St. Elmo/Lookout Mountain Archives

Rock City and Café 7

May 5, 2017

Perhaps Chattanooga’s most famous attraction, Rock City is beautiful, kitschy, and fun. And Café 7 offers delicious food at totally reasonable prices!

Welcome to my first Chattanooga tourism post! I mean, I guess Chattavore has always been about Chattanooga tourism, what with my focus on locally-owned Chattanooga restaurants, but why not throw some do-not-miss spots in for people visiting the city (or those of us who want to find something fun to do on the weekend)?

My original plan for last weekend was to check out the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg. After a little thought, though, I decided that I wanted to start with a truly local Chattanooga spot…and what better place for my inaugural post than what is probably Chattanooga’s most world-famous tourist spot, Rock City? I mean, really…aside from The Chattanooga Choo Choo, what iconic Chattanooga location is more famous than Rock City, which people know from all the Rock City barns all over the world?

Rock City, atop Lookout Mountain, is actually located in Georgia (shhhh, don’t tell anyone). According to Rock City’s website, a couple named Garnet and Frieda Carter developed the trails that we now know as Rock City in the 1920s as part of a community that they were developing known as Fairyland. Frieda planted gardens around the property that have grown, along with the naturally occurring foliage, into the beautiful scenery that we see today.

Not only does Rock City include naturally occurring attractions such as Fat Man’s Squeeze and Lover’s Leap (see the image below for the legend there), it also includes a swing-along bridge (see below for my feelings on that bridge…but hey, I did it). For those of you who just can’t stomach it, there is a way across that does not move.?By the way, I feel like this is a good place to mention that because of the narrow passages and steep stairs, strollers are not permitted on the Enchanted Trail. Rock City recommends child carriers.

One of the last things that you see as you near the end of the Rock City trail is the kitschy and fun Fairyland Caverns and Mother Goose Village, which feature sculptures that the Carter’s contracted Atlanta-based sculptor Jessie Sanders to create.

And, of course, you can’t leave out the unbelievable views of seven states – Tennessee and Georgia, of course, Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Sadly, it was an overcast day and we forgot our quarters, so we didn’t get to use the binoculars. It didn’t make the views any less spectacular.

And…Café 7. Located by the See Seven States overlook, Café 7 features outdoor seating so you can enjoy the views while you enjoy your lunch. I have to admit…I wasn’t expecting a lot from this restaurant. I mean, how many restaurants in a tourist attraction are more than restaurant-supply store grade fast food? Dumb. I was dumb to think that. The food at Café 7 was actually fan-freaking-tastic. The menu changes, but the menu that was available on the day of our visit was comparable to any of our favorite locally-owned casual dining restaurants in the valley. Appetizers, sandwiches, entrees, desserts, and a respectable beer list (Philip got a Chattanooga Brewing Company beer for $2!)…what more could you ask for?

Of course, the menu is not the only thing that’s important. Would the food taste good? I was skeptical, but that was silly. My Choo Choo nachos, with pulled pork, cheese, barbecue sauce, sour cream, and caramelized onions atop housemade potato chips, were perfect, and at $8 definitely a respectable price for an entree. Philip decided on the chicken fried chicken with a side of edamame succotash and mac and cheese. The fried chicken was a boneless chicken breast that was fried to absolute perfection, and the edamame succotash (in place of the usual turnip greens) was fresh and flavorful. He thought the macaroni and cheese was a little “meh”, which, honestly, is my usual reaction to restaurant mac and cheese. At $15, his was a little more pricey than mine, but still reasonable. Unlike most tourist attraction restaurants, the food here was not outrageously priced, and it was delicious. I found our service to be great too, and, let’s be honest – you can’t beat that view. If you would prefer, you can consider Big Rock Grill at the entrance of Rock City for short order items or Cliff Terrace for snacks. There is also a Starbucks located at Rock City.

