New Kingsport Restaurants

As I drive around Kingsport, I’ve recently noticed several new restaurants that are either opening soon or that have recently opened.  I thought I’d mention them here, along with what I know about them, if anything.

The Great Taste Buffet is located on Stone Drive in the strip mall that is roughly across the street from Hardees.  It’s the strip mall where Subway was located before they moved across the street.  I don’t know anything about the Great Taste Buffet yet, but it’s almost certain to be a Chinese restaurant, based on the Chinese lanterns hanging outside.  I don’t think they are open yet, but it appears that they are getting close, as there seem to be people there working on it almost every day.

The Red Apple is a mostly Chinese and Japanese buffet that recently opened in the old Ryan’s building.  Some of my friends gave it a ringing endorsement, and one of them doesn’t even care for oriental food, so there must be enough selection to please most diners.  In addition to the standard Chinese dishes you’d expect to find, I’m told they have a salad bar, chicken wings, sushi, and a Mongolian grill.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to soon.

Stadium Dogs is located in the Green Acres shopping center on Eastman Road.  They have hot dogs, nachos, and similar fare.  One of my friends says they have better peanut butter milkshakes than Pal’s.  I plan to put that to the test soon.

The place that I forgot the name of is located downtown near the new Higher Education center.  One half of the business is a restaurant, and the other half is a general store.  I’ll update this post when I find out more – such as the name of the place, for instance.

El Campiniera (not sure if I have the name right) is a Mexican restaurant that is supposedly opening soon on Broad Street in downtown Kingsport.  However, the “coming soon” sign has been there for about a year, and there is no sign they’ve done any work on the place, so I’m guessing their plans fell through.

Zaxby’s recently opened in the Kingsport Pavilion.  Since it’s a national chain, most of you are probably familiar with it.  I plan to post a full review of it soon.

Top 10 Locally-Owned Kingsport Restaurants

Today I decided that I’d do a top 10 list that ranks my favorite local restaurants in Kingsport.  I wanted to recognize some places that I think are outstanding and deserving of your business.

For this list, I’m only including restaurants that are locally-owned (as far as I know), and that only have one location.  Therefore, you won’t see restaurants on this list that are locally-owned but have more than one location (like Pal’s and La Caretta) or that are national chains (like Cheddar’s).

So, without further ado, here are my top 10 favorite locally-owned Kingsport restaurants:

10.  Fisherman’s Dock:  Until recently, it had been a long time since I’d eaten at Fisherman’s Dock.  My family and I have tried it several times lately, and it’s quite good these days.  It’s the only true seafood restaurant I can think of in Kingsport, aside from the national chain “fast food” seafood places.

9.  Kingsport Grocery Company: I’ve only been here once since it reopened as KCG, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Those garlic knot appetizers are awesome, and if you like New York style pizzas, they’ve got you covered.  When they say “large pizza”, they mean it.  One of my personal favorite items on their menu is the black bean hummus.  They have a wide variety of unique appetizers to try, such a sweet potato fries, which are very good as well.

8.  Pratt’s: The only thing I’ve tried since Pratt’s reopened as a full service restaurant is the pulled pork BBQ, but it must be pretty good, because I’ve tried it several times.  One of the best things about Pratt’s is that they have several different BBQ sauces to try.  And their cheese biscuits are one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, but as of the last time I was there, they only serve them on Friday and Saturday.

7.  Chef’s Pizza: If you’re looking for good pizza at a reasonable price, it’s hard to beat Chef’s.  Their meatball pizza topping is particularly good.  I’ve also heard good things about their soup and salad lunch buffet.

6.  Nick’s: The restaurant once known as “Nick Nave’s” is still going strong.  It’s a a traditional family-style restaurant serving burgers, steaks, fish, and specializing in broasted chicken and potatoes.

5.  Sharon’s: As those of you who read my review of the “new” Sharon’s a few months ago know, I wasn’t too sure if I liked the changes they made to their restaurant or not.  After trying it a few more times and getting used to it, it’s again become on of my favorite locally-owned restaurants in town.  The burgers are some of the best I’ve ever had.  They’ve added some photos on the walls of various celebrities enjoying their burgers, so the decor has taken a step in the right direction as well.   I think I gave them a score of 6 out of 10 in my review a few months ago, but I’d increase that to a 7 or 8 now.  If they’d ever get around to putting milkshakes on the menu, it might go even higher…

4.  Molcajetes: I’m not going to beat around the bush – I love La Caretta.  But Molcajetes is an excellent Mexican restaurant as well, and there’s no reason that a La Caretta fan can’t enjoy Molcajetes as well.  The food is just different enough that I like eating at both places.  The dish called “South of the Border” has quickly become my favorite – it’s 2 chile rellenos with a side of beans or rice.

3.  Tomoko – Tomoko is a fairly new Japanese steakhouse that opened up in the old Wendy’s building in front of K-Mart on Stone Drive.  The service and food are excellent, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite places to eat.

2.  China Wok – China Wok is hands down one of my favorite places to eat, and not just among locally-owned restaurants, either.  If I expanded my list to include every restaurant in the world, I still think China Wok would be #2.  As you’ve probably noticed if you live in Kingsport, there are Chinese Buffets all over the place.  China Wok is by far my favorite.  The selection on their buffet is smaller than most, but the food is so much better that there’s really no comparison.  They also have a huge menu if you prefer to order that way.  If you like Chinese food, go eat at China Wok.

1.  Plum Tree – After I spoke so highly of China Wok, you probably didn’t except to see another Chinese restaurant ranked above it, huh?  Plum Tree doesn’t have a buffet, but their food is the best I’ve had at any Chinese restaurant I’ve ever eaten at.  I had a hard time deciding whether Plum Tree or China Wok should be #1 – it was very close.  China Wok is my favorite Chinese buffet, while Plum Tree is my favorite Chinese restaurant to order off of the menu.

The Chicken McSwiss

Today I saw a list on ListVerse.com called “Top 10 Failed McDonald’s Products”.  As I read the article, I thought of a McDonald’s product from days gone by that wasn’t mentioned on the list – the Chicken McSwiss.

The Chicken McSwiss was basically just a deep-fried chicken patty with Swiss cheese sauce on a bun, but the unique thing about it was that the chicken patty contained a piece of ham (between the breading and the chicken).

My first encounter with the Chicken McSwiss came during an elementary school field day.  My parents had stopped at McDonald’s on the way to the school to get our lunch, and when we opened the bags, we discovered that they had messed up our order.  Among other things, there was a Chicken McSwiss, which my parents hadn’t ordered, in the bag.  I tried it, and it was delicious.  I ate a lot of them during the months that they were offered.  To this day, it is one of my favorite McDonald’s items of all time.  Apparently not many people shared my enthusiasm, because the Chicken McSwiss was gone from the menu within 12 months at the longest, never to be seen again.

I Googled the Chicken McSwiss today, and I learned something that I didn’t know.  I found an old article from 1984 on a restaurant industry news site that said McDonald’s was preparing to test-market the new Chicken McSwiss in a limited number of East Tennessee locations.  I’m guessing now that it was probably never introduced outside of that market.   I’m probably one of the only people who ever tried the Chicken McSwiss.

The First Bi-Annual Bristol Nascar Jellybean Challenge

While shopping for snacks to take to the Food City 500, my friend Chris and I decided to get some assorted Jelly Belly jellybeans.  I don’t eat many jellybeans and I generally don’t like them, but Jelly Bellys are good.  The different flavors actually taste like they’re supposed to, instead of all tasting the same like cheapo brands of jellybeans do.

Food City sells their Jelly Bellys by the pound (yes, we appropriately bought our snacks for the Food City 500 at Food City).  Apparently we went overboard in judging how many jellybeans to put in the bag, as it wound up costing $10.

I thought of an idea to use the jellybeans in a sort of Fantasy Nascar contest.  Chris and I would each pick two jellybeans out of the bag, and we’d pick cars that were the same color as the jellybeans.  Whoever picked the highest finishing car would win the contest.  The winner would have a choice of prizes – they would either get all of the remaining jellybeans, or they could force the loser to eat all of the remaining jellybeans before we got back to Kingsport.

I picked the first jellybean, and it was solid red.  I chose Tony Stewart as my driver, as his Office Depot car is mostly red.  Chris selected next and got a yellow bean.  He chose Clint Bowyer, not realizing that Bowyer’s paint scheme was only about 30% yellow.  The second bean I picked was yellow, and I picked Jeff Burton, who is driving the Caterpillar car this season.  Chris got a red bean with his second pick, and he made the surprising pick of Juan Montoya!

Just after the green flag flew is when the controversy began.  Chris noticed that the primary color of Bowyer’s car wasn’t yellow, and he tried to change his pick to Mark Martin.  I contended that you can’t change your pick after the race starts, while Chris said that wasn’t specified beforehand.

You can probably guess what happened.  Burton finished one spot ahead of Montoya, so I think I won.  But Martin finished ahead of both of them, and Chris says he won because he changed his pick to Martin.

Although the First Bi-Annual Bristol Nascar Jellybean Challenge ended in controversy, there were no hard feelings.  I intended to give the remaining jellybeans to Chris’ daughters, but I forgot and took them home.  So, I ate some of them, but I’m going to take the rest of them and give them to Chris.

Cootie Brown’s Retrospective

A couple of years ago, Cootie Brown’s opened a new restaurant in Kingsport.  I thought it had been longer than that, but I think I read in the paper that it had been 2 years.  Up until a few days ago, I thought Cootie Brown’s was a national chain.  After checking their website, though, I discovered that they only had two restaurants – one in Kingsport and one in Johnson City.

Back when the Kingsport Cootie Brown’s opened, I had never eaten at the one in Johnson City, even though it had been there for several years.  Not long after the Kingsport location opened, it developed a repuation for having terrible service.  My parents experienced this, and several other people I know did as well.  It was so bad that there was even an article in the Kingsport Times-News about it.  The owners blamed the problem on a new order taking and billing system, and begged patrons to give them another try, promising that things would be better.

My parents tried it again and said that it wasn’t much better.  That was enough to scare me away from trying it for a long time, although I heard several other people say they liked to eat there.

I finally ate at Cootie Brown’s for the first time around a year ago.  I had fried oysters and french fries, and it was good.  The service was OK as well.  After that, however, I continued to hear stories about the restaurant’s inconsistency.  Based on what I heard, it seems that sometimes it was great, and other times it was bad.

Last week, the owners of Cootie Brown’s suddenly announced that Sunday, Oct. 19 would be the last day for the Kingsport location, and then it was going out of business.  For that reason, some of my friends and I decided to try it one last time before it shut down.  I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The service and food were both great.  The design of the building and quirky decor were great also.  It was a warm evening and the windows were open, which was nice as well.  It seems that I didn’t appreciate what a good restaurant the Kingsport Cootie Brown’s was until it was too late.

Now, here’s the strange part of the story.  The owners wouldn’t say why they were closing.  They even said they hope to eventually re-open in a new location in Kingsport.  It seemed like they were always busy when I drove by, so I can’t imagine they closed due to lack of business.  The only thing I can figure out is that someone else wanted that piece of property so badly that the owners of the land were given an offer they couldn’t refuse.  I suppose we’ll find out when we see what business opens in that location next.

It’s a shame that the Cootie Brown’s building will likely be torn down.  I didn’t fully appreciate its unique architecture and decor until I saw it up close again last week.  It’s so quirky that it almost defies description.  I noticed lots of subtle touches, from plates and coffee cups embedded in the outside of the building, to silverware and salt shakers hanging from the chandeliers.  I now feel that the building was an under appreciated treasure in Kingsport, and unfortunately, it’s about to go away.

I wish I had discovered sooner what a great place Cootie Brown’s was.  I look forward to them opening another Kingsport location some day, and in the meantime, it’s likely I’ll travel to Johnson City on occasion to eat at the Cootie Brown’s there.

Restaurant Review – Sharon’s Hamburgers

A few weeks ago, Sharon’s restaurant in downtown Kingsport underwent some major changes.  They’ve changed their menu, dropping barbecue completely to focus on burgers and fries.  They also drastically changed the layout and decor in the restaurant.  I recently tried the “new” Sharon’s, and I wanted to share my thoughts.

The first thing that jumped put at me was that both the outside and inside of the building have been stripped of ALL decor.  The interior of the restaurant has been redone in all black and white.  The pictures, old scooters and bicycles, and all of the other decor have been removed.  The only thing in the building that has any color to it at all is that the neon sign is still hanging over the entrance to the restrooms.  I don’t understand why they took a restaurant that had a lot of charm and character and transformed it into the plainest, most generic looking restaurant I’ve ever seen.  The place now has no ambiance at all.  It’s a downright depressing place to sit down and eat.  It’s more like a hospital than a restaurant.

The second thing I noticed (I’d heard about this in advance) was the stripped-down menu.  They have burgers, fries, and drinks – that’s all.  All of the burgers are now doubles (two meat patties), but the patties are so much smaller than they used to be that I didn’t feel like there was much more meat on the burgers than there used to be on their single burgers.  All of the standard toppings are still available at no extra charge – lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, cheese, sauteed onions, mayo, mustard, and ketchup.  One new free topping has been added to the menu – roasted red peppers.  There are also four new toppings that carry an extra charge – green chili sauce, bacon, a fried egg, and caviar.  Yes, for nearly twice the price of the burger itself, you can get a 2 ounce jar of caviar to put on it.

The fries have been changed, and not for the better, in my opinion.  Sharon’s fries used to be identical to Pal’s, and they were great.  The fries are now more like a home fry, with some of the potato peel still on them.  They were good, but not as good as the old fries.  I noticed (as did several other people I’ve spoken to) that the price of the fries increased while the size of the serving went WAY down.  The bags of fries are tiny compared to the big baskets they used to serve.

One good thing about the new Sharon’s is that the drink machine has been turned around so that you can get your own refills, which I like.  If only you could get to it after taking your seat…more on that in a moment.

Another thing that is different in the new Sharon’s is that they’ve added a huge, long table down the middle of the restaurant that seats around 30 people.  That is simply a horrible idea.  I don’t want to go into a restaurant and be forced to sit and eat at a table with a bunch of people I don’t know.  In fact, if I ever went in there and that happened to me due to the smaller tables being full, I’d probably never go back.

There are still some smaller tables along the wall and near the entrance, but the new layout presents some major problems.  First, the big table takes up so much room that when it and the small tables are all full, there is almost no room to walk to get to your table.  Even worse is that there are some tables where you can get blocked in and not be able to leave your table at all without asking people sitting at other tables to get up so you can get by.  This happened to me.  I was sitting in the old booth by window right beside the front door, and I couldn’t get to the drink machine because of people sitting at another table.  They were an elderly couple and one them had an oxygen tank, so I wasn’t comfortable asking them to get up so I could get a drink refill.  It’s nice that the drink machine is now set up so that customers can get their own refills, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually be able to get to it.

As for the service, something didn’t add up.  There were literally a dozen employees working behind the counter.  However, it took me much longer to get my food than it used to when there were 3 or 4 employees working.

As for the food itself, I thought my burger was the best I’ve ever had at Sharon’s – and I thought their old burgers were great in their own right.  I had a cheeseburger with mustard, sauteed onions, and roasted red peppers.  It was delicious.  As I mentioned before, the fries were good, but not as good as the old ones.

So, in summary, the things I like better at the new Sharon’s are the burgers and the self-service drink machine.  I liked everything else (the layout, decor, service, menu, prices, etc.) better at the old Sharon’s.  On a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, I’d give Sharon’s Hamburgers a rating of 6.

Ryan’s Retrospective

On the heels of last week’s closing of the Kingsport Ryan’s, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the restaurant throughout the years.

The Early Years (~1986 to 1991)

Ryan’s opened across the street from my middle school when I was in seventh or eighth grade. My family’s original opinion of the place was that it was good, but not as good as Prime Sirloin. However, I preferred eating at Ryan’s personally, due to the free dessert bar. Being a bit immature in those days, I would complain loudly whenever we went to Prime Sirloin (so that employees could hear me) about how ridiculous it was that they charged for their dessert bar when Ryan’s was free.

During this time, I really liked the buffet at Ryan’s. In particular, I remember their unique miniature slices of pizza with a really nice crust, and their excellent mexican/taco bar. On the days that I didn’t order the buffet, I’d order the flounder instead. It was very good, but alas, they removed flounder from their menu by the time I graduated high school, and they never offered it again. Oddly enough, I rarely ate steak at Ryan’s for the first several years of its existence.

The Middle Years (1991 to ~2004 )

Sometime around 1991, Ryan’s made some changes to their buffet (called the Megabar by this time) that I didn’t like. The pizza disappeared, and the mexican bar was reduced to nothing much more than some ground beef and cheese sauce. Being a bit immature in those days, I remember complaining loudly so the managers could hear me about how much better the buffet used to be.

Due to the flounder no longer being offered and the fact that I didn’t care much for the buffet any longer, my standard meal during this period became hamburger steak with mushroom gravy and fries. You never knew quite what you’d get with hamburger steak at Ryan’s. Sometimes it would be juicy and prepared just right, while at other times it resembled a used piece of charcoal.

Renovations were also made to the restaurant during this period. It went from being a traditional looking steakhouse with large, dark wooden beams to a much brighter, casual dining style. I didn’t like that change, either, but being a bit more mature by then, I didn’t complain about it too loudly.

The real problem with Ryan’s during this time period is that quality of both the food and the service became terribly inconsistent. It went through some periods where it would be really good, but they also went through some phases where it was so bad that we would stop eating there for a while.

The Later Years (2004-2008 )

Sometime between the later part of the middle years and the early part of the later years, the Megabar began to improve again. They added a carving station that featured ham and roast beef, and even steak on some nights. They frequently offered some pretty decent seafood, and I particularly liked the whole fried catfish. To this day, I don’t know the proper way to eat those, but I developed a method that worked pretty well and allowed me to get most of the fish without too many bones. The downside was that I thought the Megabar was way overpriced during this time.

The food and service were still somewhat hit and miss during this time, but for the most part, it was much improved.

The End (Feb. 12, 2008 )

On Feb. 12, 2008, Ryan’s suddenly closed. Since my last post, I learned that the parent company of Ryan’s filed bankruptcy, and several lower-performing restaurants around the country were being closed. However, the Kingsport Ryan’s was the only one in our region to shut down.

Originally, I had thought that I would still drive to Bristol or Johnson City occasionally to eat at Ryan’s. However, after hearing how the company treated their employees in Kingsport, I do not intend to give that company any more of my money. The employees were told the day of the closing that the restaurant had been shut down, with no prior warning. You can’t tell me that the corporate management of that company didn’t know at least a few days in advance that the restaurant would be closing. They could have let the employees know so they could be looking for another job. That is a lousy way to treat your employees.

Ryan’s is gone!

I learned today that the Kingsport Ryan’s is closed and the building is empty! I’m trying to find out what happened, but if anyone knows, please post a comment!