North Georgia/Fort Oglethorpe Archives

Thatcher’s BBQ (Ringgold, Georgia)

October 4, 2017

Thatcher’s BBQ in Ringgold, GA, is serving up delicious smoked meats in all of your favorite BBQ restaurant standards and a few unexpected favorites!

As the sun glinted in through the glass door, I wondered if we should move or maybe I should put on my sunglasses. Squinting at my menu, I decided against it, seeing as the tiny dining room at Thatcher’s BBQ was pretty much jam-packed at 4:00 in the afternoon. Only one other small (4-seater) table was available, so I decided that the sun would move soon. We stayed where we were.

I didn’t catch our server’s name, and since it’s been a couple of months since I wrote a restaurant post, I forgot to ask. She got our waters to us quickly, keeping our styrofoam cups full to the brim the whole time we were there and offering us to-go lids as we paid our tab. She gave us a few minutes to peruse the menu, which I’d already been stalking online. I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted, until I wasn’t.

When a reader (aka superfan: Hi Michelle!) suggested Thatcher’s a few months back, I made a mental note to get there eventually. I didn’t check out the menu immediately, but if I had I probably would have gone there, well, right away. Barbecue restaurants around here have pretty standard offerings: sandwiches, plates, perhaps stuffed potatoes. Thatcher’s BBQ has all of that, but they have some pretty non-standard options too.

A glance at the menu online revealed several salads, and not just some iceberg lettuce with a drizzle of dressing and a little smoked meat on the side…the salads here will make you want to eat your veggies. They have all the standard sandwiches, of course, but lots of others, too: burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, a smoked bologna sandwich. They also have handful of creatively topped hot dogs.

My eyes were drawn, however, to the shovels and buckets. Not literal shovels and buckets, mind you – at Thatcher’s BBQ, a shovel is a pile of white corn tortilla chips topped with your choice of meat, melted cheddar, and other toppings, depending on the type of “shovel” that you get (I was eying the BBQ Oink Shovel, with smoked pork, baked beans, BBQ sauce, and coleslaw). A bucket is basically the same thing, except with tots instead of tortilla chips.

For those of you who, like me, are dying to see these dishes, well…sorry to disappoint you. After Philip decided to get something with pulled pork on it, I decided to go for a different meat, because, well, the meat is the most important part of a BBQ restaurant. I decided on the Brick House Spud, with shredded smoked brisket, cheddar cheese, butter, BBQ sauce, and sour cream. Um, not a mistake. The spud was gigantic and loaded up with toppings, including some of the best brisket I’ve ever eaten. Dang, that stuff was tender, and SO flavorful.

Muttering about how he was probably going to live to regret it, Philip settled on the Ole Hickory Cheeseburger, with a 5 ounce hamburger patty (it’s also available in a half pound), smoked pork, melted cheddar cheese sauce, and BBQ sauce. Meat and cheese heaven on a bun, y’all. It was super flavorful and not overloaded with toppings, so I don’t think that he lived to regret it, though he didn’t finish the whole thing. He did mention that he would have preferred it with just regular cheese instead of cheese sauce, as the cheese sauce made it a little more “goopy”.

Now, great fried okra is like my BBQ restaurant white whale…every BBQ restaurant serves fried okra, but I’ve yet to find one that was up to my standards. I had to try to fried okra, as I’d seen lots of raves about it on Yelp, but found that it was the same thickly coated frozen fried okra that I find at pretty much every other BBQ restaurant. If you guys know of a BBQ restaurant that is serving hand-breaded okra, please let me know! They are, however, making their own (delicious) BBQ sauce, which, when that is inexplicably rare among BBQ restaurants, totally redeems them for the frozen okra.

I’m glad I found Thatcher’s BBQ (thanks again, Michelle), because I will definitely go back. It’s a little bit of a drive since we don’t live anywhere near North Georgia, but it’s not too far from the shop so it’s feasible for takeout on an evening I’m working or if I meet Philip after a morning shift. Reasonable prices, great food, and a friendly staff make it worth a visit.

Thatcher’s BBQ is located at 2929 US-41, Ringgold, GA, 30736. They are open Tuesday – Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. You can call them at 706-935-6465. For more information, you can check out their website, thatchersbbq.com/location/ringgold/ (by the way, there are other locations: Chickamauga, Trenton, and Calhoun. I will probably try the Chickamauga location next time). You can also find Thatcher’s BBQ on Facebook and on Instagram.

Cherokee Brewery and Pizza Company (Dalton, GA)

July 19, 2017

Cherokee Brewing and Pizza is a brewery and pizza restaurant located in downtown Dalton, Georgia serving housemade pizzas and a variety of craft beers.

