I have a confession to make. The Lakeside Chowdown was actually a school project this whole time. This post will be essentially the final exam for that class. I call this post the Three-Course Meal: three individual parts that don’t really belong anywhere else.
Caney Fork River Valley Grille
Sometimes I just want a traditional dining experience. Sometimes I want to just sit down at someplace familiar, order my food, eat my food, and get out. And sometimes, I want to go on an adventure. I need to be bold enough to visit a place that just seems so outlandish and wacky that I wouldn’t bother trying it otherwise.
Enter Caney Fork River Valley Grille. Under normal circumstances I would be hesitant to try a restaurant where you can see live catfish and also eat meat from elk, gators, and basically many different kinds of animals. But I was in the area and thought it would be as good a time as any to try it.
Red Rooster Cafe
I intended on visiting Red Rooster Cafe for the Lakeside Chowdown for the longest time. It wasn’t until recently that I finally did. However, before I did, I looked up some reviews of the place and found them… varied, to say the least.
However, when it comes to reviewing for the Lakeside Chowdown, I tend to disregard these reviews- both good and bad- and judge by my own experience. So how was my visit?
Sanders Ferry Pizza and Pub
As you can tell, I’m very fascinated with restaurants I cover in the Lakeside Chowdown that used to be other restaurants. Once again, today’s subject follows the trend. A long time ago, this little place by the Sanders Ferry harbor used to be Steamboat Bill’s, a lovely little restaurant that had some very fine fried mushrooms and seafood. It was there for many years until it eventually closed. (The owners MAY be the ones behind Moby Dicky’s now, but I don’t know for sure. If I find any conclusive evidence supporting or disproving it, I’ll definitely edit this post.)
After Steamboat Bill’s closed, some other restaurant came in, lasted a year maximum as I recall, and was eventually once again replaced by a sports bar called Piranha’s. Piranha’s had some excellent Philly Cheese Steak- it was really some of the best in town. The problem was that the place was way too loud. The music was blaring, the TVs were at maximum volume, and everyone in the building was shouting and cheering at whatever game was on. At its busiest, you couldn’t even hear the sound of your own voice. There’s a chance it may have caused noise complaints, because it later closed down.
That brings us to today’s subject: Sanders Ferry Pizza and Pub. My first exposure to the food here was actually at last year’s annual Taste of Hendersonville, a local event where restaurants from all over- both local and chains- come together at the Streets of Indian Lake shopping district for a big gourmet sample smorgasbord. Sanders Ferry Pizza and Pub had some pizza slices there… and I wasn’t impressed. To me, it tasted like cheap frozen cafeteria pizza.
The moral of today’s entry is about how sometimes, if you disregard the past and give places like this a second chance, you may really find something special.
Music City Diner
It’s no secret that I’m really interested in what restaurants in town used to be. Today’s subject, Music City Diner, is no different. A long time ago, the building was a little frozen custard place called Ritter’s. I miss Ritter’s so much. It was pricey, but it was so good. What’s happening to all the good ice cream places in town? The same thing happened with the building Myers’ Front Porch uses now.
On the plus side, like with Myers’ Front Porch, sometimes when an ice cream place closes, a new good restaurant comes in to take its place.
Cafe 393 on Main
Like I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the places I’ve visited for the Lakeside Chowdown are restaurants I visited before. But every now and then, I seem to stumble across somewhere new.
I didn’t think there were any local breakfast places in town. Then, one day, I noticed a place called Cafe 393 on Main while driving past where the Sears outlet used to be (which itself used to be a Wal-Mart before the Wal-Mart Supercenter went up). At first, I was a bit hesitant to try it. However, I recently got a book of coupons for local restaurants and stores in the mail, and one page had a coupon for Cafe 393 among photos of breakfast items on their menu. I figured it was as good a time as any to give them a try.
The Wild Cow
My sister is a vegan. I love meat. We have no issues with each other’s diets, but when she comes to town it’s inevitable I’ll have to eat some vegan food at some point. I’m generally fine with that, but there’s one thing I completely refuse to eat: vegan dairy substitutes.
The Wild Cow is a restaurant we always eat at when she’s in town. It’s a vegetarian restaurant, not strictly vegan, so I don’t have to worry about trying too hard to avoid nut-based cheese substitutes. When we go here, basically everyone wins.
So let’s take a look at the place, shall we?
Moby Dicky’s
Note: Moby Dicky’s does not have an official website, so instead I linked to the restaurant’s Facebook page. I’m not a fan of linking to Facebook pages (or Facebook in general, really), but Moby Dicky’s page seems to have all the information I need, including the phone number, address, hours, and menu.
Call me the guy who runs the Lakeside Chowdown. Some years ago, work began at an unassuming, potentially haunted old house on the Walton Ferry peninsula. A parking lot was paved, a turn lane was painted on the street, and I eventually found out we were getting a new restaurant: Moby Dicky’s.
While I was initially skeptical about a restaurant in that location, my first visit to Moby Dicky’s proved its merit as one of the best restaurants in Hendersonville. So how did it stack up on my visit?
Swezey’s
I try to stick to Hendersonville, Gallatin, and Nashville when it comes to restaurants to write about in the Lakeside Chowdown. But every now and then, I stumble across a local restaurant outside these three cities that fits all the criteria for an entry in this blog (which is basically 1. not being a chain, and 2. being somewhere in middle Tennessee). Of course, I have to review them because something tells me if I stuck to solely three towns I’d run out of content way too quickly.
Swezey’s (pronounced “SWEE-zee’s”) is a sports bar and pub in Pleasant View, Tennessee. From what I heard from a waitress and further research from the website, the owner, Mike Swezey, worked at Morton’s: The Steakhouse in downtown Nashville as executive chef for years, and left to open his own restaurant. It’s a classic local restaurant story, but the restaurant business is difficult. How does Swezey’s fare?
Veggie Village
When I started the Lakeside Chowdown, I already knew a number of local restaurants I had visited previously that I intended to include. None of them, however, had quite the same effect on me as Veggie Village. The food, service, and atmosphere were all unlike anywhere else I’d ever visited.
So, naturally, I had to share my visit.
The Lakeside Chowdown 