Road Trip Back to the 50s: Kokomo's 50s Diner

One of our favorite things to do is, of course, eat. One a recent trip I spotted a copy of Anita Musgrove's Tennessee Back Road Restaurant Recipes: A Cookbook and Restaurant Guide. It has a selection of small-town restaurants separated according to the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee. A quick look gave me the idea to use this as a sort of road map for some Saturday afternoon road trips.

One warning about the book: be alert as you read. We were looking for dishes made from the recipes in the book but discovered that some of the restaurants list "family favorites" and "local favorites" instead of actual restaurant recipes.

We took the first today, heading toward the Tennessee River. Our first stop was a the Toll House Restaurant in Savannah. My open-faced steak sandwich was unremarkable, but Jim ordered a loaded baked potato with chopped chicken and barbecue sauce. It was huge and he really enjoyed it. We were surprised to find they were out of desserts at Saturday lunch, so we headed to another place featured in Musgrove's book, Kokomo's 50s Diner in Adamsville, Tennessee.

What a great surprise! First off, we were greeted with the aroma of luscious hamburgers and decor straight out of, well, the 50s! Since we were only there for dessert we ordered a caramel sundae and a hot brownie cake sundae. Wow! They were a perfect treat on a wickedly hot day.

It was a lovely trip, showing us, again, the value of eating at local restaurants.

What about you? Where is your next gastronomic road trip?

Nancy