Another thing? Rock City is pet-friendly! You are welcome to bring your leased pet to walk the trails and even dine on the terrace at Café 7 with you. They even provide a list of pet-friendly hotels in the area for those who are visiting with their pets.

Finally, Rock City offers lots of special events. Everyone knows about (or at least I think they do) the Enchanted Garden of Lights around the holidays (I’ve been twice and it’s spectacular), but their website lists several other special events that I didn’t know about.

Rock City is located at 1400 Patten Road, Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Rock City’s hours are seasonal, and you can view the hours by season on their website. Tickets are $19.95 for adults and $11.95 for children 3-12. Parking at Rock City is free and Rock City is partially accessible for visitors with disability (find more info about accessibility in their FAQs). For more information about Rock City, check out their website or their Facebook page, or call them at 706-820-2531 or 800-854-0675.

St. Elmo Deli & Grill

November 23, 2016

St. Elmo Deli & Grill offers salads, burgers, hot and cold sandwiches, and wraps for lunch and dinner (on weeknights) near the Incline.

Philip’s new work schedule has really thrown off our Saturdays of late. For nearly 15 years, he didn’t work on Saturdays. Now…he works on Saturdays. He loves his job, so I’m not complaining, but it has definitely made visiting some restaurants challenging (never mind the fact that I have to have a snack before he gets home lest I get hangry).

St. Elmo Deli is one of those restaurants. A friend had recommended St. Elmo Deli a while back, so I’ve been wanting to go. They close at 4:00 on Saturdays, and we hate to go into restaurants near closing time. Since he usually doesn’t get home until 3:15 or 3:30, it’s hard to make it to St. Elmo before 4:00. Last Sunday, though, we went to Finley Stadium for my nephew’s football game (they won the Scenic City Championship) and headed over to St. Elmo Deli afterward.

The place was basically dead when we got there around 2:30. There was a family finishing up when we arrived but they left shortly after we got there and we were all alone. I didn’t notice the stash of takeout menus by the register, so we stood and stared at the huge chalkboard wall until we decided what to order. They serve salads, vegetarian sandwiches, burgers, hot pressed sandwiches, wraps, and toasted sandwiches.

I considered getting a Reuben (and after we ordered, I kind of wished that I had so we could compare it to others around town) but instead I ordered a Philly Cheese Wrap for $8.50 plus and additional $1 for fries (chips are included in the price of the wrap). The Philly cheese wrap is roast beef, provolone cheese, portobello mushrooms, sautéed peppers and onions, and horseradish cream sauce wrapped up in a jalapeño-cheddar wrap. The flavors were spot on and the cheese nice and melty. I loved the way that the horseradish cream complemented the other flavors in the wrap. I was disappointed that there was a lot of fat in the meat, though…I ended up having to pull a lot of it out of my mouth. The fries were frozen; I thought that my friend had recommended the fries but as we were leaving I noticed that the chips are housemade chips and thought that must have been what she recommended. You guys know I love a good housemade chip. The fries were good, but they were just standard frozen fries.

Philip decided to go for the bacon cheeseburger ($9), the price of which included either fries or chips (he chose fries). The bacon cheeseburger included two beef patties, cheddar cheese, and thick-cut bacon on a Bluff View pretzel bun. He was impressed by the burger, which was nicely crispy and just a little bit greasy, not in a bad way – just the way you expect a pan-fried or griddled burger to be. The pretzel bun was a nice package to serve it up in.

The atmosphere at St. Elmo Deli is, well, deli-like. Simple decor, clean, basic. The food was pretty good, aside from that unfortunate fat in my sandwich. The prices were about what I’d expect from a deli in this area, at $20.21.

If you are looking for a deli sandwich or a burger in the St. Elmo area, St. Elmo Deli is a solid option.

St. Elmo Deli & Grill is located at 3931 St. Elmo Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37409. They are open Monday – Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. You can call them at 423-825-5555. For more information, you can check out St. Elmo Deli’s website or find St. Elmo Deli & Grill on Facebook.

1885 Grill (Chattanooga/St. Elmo)

September 8, 2013

1885 Grill is a great restaurant in the St. Elmo area of Chattanooga with fantastic food and a heart for the community of Downtown Chattanooga.

I have been wanting to try 1885 Grill really badly ever since it opened in June. I have no idea why it took me three months to get down there. We considered going for my birthday a few weeks ago, but since the original plan was to go to Elemental, we stuck with that. Anyway, 1885 is connected to Tremont Tavern (in Chattavore’s opinion, the spot for Chattanooga’s best burger) by a common co-owner and is located in the former Blacksmith’s Bistro location in St. Elmo, next door to the former location of Pasha Coffee and Tea. They have done quite a good business since opening, and I had heard that they are almost always busy-no doubt in part due to the fact that they are only open for dinner through the week (open for lunch and dinner on Saturday and lunch only on Sunday), but surely also due to some great food, I was confident. While I read some mixed reviews of 1885 Grill on Urbanspoon (their overall rating is 87%, though), I had heard nothing but good things from friends and family members who had already eaten there.

We got to 1885 Grill at around 2 p.m. and the place was still pretty crowded-the lunch crowd had not yet thinned out. We were seated at one of the last available tables on the patio. It was a nice day to sit outside-not too hot-but we weren’t really thinking about the fact that, of course, the patio is the smoking section. That was our one “issue”, if you could call it that, but then that’s our own fault, isn’t it? I did go inside to use the restroom but didn’t really pay much attention to the decor. The inside dining area was fairly dimly lit with very simple, clean decor but that’s about as much as I noticed.

Our server, Victoria, quickly came to our table and brought water glasses and a bottle of water that she left on the table. She ran down the specials (a fish special, the name of which I can’t remember, and an eggplant sandwich) and strongly suggested the pimento cheese appetizer, which, of course, we had already decided to order (we did consider ordering the empanadas instead, but this is Chattavore and if there is pimento cheese to be had, well, pimento cheese must be had). Apparently this is far and away their most popular appetizer, and I can see why…though I think it may have more to do with the fried okra served alongside the pimento cheese than the spread itself. The okra is cut lengthwise and has more of a cornmeal batter than a cornmeal breading. It is cooked very well-not slimy at all, as okra tends to be-and I would call it the best restaurant fried okra I’ve ever had. It’s so very, very difficult to find a restaurant that serves housemade (not frozen) fried okra, and I get tired of being served okra in a breading jacket. Now, I don’t mean at all to imply that I didn’t like the pimento cheese-I liked it a lot. Like me, they use a cream cheese base, with big chunks of pimento and a grated white cheddar. They also use smoked paprika and minced jalapeño to add another element of flavor-but don’t worry, it’s just a little spicy. Wimpy tastebuds like mine can handle it!

My brother had told me that the pork chop (glazed with Red Delicious apples and a choice of two sides) was excellent and I thought hard about ordering it, but in the end the Country Cuban sandwich won. I posted a Cuban sandwich in the very early days of my blog (if you look at that post, please excuse the photography! Philip has encouraged me to leave old photos so I can remember where I came from.) and I love a good Cuban. The “Country Cuban” is a grilled sandwich, served on sliced Niedlov’s Cuban bread, with sliced roast pork, country ham, white cheddar, thinly sliced dill pickles, grainy mustard, and housemade chips (squeal!) on the side. The sandwich was very large and packed with ingredients. It was grilled but not greasy with a good balance of ingredients. I loved the country ham, though I can’t say that I loved the roast pork. It wasn’t bad but it didn’t “grab” me. I could only eat half of the sandwich and as I’m typing this six hours later I am wondering if I should eat something even though I’m not really hungry so I won’t be starving at bedtime. The chips were amazing. Let me say that again. The chips were amazing. You guys know how I feel about housemade chips. They were great!

Philip ordered the shrimp and grits, which, if I am not mistaken, are made using the recipe of co-owner Miguel Morales’s mother (as are many of the dishes at the restaurant). They offer a choice of loose grits or grit cakes, and of course Philip ordered grit cakes. He prefers grit cakes 500%. There were three grit cakes but they weren’t huge with a crunchy coating on the outside. There was a good ratio of shrimp to grit cakes and not a ton of sauce-the shrimp and the grits were the star players and the sauce had a supporting role. His verdict was that these were not quite as good as those served at the now-defunct Market Street Tavern (which, coincidentally, was also co-owned by Tremont Tavern and 1885’s Dustin) but better than those at FoodWorks (his other favorite) which he said has a lot of very rich sauce that, while it tastes really good, leaves him feeling a little icky after. He did think that the addition of some sort of ham (like the Tasso ham used at FoodWorks) would have kicked it up a notch…but congratulations, 1885 Grill. According to my husband, your shrimp and grits are now the best in Chattanooga.

We were already sold on 1885 Grill, but the thing that has sealed this place as far as our business goes was not related to the food-at least not as far as the flavors are concerned. While we were eating our appetizer, a lady came and sat down at the empty table next to us. She had three children with her and told us that she didn’t have any money to buy food for them. We don’t generally carry cash and Philip told her that while we didn’t have any money to give her for groceries, we would buy her something to eat and she accepted, so we asked a nearby server for a menu. A few minutes later Miguel brought the menu out to us and Philip explained that we were going to buy them some food, to which Miguel replied, “Don’t worry about that-we’ve got it,” and took the lady’s order. One of the managers also brought them drinks. After the lady left, Philip commented to the manager, Katie, that he was very impressed that they gave her food. Katie told us that she felt like if they have a kitchen full of food, giving food to someone in need is the right thing to do. That, my friends, is taking care of your community. 1885 Grill earned my respect for not only their food but for their kindness.

Our total, pre-tip, was about $32 plus some change. Personally, I am looking forward to trying their pork chop at some point as well as some of their fish dishes, which I have also heard are excellent (again from my brother, who typically doesn’t even like fish).

I highly recommend that you give 1885 Grill your support. Good people like that deserve our business.

1885 Grill is located at 3914 St. Elmo Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37409. You can call them at 423-485-3050. Their hours are Monday-Wednesday 4 p.m. – 10 p.m., Thursday – Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., and Sunday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The parking behind the building is very limited but there is overflow parking across the street. There are “no parking” signs in the spaces but we talked to Victoria about this and she explained that the businesses across the street are not open when 1885 is open so it works out well. Check out 1885’s website, http://1885grill.com. You can also like them on Facebook: facebook.com/1885Grill and follow them on Twitter: @1885grill.

Meo Mio’s-December 8, 2012 CLOSED

December 9, 2012

Back in the summer, Philip played a songwriter’s night arranged by the Chattanooga Songwriter’s Association at a Cajun restaurant in Tiftonia of which we had never heard. The name of the restaurant was Meo Mio’s, and we had no clue how to pronounce it. Turns out it’s MEEE-oh MY-oh’s. Easy enough. Anyway, I stayed home for some reason and Philip didn’t eat, so we decided we’d make a trip back to try the food at some point. A soon-to-expire Groupon and a desire to stay away from downtown Chattanooga while Christmas-parade-preparations were happening provided the perfect excuse.

The restaurant was pretty much dead so we were seated immediately. Our server, Destiny, took our drink orders quickly then came back to see if we were ready to order. We weren’t. It took a few minutes to decide, since neither of us is what one would call a connoisseur of Cajun food. Philip, who sampled some excellent Cajun cooking on a trip to Louisiana last spring (I was not with him), wanted to try the fried gator bites-he loved the gator that he tried in Baton Rouge-but they were out. Apparently gator can be hard to come by; to be fair, the menu does warn that gator bites are subject to availability.

