Dinner plus a Quick Look Around Paducah KY

Following our visit to Laurie’s Wisconsin relatives, we dropped off her sisters at their car parked in Mt. Vernon Illinois and then Laurie and yours truly headed on down to Paducah Kentucky for an overnight stay plus dinner. 

I’d done a little research about where to eat in Paducah and I couldn’t resist the idea of eating dinner in a Caribbean theme’s restaurant in the middle of the USA… This is Flamingo Row, where patrons “Eat and Drink with an Island Twist”.  

I took the following statement directly from Flamingo Row’s website:

“From the instant you step through our door, Caribbean Soul washes over you.  Have a look at our restaurant…inside and out!”

There can be no doubt that the restaurant’s décor, both inside and out, is unusual for western Kentucky!  It certainly is a colorful place…

Look!  There’s a flock of those pesky plastic garden flamingos gathered over the entrance!  I hoped there wouldn’t be a flyover during dinner…

I had my usual Miller Lite ($3.99) but Laurie went for the Seascape Sangria. ($6.75)

Then it was on to the menu.  Should we go for “Bounties, Treasures, Potions, Teasors, Slurps, Greens, Fillymingos, Flamwiches, Hulaboola Burgers or Cabana Specials”?

Laurie chose from the “Flamwiches”, ordering the Sea Breeze Tacos. ($9.39) Her 3 tacos had fried shrimp tossed in a sweet spicy chili sauce with pineapple, Roma tomatoes, cheese, lettuce and sour cream.  As a side, she substituted fresh fruit for the French fries for a net up charge of 40 cents.

For my entrée, I chose one of the ‘hottest’ menu items on menus across the country…Chicken and Waffles.  On the Flamingo Row menu, this dish is listed under Cabana Specials.  It’s called “Wicked Chicken and Waffles”. ($11.19) Of course, given my usual tendencies, I ordered my chicken “spicy”.

I know that the idea is the mix of sweet and savory.  I still don’t understand it though… I like my fried chicken and I like a nice waffle, so I did what any doubter would do!  I ate them separately after trying one combined bite.  The waffles were decent and the chicken was pretty good too, but no maple syrup on my chicken...

Flamingo Row is located at 2540 Perkins Creek Drive in Paducah Kentucky.  Phone: 270-442-0460.  Website: http://www.flamingorow.com/.

This is the St. Francis De Sales Roman Catholic Church at 116 South 6^th Street in Paducah.  The church was completed in 1900 with the rectory being finished in 1927.  This is the third Roman Catholic Church at this site, with the first being built in 1849 and the second in 1870.

Website: https://parishsfds.com/.

FYI... Paducah is the county seat of McCracken County.  As such it’s the recognized capitol of the ‘Jackson Purchase’.  I’d never heard of the Jackson Purchase so I looked it up.  Officially part of Kentucky when it achieved statehood in 1792, this land, (8 counties in western Kentucky and all of Tennessee west of the Tennessee River), didn’t really come under U.S. control until 1818.  That is when Andrew Jackson purchased it from the Chickasaw Indians.  Needless to say, it was a ‘forced’ one-sided sale!

The Hotel Irving Cobb at 600 Broadway Street was completed in 1929 at the height of the pre-depression economy.  It cost $400,000 to complete.  It was constructed by one of Kentucky’s leading Jewish businessmen.  He hired the same architect who had designed the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis.  “The Cobb” was home to many state conventions and all of Paducah’s civic clubs held their meetings here.  Formal dress was required for an evening in the dining room.  Currently, the Cobb serves as an apartment building with some businesses on the street level.

The Columbia Theater, with its fanciful façade of blue and white terra cotta tiles was completed in 1927.  The façade also includes Byzantine columns, classical urns and friezes as well as capitals and busts of Greek goddesses.  In its heyday, the 1,200 seat Columbia must have really been the center of Paducah’s entertainment industry with both film and live shows.  The first movie shown here in April 1927 was “It” staring Clara Bow.  The original Columbia Theater sign was 50 feet tall and it contained 5,000 light bulbs!

 

The Columbia closed back in 1987.  Currently the theater is owned by “Mainstreet Paducah” and that group is taking steps to refurbish and reopen the building as a centerpiece in downtown Paducah.  Some progress has been reported.  To learn more about this theater and to view some great photos of its elegant interior, you can just go to http://artofabandonment.com/2018/03/thecolumbia-theatre-paducah-ky/.

Grace Episcopal Church at 820 Broadway has been in existence in Paducah since 1846.  The current church building was completed back in 1873.  The church is located near the historic center of town… At one point the parish encompassed over 1,000 communicants and missions/daughter parishes were established in other parts of Paducah. 

However, in November of 1987 a fire was set near the chancel.  The resulting conflagration destroyed the interior of the church and adjoining chapel, leaving the outer walls, part of the roof, the tower and the Grace House still standing.  Rebuilding was a slow expensive process… I couldn’t locate any further information about the alleged arson.

Website: https://graceepiscopalpaducah.org/.

That’s about it for now.  My next post will be about Paris!  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by and following us on our road trip!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave