It’s So Yummy Café!

I just know that some of you think that I’m joking… There just can’t be a restaurant named “It’s All So Yummy Café”.  Alternately, if one exists, it must be a place for children…

No joke though!   This is our latest casual restaurant ‘find’ in the greater Knoxville market…and it’s a good one too.

Knoxville’s “It’s All So Yummy Café” with Hilton Head Ice Cream is located in a small strip shopping center.  The place is tough to spot even if you’re looking for it.  That small pink sign with the lettering  just doesn’t jump out at you. 

As customers approach the entrance, the message on the window to the left of the doors gives health conscious patrons’ fair warning.   It reads “This is a bad place for a diet”.

The first thing that customers encounter upon entry to It’s All So Yummy Café, (hereafter referred to as Yummy Café for the writer’s convenience), is this display case.  It’s filled with cakes, pasta, bacon, deviled eggs and several salads.  Now that doesn’t seem too risky from a health viewpoint does it? 

But, if you look up at the chalkboard menus along the back wall, you will quickly realize what you’re up against!  If you are into grilled cheese sandwiches, the first 2 boards are very impressive and very tempting!  The third board is all about a plethora of deli style sandwiches ranging from Reubens to Tuna Salad to a Grilled Peanut Butter and Jelly.  The fourth board is about soups and the daily specials; the fifth is about salads, combos and the Kid’s menu…

OK… If you’d like to know what brought us here, it is really quite simple.  Happy wife, happy life!  Laurie told me that she was really craving a good grilled cheese sandwich.  In an effort to please, I searched for grilled cheese sandwiches in the Knoxville area.  Yummy Café was at the top of a very short list…and the menu looked great.

The interior is quirky but pretty basic…mismatched tables, table cloths and chairs along with odds and ends along the wall.  Customers order at the counter and they bring the food out to you.

Toward the rear of the room, there are 2 ice cream coolers with a multitude of flavors.  One chalkboard is all about ice cream, floats, sundaes, etc.  The small board is apparently related to an eating challenge…something called the “Rocky Top Challenge”.

Now onto the food…

This was Laurie’s grilled cheese sandwich.  Now some people wouldn’t call this a grilled cheese sandwich because it isn’t all about the cheese.  I don’t think that Laurie would care what you wanted to call it…because she really liked it!  This “Deviled Bacon” sandwich combines American cheddar cheese, plentiful crispy bacon and homemade deviled eggs along with a dash of ‘sweet heat’.  I was allowed a taste…Yummy!

No…this isn’t actually my grilled cheese sandwich.  Instead it’s another sandwich that we purchased to share!  Of course, that’s bad for me from a diet standpoint but it doesn’t impact Laurie’s diet as she can eat what she wants in a 4 hour window. (Nothing before the window opens or after it closes) Her dang diet is working too! Down 30 pounds!

This sandwich, Yummy Café’s May Special, was displayed on its own little board on the front of the counter.  Basically, it’s a grilled hot dog from Benton’s Bacon and Ham facility and store in Madisonville Tennessee, that has been topped with sauerkraut, melted cheddar and mustard on a nice bun.  We split it and we both thought that it was great!

This behemoth of a sandwich was my selection.  It is “The Big Cheese”. ($9.95) This is actually 2 grilled cheese sandwiches with more cheese and a pile of bacon enveloped in the center.  It was good…but I would have been happier with less bread.  However, I always wanted to try something like this so no complaints.  It was good but I had so many other choices that I could have made…

The next time we go to It's All So Yummy Café, I’ll have to decide between the 2 sandwiches described here… (Or maybe I’ll just do another of those cheesy hot dogs if they're on the menu) My likely cheesy options are: “5 Alarm” $7.95 – Pepperjack cheese with jalapenos, red pepper flakes, sweet heat and homemade HOT mayonnaise, or; “Pizza” $8.25 – Marinara with provolone and Swiss cheese, grilled pepperoni, crushed red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese.  It will be a tough decision!

Did I mention…all of these sandwiches come with either chips or a side salad…except for that cheese Benton’s hotdog.  It was accompanied by a cup of pretty decent chili and chips.  All sandwiches also come with free sweet or unsweet tea.

Remember the Hilton Head Ice Cream part of this operation?  Well, what the heck!  The server let us know that we could order half scoops so Laurie decided to go for 4 different flavors.  Her first incredulous comment was “These are half scoops?!!”  There was no way she could finish this decadent heap of ice cream and I was too full to be of much assistance…

I had some ice cream too but after watching her ‘half scoops’ pile up, I just asked for 2 half scoops.  We thought that the ice cream was good but we prefer the ice cream from the Tic Toc Ice Cream Parlor in Loudon Tennessee…the more butterfat the better!  

The next time we return to It’s All So Yummy Café we’ll focus on the sandwiches…maybe with a milk shake or the Homemade Banana Pudding that I discovered is also on the menu.  I also learned that It’s So Yummy Café has a second location in Oak Ridge Tennessee and that they have been in business since 2011.  How did we miss this yummy place over the last 6 years? 

Knoxville Tennessee’s “It’s All So Yummy Café” is located just south of Kingston Pike (US Hwy. 11) at 120 South Peters Road.  Phone: 865-769-6539.  The company’s website is at http://www.itsallsoyummy.com/.  This restaurant has 4.5 out of 5 ‘stars’ on both Yelp and Trip Advisor…

Just click on any of these food photos if you’re hungry…

Thanks for stopping by and sharing lunch with us…

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave