Delis, Sandwiches, Burgers, & Hot Dogs Archives - Page 2 of 9

Greg’s Sandwich Works

February 27, 2017

Greg’s Sandwich Works is a great restaurant in the Brainerd/East Brainerd area serving sandwiches, hot dogs, salads, baked potatoes, and more!

Sometimes finding a place to go on Saturday afternoons gets taxing. Philip usually doesn’t get home from work until around 3:30 and I never knew how many things close at 4 p.m. on Saturdays! I’m sure I have complained about this before. Have I complained about this before? He loves his job and for that I am happy, but I miss the old days when he didn’t work on Saturdays and we could go wherever, whenever we wanted.

Anyway…last weekend I really wanted to go to Greg’s Sandwich Works, which is located in the location formerly known as GollyWhoppers. I was honestly shocked when GollyWhoppers closed…it seemed like a pretty popular place and it had been around for a long time. Not too long after, though, the former manager (Greg, in case you were wondering?) decided to open his own sandwich shop there.

It wasn’t in the cards for us to go Saturday, because (you guessed it) they close at 4 every day (except Sundays, when they are closed). It’s definitely more of a lunch-type place, so I get it. Luckily for us, it was a long weekend, so we decided to wait until Monday to head over there. We had a late lunch, around 1:30. There were several tables occupied but it wasn’t super-crowded, which I attributed to the fact that (a) it was past “lunch hour”; and (b) it was a holiday.

The menu here is very similar to the menu from GollyWhoppers – Greg clearly knows that there is no point in messing with what has proven to work. A popular item on the GollyWhoppers menu was the taco salad, and Greg has recreated it as the “Fiesta Salad”. Shredded lettuce gets topped with seasoned ground beef, salsa, shredded cheese, sour cream, red onions, pickled jalapeños, and black olives, served with a side of tortilla chips ($6.99). If you like, you can ask them to crush the chips up for you so that you can scoop the chips up with your fork. I, however, like to use my chips to scoop up my salad. I asked for my salad without jalapeños, and if I had not skipped right over the mention of onions I would have nixed those too, but that’s okay – they were chopped pretty large so they were easy to pick out. The salad was very tasty, with a great taco flavor to the meat and a nice contrast between the warm meat and the cold salads and toppings.

Philip decided to go with the Italian sandwich – ham, salami, provolone cheese, tomato, onion, Italian dressing, salt, pepper, oregano, and Parmesan cheese ($6.49). The sandwich is served warm on your choice of bread. Philip is a sucker for a good Italian sandwich (surprisingly, one of his favorites is at – are you sitting down? Chuck E. Cheese’s. He grew to love them when we worked there, and we still go there from time to time so he can order them even though we know that the kitchen staff hates making sandwiches. Sorry, guys.) and this was a great Italian sandwich. The flavors just work together so well, and the bread was just fantastic. I loved that it was served warm so the cheese got a little melty and the flavors a little more pronounced (cold dulls flavors a little bit).

While we were eating, Greg made the rounds bussing tables and talking to customers. He stopped to talk to me about the whole chips versus crushed chips approach on the taco salad. He obviously enjoys interacting with the customers and he and his staff are doing a great job serving delicious sandwiches, salads, etc. My only disappointment was that they did not have the selection of cookies and bars that GollyWhoppers had (Greg’s does have cookies and bars, just not as many varieties as GollyWhoppers always had available to tempt me).

If you’re looking for a great lunch spot in East Brainerd, you have to give Greg’s Sandwich Works a try!

Greg’s Sandwich Works is located at 6336 East Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, TN 37411. They are open Monday – Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can call Greg’s Sandwich Works at (423) 551-8634. For more information, you can check out Greg’s Sandwich Works’ website and menu as well as their Facebook page.

Happy Birthday, Tremont Tavern!

December 7, 2016

Chattanooga’s most popular burger spot, Tremont Tavern, turns 10 this month. They’re celebrating with a weekend full of fun!

When I decided to write a top burgers in Chattanooga list, I discovered just how passionate Chattanoogans are about burgers. Honestly, I was a little taken aback by how strongly people felt about their burgers. It was an eye-opening experience.

Over and over again, I have been told (or read, or otherwise heard) that Tremont Tavern has the best burger in town. Indeed, it is one of my favorites too, and with good reason. Huge burgers made from house-ground beef with any number of toppings – how could you go wrong? Plus, there’s the whole tavern/place where everybody knows your name vibe.

Dustin Choate, Tremont Tavern’s owner, set out in 2006 to create a new beginning for himself after a dissatisfying stint in the corporate world. We all know about restaurant failure rates, and at the time that Tremont opened, the area wasn’t exactly a prime restaurant location. It would seem that the odds were stacked against the survival of a hole-in-the-wall dive bar in a previously vacant building…but the odds can be wrong. And wrong they were.

Instead, Tremont turned into a destination for Chattanoogans and out-of-towners alike. What started as a tiny two-room bar has more than doubled in size – but that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of space. That just means more people can squeeze in, and squeeze in they do. On a recent visit, Philip and I could only find seating at the minibar in front of the windows – there wasn’t a table to be had.

It’s pretty much undeniable that Tremont Tavern set the bar for burgers in this town. They’ve not only won local accolades, being voted the Best Burger for the 2016 Times Free Press Best of the Best, but they’ve also been recognized in Garden and Gun as one of the best burgers in the South. The burgers and the beer are not the only good things about Tremont, though – they have a small but varied and well-crafted menu and everything on it is good, as far as I can tell. The fish and chips and Reuben that we had on our recent jaunt certainly were.

And the atmosphere is pretty much unmatched. Like Waffle House, Tremont Tavern is one of those places that everyone just fits in, regardless of who you are. It might be a tavern, but it’s cool to take the kids; everyone in the neighborhood does it, for sure. It’s just as great of a place for a casual date or a night out with friends, though.

Tremont Tavern is turning 10 this month. They’ll be celebrating Friday and Saturday (12/9 and 12/10) with food and drink specials and live music from Mike McDade, Gabriel Newell and Jordan Hallquist & The Outfit on Friday and BJ Hightower, Slim Pickins, TJ Greever and Danimal Pinson on Saturday. Don’t miss your chance to stop by and say happy birthday! And be sure to have a burger while you’re there.

Tremont Tavern is located at 1203 Hixson Pike, Chattanooga, TN 37405. They are open Monday 4 p.m. to 12 a.m., Tuesday – Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m., Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m., Saturday, 12 p.m. to 2 a.m., and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. You can call Tremont Tavern at (423) 266-1996. You can find more information about Tremont Tavern on their website or their Facebook page.

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.

Armando’s Chester Frost

September 28, 2016

Armando’s Chester Frost is a popular spot in Hixson for burgers, fries, and just about every sort of sandwich you can imagine.

Can you guys believe I’ve been writing this blog for 5 1/2 years now? When you write a blog for that long, sometimes you need to write about things more than once. This is the case particularly when you realize that you wrote some restaurant posts and didn’t even include pictures, like I neglected to do when I wrote my original Armando’s Chester Frost post. So…once a month, I’ll be writing a “revisit” post to update you all on a restaurant that I wrote about many moons ago.

With the “gas shortage” last week, Philip and I were trying to conserve gas and stay in Hixson. I drive a lot for work, and if I ran out of gas and wasn’t able to get more (as most of the gas stations in our area did run out at some point), then I was going to have to stay parked in one spot, which makes being itinerant a bit of a challenge. We decided to head just a few miles down the road and eat at Armando’s Chester Frost – the final decision to go there instead of Biba’s or El Metate being made because of the lack of pictures.

Armando’s Chester Frost has been around for as long as I can remember (my family never went there when I was a kid, but I remember going there with a friend when I was probably 9 or 10). It hasn’t changed much, though – still teeny inside, dark with wood paneling. The menu board is pretty retro with those push-pin black and red letters. I am sure they’ve made additions to their menu over the years, but all the classics are still there.

I’m usually a burger girl when I go to Armando’s Chester Frost, but since I knew that Philip would order a burger I decided to get my second favorite, the deluxe grilled cheese. This is a monster grilled cheese – a triple decker. Between the first two slices of bread are bits of ham, bacon, and roast beef and melty Swiss, American, and Cheddar cheese. Between the middle slice and the top slice lies lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayo. I, of course, opted to forego the onion. The deluxe grilled cheese is not for the faint of heart or the dainty eaters…it’s challenging to take a bite, to say the least. I don’t care about getting a little messy, though, as long as the food is delicious, and this grilled cheese did not disappoint. The bread was crunchy and buttery and all the fillings make a perfect savory, melty, gooey treat. We opted to split an order of onion rings. I’m not convinced that the onion rings at Armando’s Chester Frost are homemade, but they’re good – battered instead of breaded, and a little bit sweet. I do highly recommend the fripps (homemade chips).

