Dining at Lakeside Tavern

Due to busy schedules, we hadn’t been able to get together with our friends Jodie and Morrie in quite some time.  Jodie has been successfully dieting so we needed to pick a restaurant that could satisfy her needs and simultaneously give the rest of us a variety of selections that would make the rest of us happy too…  

We chose Lakeside Tavern due to its pleasant setting plus the fact that we hadn’t eaten there in at least a couple of years.  As it turned out, this is one of Jodie and Morrie’s favorite places to eat!

Lakeside Tavern is a big restaurant with lots of parking and an imposing entry way.  It is part of Diverse Concepts Ltd., aka DCL Foods, which operates 8 different restaurant concepts with the Mellow Mushroom pizza chain and its locations scattered all over the eastern part of the USA.

Lakeside Tavern has a great location at Knoxville’s Concord Park.  It is scenic and relaxing.  This restaurant overlooks the Sinking Creek arm of Fort Loudon Lake, a reservoir on the Tennessee River.  Fort Loudon Lake is 50 miles long and it has 379 miles of shoreline.  Note the marina just below the restaurant… The last time that Morrie and Jodie ate here, they arrived by boat!

As I mentioned before, Lakeside Tavern is a big restaurant.  The photo of the inside dining area only shows part of it.  In addition, there is a nice bar area and for much of the year, the outside dining patio is very popular.  The restaurant as a whole has that woodsy warm lakeside feel to it…

I took this photo of Morrie, Jodie and Laurie at our table… One thing that I like about Lakeside Tavern is the fact that there is a lot of room between tables.  Patrons don’t feel crowded.

This is less than half of the basket full of bread that we were served.  It was so good that it was almost gone when I remembered to take a picture.  It had great crust with a bit of salt embedded in it and it had great texture too.

Laurie and I couldn’t resist one of our favorite appetizers, especially since it was only $5.99 during happy hour!  Lakeside’s Parmesan Fried Asparagus spears features fresh asparagus lightly coated in a seasoned batter and then fried golden brown.  It is served with a slightly spicy wasabi-ranch dipping sauce… It was as good as we remembered it! 

Note: Laurie’s happy hours vodka and tonic was only $2.75!

Jodie knew exactly what she wanted for dinner…the same salad she’d ordered the last time she was here.  This was her Concord Pecan Chicken Salad. ($12.99) For this salad, sliced pieces of chicken breast are served over field greens, caramelized pecans (Morrie got most of those), craisins and sliced celery…paired with honey vinaigrette salad dressing.  Jodie was quite content with her meal…

Morrie decided to order the Hawaiian Sirloin Steak. ($19.99) It included a house salad.  The 10 oz. sirloin steak was cooked as he liked it.  It had been marinated in Lakeside’s house-made American-style teriyaki sauce.  It was served with white cheddar mashed potatoes.  Yet another happy diner!

Laurie agonized over the menu for a bit before deciding to order the Parmesan encrusted Tilapia. ($16.99) The tilapia filets were breaded with parmesan bread crumbs, then lightly fried and topped with a roasted tomato cream sauce.  It was served with white cheddar mashed potatoes and it normally comes with steamed broccoli.  Broccoli isn’t one of Laurie’s favorites so she substituted the shiitake mushroom rice pilaf. 

We both agreed that the roasted tomato cream sauce was a mystery as it didn’t add anything interesting to the parmesan tilapia filets.  She skipped eating most of the mashed potatoes, instead focusing on the rice pilaf.  All in all, she thought that her meal was just OK.  By the way, Laurie said she didn't see that it came with mashed potatoes or she wouldn't have ordered the rice pilaf.

I decided that I’d order the Chicken Saint Barts Double Breast of Chicken. ($14.99) The double breast of chicken was lightly floured and pan-seared in a lemon-caper butter sauce.  It was served with angel hair pasta and a side of steamed broccoli.  The lemon-caper butter sauce worked well with my broccoli but I certainly wasn’t enamored with it otherwise.  It was OK and that’s the way I’d rate my entrée as well.

Lakeside Restaurant is a pleasant place to dine and it has a nice comfortable feel to it.  It’s big and it’s clean.  Service was a bit above average.  Jodie and Morrie were happy with their food but, other than the bread and the asparagus, Laurie and I felt that our entrees were pretty pedestrian.  But in the end, we had a nice evening with our friends!  Relaxed after our meal rocking in the outdoor patio rockers, enjoying the remarkable beauty that East Tennessee has to offer! 