After considering a fried oyster po’boy (I’ve been wanting to try fried oysters, you know, just to branch out a little), I decided that an entire sandwich was too big of a leap and I should just go with a fried shrimp po’boy-fried shrimp, shredded lettuce, tomato, and Cajun mayonnaise (yes, otherwise known as remoulade….perhaps they think Tennesseans wouldn’t know what to make of that word?) on a wheat hoagie roll. The sandwich comes with chips but Destiny suggested the beer-battered onion rings. They also serve beer-battered fries but were out of them…the fact that they were out made me suspect that the fries and onion rings are frozen. The onion rings were pretty good, though. The sandwich was gigantic; the hoagie roll was more like a footlong hotdog bun. Because the bread was so narrow, when I closed it up everything fell out. It tasted pretty good but I would prefer a homemade roll-to me, the bread is the essence (to get really cliché) of a sandwich.

Philip considered the boudin, a Cajun sausage made with pork, rice, and Cajun spices, served with corn on the cob, slaw, and red potatoes…but he talked himself out of it and instead decided to go for rosemary shrimp parmesan, which the menu said was served with a side salad and a rosemary breadstick. Philip ordered the salad with raspberry vinaigrette. I have mentioned before that I have a tendency to judge restaurants based on their house salad, and this house salad was blah….some iceberg and romaine with a few shreds of arugula, some cheddar, and a couple of slices of cucumber, tomato, and onion, topped with boxed croutons. It was fairly fresh and the salad itself didn’t taste bad but Philip hated the vinaigrette, which was too much on the acidic/vinegary side and not enough on the sweet/raspberry-y side. Bottled, I feel sure (sigh. I wish more restaurants would make their own dressings. It’s so easy!).

The pasta was basically a creamy parmesan sauce served over fettucine topped with Cajun spiced shrimp. They did not bring Philip a breadstick and he didn’t think to ask about it. He liked the shrimp; it was well-cooked and well-seasoned. The sauced pasta was so-so….the cream sauce itself did not have a bad flavor but it needed salt/seasoning. Philip would have preferred the sauce if it had been spiced with the Cajun seasoning as well. I am not sure where the rosemary came in as we didn’t taste it on the shrimp or in the pasta.

When time for dessert came, we ordered some beignets, tossed in powdered sugar and served with Nutella. We were pretty excited about them…but they were out. If another reviewer on Urbanspoon is correct and the beignets are fried baguette slices and not raised the traditional yeast-raised doughnut strips, that’s okay. Destiny explained that they only had Bourbon balls and cheesecake and that everything else (New Orleans style bread pudding, beignets, chocolate cake) was being made at that time. We decided to order the Bourbon balls, which were made to order-a cook came out of the kitchen and went behind the bar and we heard him say something to the manager (or owner?) about needing something for an order of Bourbon balls. They were made of chopped pecans, sweet wafers, syrup, and rum, mixed together and formed into balls, topped with Nutella. They were quite tasty but not quite as strong as Destiny made them out to be (I’m not really complaining!).

Honestly, I’ve never had “authentic” Cajun food, so I’m not one to really judge the authenticity of the food. I do have a little bit of a suspicion of casual restaurants that serve seafood in a landlocked state. They have a pretty good selection of items that I recognize as traditional Cajun foods (besides the boudin, they also have red beans and rice, jambalaya, gumbo, crawfish, and several seafood selections). The food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t jump up and down good either. Apparently lunchtime on Saturday is not the ideal time to visit, as they seemed to be out of lots of things. I suspect that this is a restaurant that is at its best at busy times (when the staff is on their toes and menu items are available) and would suggest that if you want to try it you go at night.

Meo Mio’s is located at 4119 Cummings Highway, Chattanooga, TN. You can call them at 423-521-7160. You can also check out their website, http://www.meomios.com,