Eating Out plus Fall in East Tennessee

…time for another break from the road trip that we took this past July.  By now some of you may be wondering if that trip will even end!

I’m not sure what I’ll be posting over the next few weeks… Probably no new local dining experiences, that’s for sure.  Laurie broke her ankle last Saturday and she’s in a cast with surgery scheduled soon…and then 6 weeks where she can’t put any weight on that leg.  We won’t be getting around much until Christmas at the earliest.  Our annual family trip has been cancelled...

Before all the color is gone from the annual Tennessee Valley “fall season color show”, I thought that I should share a bit of it with the world.  Both of these views include the Tellico Dam Reservoir…with its 351 miles of shoreline.  It’s not a bad place to be, that’s for sure!

Time for a couple of exploratory local restaurant visits…

I’ve been listening to a local radio station that plays all old-time music from the 1950s through the 1970s or 1980s and there were two restaurants that advertised extensively on the station. 

Wings Etc. was one of them.  This was of special interest to us as our favorite chicken wing/sports bar (Wild Wing Café) had closed their location that was closest to our home.  We needed a replacement venue!

Big Bar!  Televisions everywhere… Plenty of beer signs.  Lots of wood.  Definitely a sports bar!  We did like the fact that the tables were well spaced…no small consideration in this era of Covid-19.

We sometimes do go for appetizers or ‘snacks’ for dinner.  In this case, as you might have noted from the empty dining room and near empty bar, we were at Wings Etc. well before dinner time.

I thought for sure that Laurie would want the Spicy Pickle Chips…one of her favorite appetizers.  I was all in as they were coated with a Tabasco laced batter.  But, she threw me a curve and decided on the Bavarian Pretzel Bites with both Nacho and Beer Cheese for dipping. ($9.48) The bites and the beer cheese were winners while the nacho cheese was pretty flavorless…

We followed up on the pretzel bites with an order of 16 Traditional Wings with slathered with 3 different sauces. ($23.69) For our sauces we chose “Blazin”, “Hot Honey Garlic” and “Sweet Chili Cha Cha”.  We liked all of the sauces and the wings were fairly meaty.  A few carrot and celery sticks plus blue cheese for dipping comprised the rest of the order.  Like everything else this year, the price of chicken wings is skyrocketing… Each of our wings came to $1.48.  I think that we better get used to these kinds of prices, probably through all of 2022.

We asked about dessert…and when Laurie spotted the Churros, their batter made with crumbled Oreo cookies…the decision was clear.  The ‘Oreo’ churros were filled with a creamy and center and then fried.  They were served with cream cheese frosting for dipping. ($6.49) Laurie loved them, but then again she was raised on Oreos.  I didn’t care for them.  It’s hard to improve on Churros as they are normally made…

We also had adult beverages.  I had a Miller Lite ($4.50) and Laurie opted for a double Tito’s Vodka and Tonic. ($7.25)

The menu at Wings Etc. is fairly expansive and we will return.  Our waiter was helpful and friendly.  This particular Wings Etc. is located at 319 Lovell Road in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-392-1021.  Their website can be found at https://wingsetc.com/knoxville/.

The other restaurant that was continuously advertising on that local ‘oldies’ station was The Pizza Kitchen in Knoxville.  This dining establishment is located in a strip shopping center and it was a little hard to spot.  At The Pizza Kitchen, customers order at the counter and then find a table to wait for their pizza…

There was only one very nice and very busy woman on duty.  She was taking the orders and making the pizzas…doing it all!  From my seat, I could watch her running to and fro…but always with little wasted effort.

The Pizza Kitchen has rock and roll themed décor…and “The King”, Elvis Presley is everywhere.  Other rock groups were on display but Elvis’s items outnumbered the others by more than 2 to 1.

Note: In 2019, Elvis (his estate) earned $39,000,000 from beyond the grave.  In 2020, he was the fifth-highest earning dead celebrity.  His estate brings in about $10,000,000 a year just from visitors to Graceland, his former home in Memphis Tennessee.

Here is our 16” pepperoni and Italian sausage pizza from The Pizza Kitchen. ($17.90) It was OK but the crust was a little too thick for our liking and the Italian sausage wasn’t flavorful enough for us. 

The Pizza Kitchen does a lot of takeout business.   This restaurant is located at 10420 Kingston Pike in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-577-9191.  Website: www.thepizzakitchenknoxville.com. 

Sorry for the quality of the photos but Laurie didn’t want to scare off Mr. Fox so she was taking photos discretely out the window and between the slats on our deck’s railing.  This is a first for our backyard… We think that he was attracted by the plethora of squirrels, field mice and the like that have been feasting on the thousands and thousands of acorns that fell from our big oak tree this year…

Deer have been in our back yard feasting on the acorns almost every day.  On Tuesday, they were there noshing down even after 11 AM…very unusual indeed.  We have had as many as 7 deer in the yard at one time.  Then there was that young buck that decided to rest/bed down in the middle of his meal…and claim the spot for himself. (Although he doesn’t have any horns, we assuming that it is a buck as the does are rarely seen on their own)

I’ll end this posting with one more photo of the fall colors across Tellico Lake/reservoir, this time toward evening.  Today the wind is howling and a front is coming in.  The leaves are falling like rain in the wind and the peak color season in this part of the Tennessee Valley is done for 2021.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave