessee…

We hadn’t eaten at a Logan’s Roadhouse in a number of years so we thought we’d give it a try.

 

Logan's Roadhouse is a chain of restaurants that was founded in Lexington Kentucky back in 1991.  For some time, it was a wholly owned subsidiary of the company that owns Cracker Barrel.  In 2010 a private equity firm acquired the company. Its main office is now located in Nashville, Tennessee. Logan’s Roadhouse now has more than 210 company operated and almost 30 franchised locations across 23 states. 

Laurie ordered the Steakhouse Sirloin Melt with French fries for her lunch. ($10.49) Her sandwich was topped with ‘Brewski’ onions, mushrooms, Swiss cheese and chipotle mayonnaise. Both the sandwich and the fries were very nicely done.  This was a satisfying lunch indeed…

If you aren’t familiar with Logan’s Roadhouse, they serve a variety of steaks, prime rib, baby back ribs, fried chicken, pork chops, shrimp, tilapia and a number of ‘combo’ dishes. (The most expensive offering on the menu is the 20 oz. bone-in Creole Ribeye at $25.99) For the health conscious, the restaurant offers a Healthy and Hearty menu with 6 choices, all less than 550 calories.

 

I ordered the Fried Cheese and Bacon Burger. ($9.99) The combination of the nicely cooked hamburger patty with bacon, fried cheese, lettuce, pickles and mayonnaise did the job…and I had a ‘happy mouth’!  I opted out of the French fries and substituted a house salad.  When I noted that I’d been charged an additional $2.39 for the salad I was taken aback just a bit as both the fries and the salad are on the same list of signature sides… It was a nice little salad and I didn’t bother to challenge the waiter.

   

The Logan’s Roadhouse that we visited is located just off of I-24 at 3072 Wilma Rudolph Boulevard in Clarksville Tennessee.  Phone: 931-645-8333.  Website: http://www.logansroadhouse.com/.

  

Home again…and I thought that I’d share a couple of photos of one of our neighbors… He and his ilk are regular visitors to our yard and they wander through the woods all around us. 

We were watching this young fella through our front windows.  He was nibbling on our bushes and looking around for other food items… The good news is that we’ve lived here for 5 years now and despite having plenty of deer in the woods all around us, they’ve done very little damage to our plants.  Of course, we try to keep it simple and our yard is planted almost exclusively with perennials.

Well after a bit, he grew tired of eating our bushes and nibbling on some rose hips and he decided to join the herd in the woods next to the house.  They are pretty creatures and we do like watching them.  JD, our cat, will go on point whenever he spots one out the window or from the screened porch. 

One of my life goals is to never have a collision with one, an all too common occurrence here in East Tennessee.  One of Laurie’s nieces back in Missouri has had 2 deer/car crashes.  I do have an able ‘deer spotter’ at my side most of time.  Laurie can spot a critter of just about any type when no one else can!

That’s about it for now.  Just click on any photo to enlarge it…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

A St. Louis Missouri Suburban Grill and More Family…

One more stop on our spring family visit/food tour of the St. Louis Missouri area… We were staying with one of Laurie’s nieces and her husband.  We took the family out for dinner the first evening.  However on our last night in town, John wasn’t feeling well, (plus he had jet lag from a European business trip), so Judy took us out for dinner…

Our kind of place...a casual local restaurant! Mulligan's Grill is a family owned and operated business that has been in Ellisville Missouri for 19 years.  I later discovered that Mulligan’s claims to serve, or allegedly has, the best chicken wings in the St. Louis area. 

It’s almost always a great sign when a restaurant is busy! (However, Laurie and I both recall a terrible restaurant in Kingston Ontario Canada that was packed at dinner time and which advertised Chinese, Canadian and American cuisine. OMG!)

Mulligan’s was clean, the service was efficient and the décor was a cross between a corner restaurant and a sports bar.  There are 4 TV’s visilbe in this photo alone…just in case you didn’t want to converse with your dining companions.  One might think that with a name like Mulligan’s, this had to be an Irish operation… However, in this case, a ‘mulligan’ is a golf term and the menu was constructed along the same theme…

This is Mulligan’s Fish & Chips 2-piece meal. ($8.95 / $9.95 for 3 pieces of cod) It comes with waffle fries and coleslaw but if I remember correctly, the French fries were delivered to the table although cottage cheese had been requested as a substitute… This was Judy’s dinner. 

I went with the “Double Bogey”, 12 oz. of ground chuck with cheddar cheese and coleslaw as my side dish. ($8.75) The bun was nice and firm, a necessity given the amount of meat, and the burger was cooked just right…medium rare as requested!  The coleslaw was good if just a little bland.

Laurie spotted one of her favorite sandwiches on the menu!  She ordered “The Mashie”, a French dip sandwich…with thin sliced roast beef and melted provolone cheese on a nice hoagie bun. ($9.95) The sandwich was very good, the au jus was just right and she liked the coleslaw too!

We liked the food at Mulligan’s as well as the atmosphere!  We will return again, test out the claims about those famous wings and try something else on their menu as well… Mulligan’s Grill is located at 11 Clarkson Road in Ellisville Missouri. Phone: 636-391-6880.  Website: http://mulligansgrillstl.com/.

These were our hosts…Laurie’s niece Judy and her husband John.  In this photo they are holding their grandchildren baby Liam and his older brother Isaac.  Hey guys, thanks for the hospitality! 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Family Visit and a Corner Bar – St. Louis Missouri

Whenever we visit Laurie’s family in St. Louis, we always see a lot of her family.  She has 3 sisters, nieces and nephews and a plethora of grandnieces and grandnephews…as well as a number of cousins.

We always stop and visit with Laurie’s Aunt Lois who celebrated her 100^th birthday back in January of this year.  Aunt Lois is sharp as a tack and has a great memory!  She loves to play card games and she does a great job of staying up on the comings and goings of her extended family.

Eating always seems to be one of the key social events of our visits… We went to Pat’s Bar and Grill with Laurie’s sister Bonnie, her husband Bill, one of their family friends and her granddaughter.  Pat’s Bar and Grill, an Irish Pub, is conveniently located right across from Forest Park and the St. Louis Zoo.

Patrick Connolly, the original owner, originally came from County Galway Ireland.  He started Pat’s Bar and Grill in June of 1942.  Pat's longtime bartender purchased the place in the 60's.  Pat Connolly's daughter, Teresa, and her husband took the helm in the early 1980s…and they put the original name back on the place.  After her husband passed, Teresa returned to teaching and passed ownership on to her long-time bartender…and Joe Finn runs the place to this day.

For some reason, it took forever to get our food…

Bonnie ordered Pat’s Cheeseburger with Provolone Cheese, with onion rings as her side item. ($8.00) The burger was OK if a bit overcooked but the onion rings were pretty good. 

 

I ordered the Chicken Dinner with the Breast and Wing and I chose coleslaw as my side. ($8.00) The dipping sauce for the chicken had a little bite to it…interesting for sure.  The chicken was decent bar food… I liked the coleslaw.

Laurie likes dark meat so she went with the Chicken Dinner with the Thigh and Leg. ($7.00) She substituted cottage cheese for the usual choices of French fries or coleslaw.  She agreed with me…this was decent if not great bar food.

The best food item that we encountered was our beautiful platter of homemade potato chips! ($3.00) They were indeed addictive!

We were fairly negative by the time we got our food… A couple of beers helped us cope but it wasn’t like the restaurant was very busy.  We do like these kinds of joints…neighborhood bars, diners, etc. and Pat’s is very popular with park goers and locals in general.  We would try it again…

Pat’s Bar and Grill is located at 6400 Oakland Avenue in St. Louis. Phone: 314-875-0400.  Website: http://patsbarandgrill.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave