Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [92]
When you walk in, chef Shannon Fuller will call out, “Are you having a cheeseburger or dining off the menu today?” The burgers are hand-pattied, thick and juicy and satisfying, but we prefer the menu, a 5 X 7-inch piece of paper with three entrees handwritten every day above a printed list of vegetables. The murky turnip greens are especially delicious: pork-sweet, as tender as long-steamed cabbage, and heavy with tonic pot likker.
Certain menu items are immemorial, including roast beef every Friday. We adore the antediluvian baked spaghetti, which is timidly sauced, toothless pasta laced with crumbled beef, chewy shreds of cheese scraped from the edge the casserole, and a web of hardened noodles from the top. No hot meal is more popular than the every-Wednesday salmon croquettes. “I make twenty-five or thirty plates of them,” Shannon says, showing how she forms each one from a mix of salmon, egg, onion, flour, and milk, then pan-fries it so the luxurious pink mash inside is encircled by a good crunch.
It was Charlie Zarzour, great-grandfather of Shannon’s husband, Joe, who established the café in 1918, making it Chattanooga’s oldest family-run restaurant. At that time, Main Street was the thriving heart of the city and Zarzour’s lunchroom on Rossville Road was in the thick of it. Charlie had come from Lebanon via Syria, and shortly after opening day his wife died of influenza. He raised five children in the restaurant’s back room, which has since become the smoking section. After Prohibition was lifted, Zarzour’s was the place to go for hamburgers and beer.
Joe’s mother, Shirley—Charlie’s granddaughter—took over the café back in the 1950s from her Aunt Rose and Uncle George, and she continues to make the desserts. These include such exemplary southern-kitchen sweets as lemon icebox pie, banana pudding, and millionaire pie. Millionaire pie is named for its abundance: pineapple chunks, walnut pieces, green grapes, and mandarin orange slices suspended in a mix of frozen Cool Whip and sweetened condensed milk.
Virginia
Allman’s Pit Cooked Bar-B-Q
1299 Jeff Davis Hwy.
540–373–9881
Fredericksburg, VA
LD | $
For over fifty years, Allman’s has been building a reputation on smoke-cooked pork shoulder, sliced or minced. Sliced is more like pulled—irregular shreds and nuggets that are soft and lean with a subtle flavor that can be amplified quite nicely by an application of sweet, thin sauce. You can have it on a plate or in a bun, or as the main ingredient in pork stew by the cup or bowl. Good fries and crisp coleslaw come alongside and milkshakes are made to order.
The pork is good, but to a large degree the allure of Allman’s is the place itself: a brick storefront with a counter and stools and a scattering of bare tables in a room that feels untouched by time. (Thanks to Hetty Lipscomb for tipping us off to this place.)
Betty’s Ben and Mary’s Steak House
6800 James Madison Hwy.
540–347–4100
Warrenton, VA
D | $$
About the name: Betty was an employee of Ben and Mary when they opened their steak house along James Madison Highway about a half-century ago. Ben and Mary retired and sold the place to a third party who ultimately sold it to Betty. Betty was so devoted to the original restaurant concept that she simply added her name to the front of the old one. It’s a cozy old place, frequented by locals as well as travelers who have staked it out as a serious stop for traveling carnivores.
B’s B&M’s boasts that it is “Home of the Fabulous Filet Mignon,” and while we are admittedly smitten with any place claiming to be the home of anything, this declaration carries real weight. The filets mignon served here are big rounds of beef that run rivers of juice when cut. While they lack the protein tang of a sirloin, they pack plenty of flavor. Our medium-rare filets were perfectly grilled