As I predicted, Philip went for the cheeseburger all the way. It’s a pretty classic cheeseburger – hand-formed patty with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, ketchup, mayo, and mustard on a soft bun. I have never been disappointed by a burger from Armando’s Chester Frost. This one was no exception – Philip remarked that it was exceptionally juicy. He decided to order a chocolate malt as well. The malts and shakes are handmade by the girls who wait the tables and run the register. The malt was creamy and chocolatey, and personally I thought it was pretty malty, but Philip would have liked to have had more malt.

Armando’s Chester Frost is a neighborhood favorite around here.

I don’t think they’re going anywhere soon – why would they when they’re always overflowing at lunch and dinner with customers dining in or picking up t0-go orders? With their menu of classic homemade fast food favorites and their friendly staff, it’s easy to see why they’re so popular.

Armando’s Chester Frost is located at 7330 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343, for dine-in and drive-thru. Call in your orders at 423-842-0479. While the Facebook page for Armando’s Chester Frost lists a website, the website is not currently functional.

Original Post:

So, this was the night that I realized that, aside from a Lean Cuisine that I ate alone on my couch one night before logging in for my online class, every meal that I had eaten for a solid week (aside from my yogurt or smoothie breakfasts) had been from a restaurant. Even lunches had been leftovers. I had offered to cook at my parents’ house, but my mom didn’t have anything specific planned to cook, so she suggested Armando’s. I love Armando’s but I actually called her back and asked if she wanted to come to my house….I had all the ingredients to make spaghetti carbonara and thought for sure that I might implode if I ate one more restaurant meal. Alas, she had already asked my brother to meet us….so on I went.

Armando’s at Chester Frost Park has been around for years and years. I can remember the first time I went there with a friend in elementary school. My family lives in deep Soddy, so this wasn’t somewhere we came (we were more JJ’s type people….but JJ’s doesn’t exist anymore!). Interestingly, Philip and I have lived in the Dallas Bay area for nine years now, and I think we have only gone to Armando’s once. Why? Because it’s hit or miss with the crowd. You can go there and get your food immediately, or you can go there when they are packed out with a long line at their drive-thru and wait, wait, wait. This is certainly not a bad reflection on them. They must be doing something right! We just aren’t much on crowds or waiting (Philip especially).

This night, however, I don’t know if we just got there at a good time or if we just got lucky, but there were maybe four or five tables taken in the restaurant (of course, it’s tiny, so there are probably only about 10 tables altogether) and a car or two in the drive-thru. We walked right up and ordered, and our food was out within 10 minutes. My mom and I ordered a cheeseburger and fries to split, and my brother ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and tater tots.

Armando’s food is your basic hamburger stand kind of food….burgers, fries, onion rings, tots, chicken sandwiches, grilled cheese, now salads, and so on. I’m pretty sure they have milkshakes, too. I loved that there was a note on their menu board that said something along the lines of: “Don’t see what you want? Ask us. Maybe we can make it.” Now that’s keeping the people happy! It’s family-owned, and there are several Armando’s locations around the Chattanooga area but they are all owned by different people and have variations on their menus.

The cheeseburger that my mom and I split was huge and half was plenty for me. It was just basic with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, pickle. I, of course, took the onion off because raw onions are the worst in my opinion. The fries….they are probably frozen, I don’t know, but Armando’s doesn’t really claim to be 100% superfresh and I’m not judging. They were hot and pretty tasty, although fries at places like that never seem salty enough to me so I always salt them a little. I also ate a couple of tots out of my brother’s basket, and they were pretty good too, although I’m really not so much of a tots kind of girl. He felt like there was a little too much mayo on his grilled chicken sandwich, but I probably would have been fine with the amount of mayo. That’s just a personal preference kind of thing.

I really like the food at Armando’s. It’s not likely that I’m ever going to become a regular due to the reasons stated above, but it’s definitely a place to go to get a tasty burger or sandwich. They don’t have a website but you can find them at 7330 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343, for dine-in and drive-thru. Call in your orders at 423-842-0479.

Main Street Meats

August 24, 2016

Main Street Meats, AKA the place with Chattavore’s #1 burger, serves amazing food AND provides great local meats in their butcher shop.

My birthday was a week ago, and because life has been very busy with school starting, I re-shared my Top Ten Burgers in Chattanooga (According to Chattavore) last Wednesday. That was my birthday, too, coincidentally, so the burger post was pretty fitting. Burgers are my A-1, superstar, perfect food, the thing that I could eat at least once a week (along with tacos. And queso. Always queso.). I knew when I shared it that a visit to Main Street Meats was in order this weekend (we stuck around suburbia and got a free birthday burger and a mojito at Ruby Tuesday on my actual birthday. There’s a lot to be said for free.).

I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t been to Main Street Meats since it was taken over by Erik Niel of Easy Bistro fame, though we went lots back when it was butcher shop that happened to serve some sandwiches at lunch time. I’ve been wanting to go back for quite some time now, but new restaurant posts usually take precedence over “revisit” posts, though one could really consider this a new restaurant post since it’s essentially a totally different spot than when I first wrote about it. The seating area is small and was pretty packed when we arrived around noon (maybe a little after) on Saturday and were shown the available seats by a hostess. We chose to sit at a little bar in the back of the restaurant and were quickly greeted by our server, Meri (great name!) who filled our water and took Philip’s order for a Stiegl Radler (Stiegl-Goldbräu and grapefruit soda), which he’d never seen on tap ($4).

We have been on a bit of a pork rinds jag lately (we cannot go to Merv’s without having them, and we had some at Clyde’s last weekend – highly recommend), so we decided to continue the streak and order the pork rinds ($4). I assume that, just like everything else at Main Street Meats, the pork rinds are fresh and come from pigs raised locally. They were definitely fresh out of the fryer, crackling from being exposed to the air on their ascent from the fryer, dusted with hot smoked paprika and something just a little sweet (I couldn’t put my finger on the flavor) and served with a spicy harissa aioli. They were delicious but left my lips tingling from all the spice!

I couldn’t order anything but the burger. It just wouldn’t have been right, not this time anyway. The BLT did look tantalizing, but the classic Local Beef Burger (formerly known as the Ryan, for Ryan Coulter, who created the burger back in the old days) was the order of the day for $10. I added fries on the side ($5, maybe a little pricey, but more than enough to share). The burger, customarily served at medium temperature (they will cook it to a more “done” temperature if you want, but this is meat I trust, so I’m good with medium) is served on a wheat bun with mustard, mayo, house pickles, Gruyere cheese, house bacon, and caramelized onions. It’s quite possibly the juiciest burger I’ve ever laid eyes on (or teeth into), but somehow it manages to hold together. The rich flavors from the bacon, cheese, and onions are the perfect complement for the amazing, dry-aged local beef that makes up the burger patty. It’s burger heaven, or burger nirvana, or something. The fries are not your average fries…they’re sliced crosswise from the potatoes, so they look like chips, but they just aren’t as crispy as chips. They too were delicious.

Though the Bánh Mi ($11), with its head cheese, mortadella, and liverwurst paté were quite tempting for my adventurous eater husband, Philip decided to go for the MSM pastrami Reuben ($10), with sour cabbage, Gruyere, Russian dressing, and cornichon (small, sour pickles), served on marbled rye bread. He immediately pulled off a piece of the pastrami and handed it to me to try. I adore good pastrami, which is basically peppered corned beef, and this was just so good – a little salty, a little peppery, with a great meaty flavor. He said that it was one of the driest Reubens he’d ever eaten – but in a good way. The bread was not greasy, as can be a big problem with a little of Reubens, and it had a perfect amount of sauce to flavor it without being drippy or making it fall apart. It was a perfectly structured Reuben, for sure.

On the way out, we stopped at the butcher counter and picked up a pound of baconage so I can remake this delicious casserole and take some presentable pictures, as well as a bag of Riverview Farms Milling Grits. I ran into a friend, Suzanne, who writes GMOGone…nice surprise!

Main Street Meats is a casual dining spot serving casual yet upscale food in a beautiful atmosphere. The food is about as local as it can possibly get. How could you get more local than meat from local farmers that was butchered and dry-aged in the same building where you’re about to eat it? That’s right, it can’t. I know that a lot of people disagreed with me about Main Street Meats having Chattanooga’s best burger (Tremont Tavern has lots of loyal customers!), but the meat here is just so incredibly high quality…that just puts it over the top for me. For $36 and some change for two sandwiches, fries, pork rinds, and a beer, the prices aren’t terrible either. I just really want to go here every day.

If you haven’t tried Main Street Meats, what are you waiting for?

Main Street Meats is located at 217 East Main Street, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37408. They are open from 11-10 daily (they stop serving the full menu from 4-5 daily, but still offer meats, cheeses, and drinks). You can call Main Street Meats at 423-602-9568. You can find Main Street Meats online at mainstreetmeatschatt.com. You can like Main Street Meats on Facebook or follow @MainStreetMeats on Twitter and Instagram.

« Previous Page