So…you guys should have gotten this post back in March. Except I got a new phone immediately after I ate there and my photos weren’t in my cloud…so I lost them. Oops.

Philip actually discovered Cherokee Brewing and Pizza Company when he went down there with one of his friends. He brought me back a couple of slices of pizza and I was pretty impressed, so we got back down there pretty quickly. He was not too sad about going back a third time, since they have a good selection of craft beers on tap, some of them that are not available in Chattanooga, including their own brews.

We went a little after lunch on a Saturday afternoon. There were quite a few people in there but I wouldn’t call it crowded. We sat at the bar…if you sit at the bar, the bartender will take your food and drink order. If you sit at a table, you order at the counter and then if you want a drink you can go to the bar to get it.

We each decided to get a salad – I got a house salad with homemade ranch dressing, and Philip got a Caesar salad. The first time we went we shared a large Caesar salad and it was big enough for a family of six. The house salad, topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, tomato, cucumber, and red onion. A lot of thinly sliced red onion. If I had known that, I would have ordered it without the onion…but the salad was delicious otherwise. The Caesar salad was good – fresh, crispy lettuce with creamy Caesar dressing, shaved Parmesan, and croutons (boxed). The small salads were $4 each.

As for pizza, we contemplated the Hot Mess Chick with housemade pesto, pulled smoked chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, and Parmesan ($11.50), the Big John with BBQ sauce, pulled smoked pork, jalapeño, pineapple, white cheddar, and mozzarella ($11), and the Heavy D with Buffalo sauce, smoked pulled chicken, garlic, provolone, and mozzarella ($11.50). Ultimately, we settled on the Heavy D. The bartender brought us some ranch dressing to eat with the pizza as well.

The pizzas at Cherokee Brewing and Pizza Company are a perfect size for two hungry people or three not-so hungry people. The crust is thin, crispy around the edges, and just chewy enough. The toppings ratio was great – not too much or too little of anything. If you’re hesitant to order the Heavy D because you are afraid it might be too spicy, don’t be. It has just a tiny bite, but I had no trouble eating it. In the past, we have tried the Big’s (red sauce, pepperoni, meatballs, ricotta, fresh mozzarella, and Parmesan for $11.50) and the Whig (truffle oil, mushroom, onion, spinach, roasted garlic, risotto, and mozzarella for $11.50). Both were excellent.

Our total before tip was $31.57, which included two small salads, a pizza, and two draft beers (Philip enjoyed both their house-brewed beer as well as the Wicket Weed stout that he tried). The service has always been friendly here and the food is great. It’s a hike down to Dalton, but it’s worth it to try the pizza and beer at Cherokee Brewing and Pizza Company.

Cherokee Brewing and Pizza Company is located at 207-B West Cuyler Street, Dalton, GA, 30720. It’s toward the back of the building so you have to walk around the corner before you see it. They are open Monday – Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Sunday. You can call Cherokee Brewing and Pizza Company at (706) 529-9478. For more information, you can check out their website, cherokeebrewingandpizzaco.com and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Farm to Fork (Ringgold, GA)

June 7, 2017

Farm to Fork is a popular restaurant in Ringgold, Georgia that serves fresh, homemade, Southern-style food in a friendly environment.

Every once in a while, I will actually go to a new restaurant and decide not to blog about them, for no reason other than it just doesn’t fit into my schedule at the moment. This was the case when I first tried Farm to Fork in 2014. I was getting ready to start a new job, car shopping (the kind of car shopping that involves watching YouTube videos, reading Consumer Reports, and generally doing everything you can to make sure you choose the right car), and kind of losing my mind. I really liked the food but just couldn’t quite get myself in the mindset to write about them. I think I even took pictures! I definitely did not intend to take three years to get back down there.

Philip and I drove down to exit 348 this past Saturday to give it another go. The current location of Farm to Fork is in a strip mall behind the Ringgold Cracker Barrel. They have two parcels of the strip, between Rock Bridge Church and the Rock Bridge offices. The space is warmly decorated, with wood tables and country-style decor on the walls. A bar serving beer and wine is in one space with tin (or faux tin, I didn’t get close enough to tell) tiles on the wall. We arrived at around 1:00 and while it was still fairly crowded from the lunch rush, we were seated in a booth immediately.

Usually I am really good about getting our servers’ names, and if I forget, the name is usually on the receipt. This time, I didn’t, and it wasn’t. Our server was a sweet girl with curly dark hair. It took her a few minutes to get to us, since it was so busy, but she was very apologetic and we were not in a rush. She got our waters and took our appetizer order. We decided to try some fried green tomatoes ($7.00); they also have fried pickles, an appetizer portion of onion rings, and pimento cheese with pita points, along with a few other apps. The fried green tomatoes were served with a dressing on the side. The menu didn’t indicate what it was but I think it was a Russian/Thousand Island sort of deal – creamy and a little orange/pink, a little tangy and sweet. The fried green tomatoes were coated with a panko crumb coating and crisply fried, well seasoned. They were very good; my only suggestion would be that they could have been blotted a little bit before plating – there was a lot of oil on the plate.

The menu includes appetizers, soups and salads, entrees, burgers, baskets, and sandwiches. For my entree, I vacillated back and forth between the pulled pork tacos (2 tacos and fries for $7.95, or another side for an additional $1) and the loaded chicken breast ($11). I ended up deciding on the chicken, which was an 8-ounce grilled chicken breast topped with barbecue sauce, bacon, and cheddar cheese, served with a choice of 2 sides. I decided to go for the hand-cut fries and a side salad (which is an additional $1.50). The salad was made with mixed greens, bacon, and shredded cheddar cheese, served with Farm to Fork’s homemade dressing; I decided on ranch. The salad was excellent – very fresh, with real bacon (not bits) – and the dressing was delicious. My salad actually got to the table before the fried green tomatoes, so I ended up dipping some bites of my fried green tomatoes into the ranch dressing.??

The chicken breast was well grilled, with a great grilled flavor but still juicy. It had enough sauce and toppings to give it good flavor without overwhelming the flavor of the chicken itself. The fries were very thick cuts – I would almost call them potato planks – and I was honestly a little concerned that they would not be done all the way through. I needn’t have worried. They were perfectly soft in the middle, just a little crispy around the edges, and perfectly hot and well seasoned. They were excellent dipped in the smoked mayo that Philip got for his onion rings.

Philip contemplated getting the hamburger steak entree ($11) but decided instead to get the jalapeño, bacon, and cheddar burger. This burger is a gigantic (half pound!) burger grilled and served on a bakery bun with cheddar cheese, bacon, and fried jalapeños ($12.25). The grilled flavor was excellent, and the portion of fried jalapeños was very generous (I had to dodge them to take a bite). He ordered onion rings as his side; the onion rings come with a side of jalapeño ketchup or smoked mayo, but we paid and additional 25 cents to get both. The jalapeño ketchup was fairly standard – ketchup with a little bit of a jalapeño flavor/bite – but the smoked mayo was fantastic – mayo with a smoky hit. Philip didn’t care for the batter-dipped onion rings and ended up eating quite a few of my fries, but I really liked them. I love light, battered onion rings, and these were well cooked and well-seasoned. I think that Philip might have just been on fried food overload.

I regret that I didn’t pay any attention to the dessert menu, because I would have loved to take some of their Hawaiian cake or coconut cake home (they also have banana pudding, brownies, and floats). But, alas, I didn’t, so I will have to make it a point to go back sooner than three years from now…even more so because they will be moving into a new space soon. Sometime hopefully in July, they will be moving a little farther north into a much larger, free-standing location off of exit 350, where they will be able to have patio seating, space for large groups, opportunities for live music, and a full bar.

Our total, pre-tip, was 34.24. Our server was very friendly and much more apologetic than needed for a little bit of a wait for our food. The food was very good and everything was very fresh – nothing frozen or packaged. No matter where they are located, Farm to Fork is worth the drive to North Georgia for some great food!

Farm to Fork is located at 118 Remco Shops Lane, Ringgold, GA 30736. They are open Monday – Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday – Saturday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. (they serve breakfast these days), and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can call Farm to Fork at (706) 937-3675. You can find out more about Farm to Fork on their website, FarmToForkGA.com, and you can also follow Farm to Fork on Facebook.

Bob’s Brick Oven (Rock Spring, GA)

October 19, 2016

Bob’s Brick Oven is a small pizza joint in Rock Spring, Georgia that is on top of their game with homemade pizzas and ice cream plus great service!

A few months ago, I attended a cooking class that my friend Christy Jordan, who writes the blog Southern Plate, taught at AllSouth to be Christy’s kitchen assistant. Dave, one of the sales guys at AllSouth, lives in North Georgia and he gave me a couple of printouts before I left that day about North Georgia restaurants that I needed to write about.

One of those restaurants was Bob’s Brick Oven, serving pizza and ice cream. I had Bob’s Brick Oven on my “list” (I do have a literal list, a OneNote document that I am constantly adding to, divided up by areas of town) but had not heard anything about it from anyone who’d actually eaten there. Dave highly recommended it, so I made a mental note to move it to the top of the list.

It took a little bit to get there. We usually go on Saturday afternoons, and by the time Philip gets home at 3:00 or 3:30, we are usually pretty hangry and eager to get to our late lunch/early dinner ASAP. Last week, though, I was on fall break. We decided to go spend the day at Chickamauga Battlefield, which gave us an excuse to visit Bob’s Brick Oven for lunch.

We were a little confused when we got there. It’s located right next door to a small gas station (in the same building) and if you aren’t paying attention, you’ll miss it. We found it, though, and when we walked in at a few minutes till 12 there was only one other table occupied. A guy behind the counter told us to sit wherever we liked and our server (whose name, I hate to say, we didn’t catch) quickly brought our menus to us and took our drink order.

Literally the only things on the menu at Bob’s Brick Oven are pizza and homemade ice cream. It always speaks volumes to me when a menu is limited, because that usually means that the few things they are doing they are doing well. The server explained that the pizzas on the menu were all 16-inch pizzas but for half the price we could get any of the pizzas on the menu as 8-inch pizzas instead. That seemed like a no-brainer.

The first pie that we decided on was an 8-inch Picnic. The Picnic consists of a sweet barbecue based topped with whole-milk mozzarella, thinly sliced smoked pork loin, and a drizzle of tangy mustard-based Carolina BBQ sauce. The sourdough crust is thin and irregular, a sure sign that it’s been hand-shaped. The wood-burning pizza oven is clearly visible from the dining room in the open kitchen (right behind the counter) and the crusty char on the pizza makes it clear that these pizzas are fired in that oven. The pork is smoked out back and is smokey and tender, and the housemade barbecue sauces are a perfect finish.

For our second pizza, we were torn between the Primero Pesto, with a pesto base topped with mozzarella, red onions, and green peppers, or the Chicken Alfredo, with house Alfredo sauce as the base, house-smoked chicken, and a sprinkle of herbs. Our server told us that both were good but out of the two, the chicken Alfredo was her favorite, so we went for that. The chicken was absolutely amazing – smokey and tender like the pork – and paired better with the creamy Alfredo sauce than I would have ever imagined. Bob told us that there was also a touch of his homegrown basil in the Alfredo sauce as well (there is actually basil under lights in the dining room).

We also got a cup of Bob’s homemade root beer. I should have taken a picture of that, but I didn’t think to (by the way, I apologize for my awful iPhone photos here – I didn’t want to lug the camera to the Battlefield). The root beer was almost colorless, which just goes to show how much caramel color is in most store-bought root beer. It was strongly flavored and sweet. Bob told us that he also bottles it for delivery and take-out orders, so we of course had to take a bottle to go. Afraid to let it sit in the car for too long, we opened it and drank it while driving from stop to stop on the Chickamauga Battlefield driving tour, no doubt looking like we were doing something illegal as we sipped from a brown bottle while driving – through a national park, at that. Ha.

There was only one ice cream on the menu, as the restaurant had been closed for some updates to the paint and Bob had been out of town for a couple of days. However, since the flavor was coffee, we were all in and split a bowl of it. They crumble iced oatmeal cookies into their coffee ice cream, and Bob told us that the idea for that came from the fact that he liked to dip iced oatmeal cookies into his coffee. Makes sense to me. His coffee ice cream was delicious – creamy with a deep coffee flavor, a perfect texture, and not too sweet. The cookies were a great complement to the coffee flavor.

Our pre-tip total for two eight-inch pizzas, two root beers, and an ice cream was $22.47 – a great price for the quality of the food and the customer service.

We spent a good chunk of time talking to Bob when he stopped by our table to ask how we were enjoying our lunch. He told about how he got into the restaurant business and about his plans to expand. It was very clear that he is very passionate about his business and his customers, and as cheesy as it sounds, I was very inspired by our conversation.

If you want to go to a restaurant that’s all about good food and personal connections, Bob’s Brick Oven is your place.

Bob’s Brick Oven is located at 8009 US 27, Rock Spring, GA 30739. They are open Monday, 4-8 p.m., Tuesday – Wednesday, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m., Thursday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 9 p.m., and Saturday – Sunday, 12 – 9 p.m. You can call Bob’s Brick Oven at 706-375-4400. For more information, check out Bob’s Brick Oven’s website and Bob’s Brick Oven on Facebook.

Pie Slingers Pizzeria

October 5, 2016

Located in Rock Spring, Georgia, near the Chickamauga Battlefield, Pie Slingers Pizzeria serves hand-tossed pizza and beer brewed in house by Phantom Horse Brewery.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Philip has been working at Sigler’s Craft Beer & Cigars for a while now. Working there, he encounters lots of people who work with beer in lots of different capacities, from vendors to distributors to brewers. Sometimes, it sends us on adventures to restaurants we hadn’t heard of, or at least restaurants that aren’t on our radar. Pie Slingers Pizzeria is one of those spots. There used to be a Pie Slingers Pizzeria on Signal Mountain, but we didn’t make it up there before it closed. I knew there was a location in North Georgia, but I hadn’t even added it to my list until the brewer from Phantom Horse Brewery, which is located inside of Pie Slingers, came into Sigler’s and gave Philip a business card to use for a free flight (sampler, for those of you who aren’t familiar with beer-speak).

Philip couldn’t wait to use it, so we headed down there the next week. It was a bit of a drive – about 45 minutes from our house – but really isn’t that much farther than some of the other North Georgia spots we’ve been to. Just past the Chickamauga Battlefield, it didn’t seem too far out. We got there around 5:00 and it wasn’t too crowded, outside of a large group of people that were there for a birthday party. The place is large and open, decorated with lots of retro radios, eight-tracks, and other retro memorabilia. One side houses some arcade games (which, in the wide open space made the restaurant a little loud – just a warning), and each table is decorated in its own unique way (ours had comic book clippings and miniatures under the glass).

Philip was most excited, of course, about the beer. There’s a tiny little room in one corner of the restaurant where the brews are made. You can order pints, flights (4 4-ounce pours), and crowlers (32-ounce can growlers to take home).

I left the beer perusal up to Philip and focused instead on perusing the menu. I was interested in the house made potato chips ($1.50/$2.95), spiral cut and served with ranch dressing. We ultimately decided to order the beer cheese, made with Ole Green Eyes IPA and Working Girl Blonde Ale ($1.50), and Pretzel Bites ($4.95), made with 1891 Oatmeal Cream Stout. We were expecting teeny little pretzel bites and warm beer cheese dip, but what we got were basically pretzel breadsticks and a cream cheese based beer cheese spread. The pretzel bites were hot, soft, and fresh, and the beer cheese was a little tangy with a little bit of a bitter beer bite. Very tasty!

As for pizza, there were several that sounded delicious. I was interested in the Philly Cheesesteak, with garlic butter base, Philly meat, white American cheese, green peppers, and onions; the Buffalo Chicken, with garlic butter base, house-smoked chicken, blue cheese crumbles, and a Frank’s hot sauce drizzle; and the Nacho Mama, with enchilada sauce base, cheddar cheese, taco beef, and tortilla chips, served with a side of lettuce, sour cream, and salsa. We decided on the Nacho Mama, going for a 12-inch for $15.75 (each pie is also available as a 16-inch and a 28-inch. Yes, you read that right. Twenty-eight inch pizza. We saw one get delivered and it was unbelievably large.)

The pizza took a little bit longer than we were expecting to come out, considering that the place wasn’t very crowded. We did see people come in for take-out orders, so it’s definitely possible that there were a lot of take-out orders that we didn’t see going out. The pizza was hot and fresh, though, so were were really okay. The pizza at Pie Slingers Pizzeria is tossed and formed by hand – no dough sheeter in the place – and it’s thin and a little crispy while still a little chewy. I liked the toppings. The meat was well-seasoned and the cheddar cheese was a nice complement, and I liked that they didn’t skimp on the tortilla chips. The lettuce, sour cream, and salsa were all served in one bowl, and I thought that it would have made more sense if they had been served in separate containers. Actually, I would have liked for the sour cream to have been drizzled over (I often put my sour cream in a plastic bag and pipe it onto my tacos)…but those are just details. The pizza was definitely tasty.

Pie Slingers Pizzeria is a bit too much of a drive to make it a regular spot for us, but if we head down in that direction we would definitely stop in again to try another one of their pies. Philip liked the brews from Phantom Horse a lot and even got a crowler to bring home.

If you’re looking for pizza in the Fort Oglethorpe/Rock Spring area, check out Pie Slingers Pizzeria!

Pie Slingers Pizzeria is located at 56A Fieldstone Village Drive, Rock Spring, GA, 30739. They are open Monday – Tuesday, 11 – 8:30, Wednesday – Thursday, 11 – 9, Friday – Saturday, 11 – 9:30, and Sunday 12 – 9. You can call them at (706) 375-9182. You can find out more on the Pie Slingers Pizzeria website or on the Pie Slingers Facebook page. You can also follow @pieslingers on Twitter and on Instagram.