Lakeside Restaurant is located at 10911 Concord Park Drive in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-671-2980.  This restaurant’s website is found at https://lakeside-tavern.com/.

As we departed Lakeside grill to ride off into the sunset in our ‘sporty’ Hyundai Sonata, we passed a couple of other more interesting cars in the parking lot.  Love this Chevrolet ‘hot rod’!  Even the grill is cool!

Then we came to this tricked out Plymouth!  Wow!  What a beautiful car… Love the detail work, the wheel covers and even the trunk lid!  This is somebody’s baby, that’s for sure…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

DeVeaux School – Niagara Falls NY (Update)

This post is focused on personal history and on a rather narrow audience…those who ever attended DeVeaux School, a college preparatory school that was located in Niagara Falls New York near the whirlpool in the Niagara River.

This is an old aerial photo of the DeVeaux School Campus.  As you can see, the 51 acre site included a significant number of buildings from different eras in the school’s history.

This is Van Rensselaer Hall.  Dedicated in 1857, this was the first structure on campus.  During my time at DeVeaux, it included the kitchen/dining hall, infirmary, offices and classrooms.

The property was deeded by Judge Samuel DeVeaux in the mid-1850s as the DeVeaux College for Orphans and Destitute Children.  Until the school’s closing in 1971, it was operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York.  I was part of the graduating class of 27 boys in 1961.

In 1866, Van Rensselaer Hall was expanded and it was later named Patterson Hall after the second president of the school.  In 1894, the building shown above was added.  This Gothic style building was attached to Patterson Hall and it featured a new enlarged chapel (Ambrose Chapel) that occupied the entire second floor.  Our study hall was on the first floor.  During my time at DeVeaux, the bells rang every 15 minutes during the daytime and early evening, sounding out each hour through the day.

 

Judge Samuel DeVeaux was a major investor in the Lockport and Niagara Railroads and he was also heavily involved in the construction of the Whirlpool Suspension Bridge in 1847.  The region still bears his name today.

This is Schoellkopf Hall as it appeared in 1980.  This was our dormitory and it was completed in 1929.  I lived here for 4 years.  At the time, the school catered to grades 7 - 12.

For almost 80 years, students received mandatory military training with the students/cadets dressed in uniforms.  That ended in 1950 when the uniforms were replaced by coats and ties.

During the twentieth century, the demand for prep-school education declined.  When the Episcopal Diocese ceased operations here in 1971, they searched for another organization to take over the property and the care of the historic buildings.  Over the years the property has been owned or leased by Niagara County, the City of Niagara Falls, Niagara University, the Board of Cooperative Educational Services and Niagara County Community College.  The current owner is the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.  The property is now called DeVeaux Woods State Park.

So much for preservation!  Van Rensselaer, Patterson and Monro Halls were all torn down ca. 1994.  Fortunately Laurie and I visited the closed campus in 1980 so I had one last look at those historic structures.

The 1994 demolition of the main school buildings left this handsome brick carriage house as the oldest structure remaining on the property.  It was built in 1863 and it is rumored that it may have served as part of the ‘underground railway’ for runaway slaves.  Pressure from preservationists forced the state to cover the roof with a plastic covering to prevent further deterioration and to enable eventual restoration.

As this subsequent photo shows, preservationists and the government didn’t get the job done in time to save the building.  Mother Nature took over in May of 2018 and damaged the structure beyond repair.

…and anther one bites the dust!

This is a photo of the old gym at DeVeaux School.  It looks like something out of the 1920s or so.  When I attended school here it was used for special events such as a rare co-ed dance.  We had a nice new gym for our indoor sports that featured an Olympic size swimming pool and other facilities.

A fire overnight on September 5, 2019 brought down the old gym, one of the 2 remaining older structures remaining on the former DeVeaux School campus. 

At this point in time the old gym or auditorium was being used as a maintenance shed.  Going, going, gone… If you look back at the photo of the destroyed carriage house, you’ll see Schoellkopf Hall, built in 1929 and the only relatively old building remaining on what was our campus.

Classmates and DeVeaux graduates… I’m sorry to report that his “comfort station” is being or has been built ‘in the style’ of the carriage house to replace that last truly historic building at our school.  The campus that we knew as students is almost totally wiped out.  Somehow, given the lack of caring/preservation, this 'commemorative' structure seems fitting.

Thanks to Gary Scott, Class of 1961, for alerting me to the story about the fire.  It motivated me to create one last post about this institution that was so important in our formative years and which established the foundation for the remainder of our lives.  Given the sad fate of our former school, it’s a good thing that we have our memories. 

After my first post about DeVeaux and with the advantage of the Internet, many in our class managed to find each other, holding our fifty-fourth and fifty-sixth year class reunion.  The fifty-eighth reunion was planned this year but it was cancelled due to some health issues.  The good news is that a few of classmates are still planning to get together.  

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Late Summer Happenings

To date, this hasn’t been a very adventurous year for us.  We basically stayed put all summer.  Apparently the hot summer weather isn’t over yet either as we broke a ‘daily high temperature’ record this week...97 degrees on 9/10/19!  More records may fall later in the week.  As for rain, while we have a surplus for year to date, the possibility of moderate drought has raised its ugly head in the last month or two…

We do have an irrigation system which keeps our yard and plantings green when the rain doesn’t do the job.  Our back yard lawn area is allowed to be ‘au natural’ as we don’t want to use chemicals any more than necessary.  In addition, we want that big Oak tree at the right to thrive…and our arborist warned us that chemicals on the lawn could negatively impact that big tree.

I haven’t even been creating very many ‘novelty egg breakfasts’, i.e. eggs on top of something other than potatoes, bread or similar morning meal items.  In this case however, I ‘had to’ finish off some grouper filets that were left over from one of Laurie’s recent dinners in a local restaurant.  So, I warmed them up in a frying pan, melted shredded sharp cheddar cheese on them, added a couple of over easy eggs on top and then sprinkled the conglomeration with a bit of Tabasco.  Yum!

Fortunately, our neighbors living in the new home to the right of our home like to entertain and they decided to have a Labor Day Party!  They even had canopies erected to protect the crowd from the sun and a number of fans operating to keep us cool…

Our host Mike (on the right) had these steamers working as he prepared the main meal for the group…14 friends and neighbors in total.  Mark, at the left in this photo lives on the other side of Mike and his wife Sherry.  Mike and Sherry are from Rochester New York, while Mark and his wife Sally, moved here from Michigan.

It was quite the varied group career wise… In addition to Laurie and me, the group included a forestry consultant, teachers, a corporate pilot, veterinarians, homemakers and more.  

One of Mike and Sherry’s guests showed up “riding in” his personal hobby.  “Boy’s toys” do tend have a little more growth with age don’t they!?  Sherry was very happy when she was taken for a ride in this classic Corvette!

OK…it’s time for me to own up to a major omission (failure) on my part!  In this photo, everyone was drinking, talking and snacking.  My failure was that despite having my camera in hand, I failed to take pictures of either the appetizers/snacks or the main feast! 

The appetizers/snacks varied from dips and chips (including a great buffalo chicken dip) nuts, candy, cheese crisps, to nachos, guacamole, etc. There was a whole refrigerator full of beer... Mike and Sherry did a fine ‘boil’ for the group's entrée!  It included shrimp, potatoes, corn and andouille sausage.  Good food!

Following the meal, the ladies retired to the living room/family room to chat and then to the dining room table to play Five Crown cards. The guys first moved out to the screened porch to discuss retirement and then headed upstairs to watch some sports in Mike’s man cave.

Eventually we all moved back outdoors to the front of the garage in the original party place… Although you may have noticed this stack of blocks in earlier photos, it was pretty much ignored until after dinner and the ladies card game.

That was when we started playing “Jenga” in earnest!  If you’ve never played Jenga, the object is to remove blocks and re-stack them on top of the pile without the whole thing collapsing.  We got up to 30 levels before the stack fell over while Laurie was playing the game. (Both Laurie and I tensed up while playing the game…too much pressure for us!  Retirement is hard!)

To learn more about Jenga, go to http://www.jenga.com/about.php.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Slawger’s American Restaurant

As anyone who follows my blog knows, we like eating out.  I maintain a list of restaurants that we have; 1) never been to or; 2) we haven’t eaten at in a long time.  We also keep our eyes open for new dining opportunities as they appear in this area of East Tennessee.  Sometimes we learn about restaurants from word of mouth, sometimes via the internet and from time to time, we just drive by a place that we’ve never tried.

Slawger’s American Restaurant falls into the latter category.  We noticed it as we ran errands along Kingston Pike in Knoxville.  The owners picked a challenging location for this restaurant.  There is a lot of traffic which is good, but there are a great many restaurants within a 4 – 5 block radius of this location.

As per their website, Slawger’s is a locally owned business.  They state that their food is made from scratch, “no GMOs, MSGs, hormones, antibiotics, high fructose corn syrup, or steroids”.  Their menu was developed so they could bring something different to the area.  In addition to the traditional favorites, it features gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade side dishes, the “best” cheeseburgers and a number of ‘unique’ hot dog combinations.

Don’t pay much attention to the fact that the dining room is almost empty.  It was a Thursday at about 4 PM when we arrived and I took this photo. 

As for the décor, the owners went with the current overly popular ‘industrial look’ featuring polished concrete floors, open duct work, metal chairs offset by tables with wood tops, a pop of color in the booths, TV’s along the walls and the bar with corrugated metal along the front.

The first true positive sign for me was the fact that they have Tabasco on every table!

We both started out by ordering an adult beverage.  It was “Thirsty Thursday” so my 16 oz. Bells Two Hearted Ale was $1.00 off the normal price of $6.00.  Laurie didn’t feel like a beer so she ordered a vodka and tonic with 2 (not 1!) lime slices.  The other problem was the tonic was flat… 

The waitress took it off our bill and Laurie drank my beer as it was a bit ‘hoppy’ and she prefers a hoppy beer.  Then I ordered a 16 oz. Blue Moon Belgian White. ($4.00 as it was Thirsty Thursday)

What to order for an appetizer?  Would it be the “Fried Fun Guys”, the “Fortress”, “Jala Papas” or the “Chi-Falo Dip”? 

In the end, we chose the “Booze Dip”…4 pretzel logs with Dijon Aioli and Beer Cheese Spread. ($4.00) Those big soft pretzel sticks were very good and the beer cheese spread was seriously above average.  Laurie loved it! We also like the Dijon Aioli dipping option…

Laurie’s entrée came with 2 sides.  She chose a side Caesar salad and the “Impasta Salad”.  The side Caesar was tossed with a good Caesar dressing and Laurie’s only negative was that “It had too many olives”.  I never thought that I would hear her complaining about too many olives!

As for the Impasta Salad, this nice pasta salad was topped with Feta cheese and a creamy Italian dressing.  She took the pasta salad home for lunch the following day…

Her entrée was simply called “Fish and Chips” on the menu.  With the 2 sides, it was $14.00.  The fish was fried grouper and it was very nice.  Fortunately for me, she couldn’t eat it all so I ‘had’ to take some home for a future lunch!

I think that Slawger’s missed a ‘naming opportunity’ here… Instead of fish and chips, how about ‘sea my taters’?  After all, other items on the chicken and fish portion of the restaurant’s extensive menu include such monikers as “Chick Norris”, “Mrs. Jack” and “6-Lindsay Lohen”!

I ordered a sandwich for my entrée so I only got one side with my meal.  But what a side it was!  This was my White Chicken Chili topped with Jalapenos.  Yum!  It tasted great and the ‘heat level’ was perfect for me… The next time we dine at Slawger’s, I’m ordering a bowl of it!

For my sandwich, I ordered another item with a boring name… This was my Rueben. ($11.00) The marbled rye bread was toasted and the sandwich consisted of corned beef, baby Swiss cheese and sauerkraut.  Instead of the usual 1000 Island dressing, I opted for Dijon mustard.  They didn’t skimp on the corned beef that’s for sure!  My only mistake was not asking for the Dijon mustard on the side.  There was a bit too much of it on the sandwich but it was still an above average Rueben. 

Slawger’s has a big menu with several sections for diners to pick their meals from.  In addition to Appetizers, there are “What’sa Dillas/Wraps”, Tacos, Grilled “Chizzas”, Specialty “Chizzas”, Chicken/Fish, Burgers/Two Patties, Gourmet Grilled Cheese, CI Sliders/Three Sliders, Hot Dogs (100% Beef) with Two Hotdogs and Specials/Steaks.

We will return to explore the menu further!  Slawger’s American Restaurant is open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week.  They are located at 9507 Kingston Pike in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-288-4088.  Website: http://www.slawgers.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave