Mount Airy NC and the Mayberry Days Festival

For those not familiar with Omelet Shoppe, it was ( is? ) a modest-sized Waffle House clone, based in Alabama, that had quite a few restaurants throughout the midwestern and southern states. The chain had been going downhill for decades, and I'm not sure if there are any left ( there's no website. ) This photo is of a long-closed former Omelet Shoppe in Huntington WV whose last owner changed the restaurant's name to the Omelet Stoppe. Possibly the corporate entity no longer existed by that point.

nocarolina


Jim, you're right, southern West Virginia is certainly no roadfood mecca. It's really a pity that people in the Princeton/Bluefield area have to go to a chain restaurant like K&W in order to find good food. Of course there's always Omelet Shoppe in Princeton.   Is that place still in business? If it is, it's probably the last outlet left of what was a decent-sized chain back in the 1960s.

There are a couple of mom-and-pop's around that aren't bad, but they are few and far between. 

Funny you should mention the OS.  The Omelet Shoppe at exit 9 is now "The Omelet Spot".  A former GM of Omelet Shoppe and her husband bought the location and made it their own.  An article from our local rag (sorry, the Telegraph doesn't get enough respect to call it a newspaper) tells the story.  They were also a victim of a bad thunderstorm's winds last February.  The storm blew the roof off the adjacent Super 8 Motel into their glass windows.  It took them several months to repair/rebuild from the damage and reopened this summer. (The Super 8 has been torn down, a total loss, and not yet rebuilt.) They seem to do a good business... being near the motels on the exit definitely helps, as it gives people a non-chain option.  The Cracker Barrel here is the #2 store in their chain in volume.  We don't dare go there at peak meal times.  The same goes for many of the other places near the exit.

FYI, NC, I live about 5 minutes from the exit area, so I know that area very well.  I've been down here since '91 and the area around the OS had changed a lot.  It seems like the only things that have stayed the same along that strip of the exit are the OS, Shoney's and the Captain D's next to it.  The other little mom-and-pop right there was Johnston's Inn, a restaurant and motel.  They closed about 10 years ago, sold the land where the motel was, and a Holiday Inn Express was built.  The restaurant building still exists, being split into one of the plentiful mini-lottery/casinos and the other half is a revolving assortment of restaurants they open and close a few months later.  Currently, a seafood place is slated to go in there shortly. 

Thanks, Jim, for the info and the website links. That was an interesting article about the Omelet Spot and I wish them luck with the restaurant. Are you familiar with a place in Bluewell, on 52, called Dick's Swiss Burger? I ate there once, maybe thirty years ago, and wasn't at all impressed with the food. It's still in business though, and I'm curious about the current food quality there.

jimcfs1

nocarolina


Jim, you're right, southern West Virginia is certainly no roadfood mecca. It's really a pity that people in the Princeton/Bluefield area have to go to a chain restaurant like K&W in order to find good food. Of course there's always Omelet Shoppe in Princeton.   Is that place still in business? If it is, it's probably the last outlet left of what was a decent-sized chain back in the 1960s.

There are a couple of mom-and-pop's around that aren't bad, but they are few and far between. 

Funny you should mention the OS.  The Omelet Shoppe at exit 9 is now "The Omelet Spot".  A former GM of Omelet Shoppe and her husband bought the location and made it their own.  An article from our local rag (sorry, the Telegraph doesn't get enough respect to call it a newspaper) tells the story.  They were also a victim of a bad thunderstorm's winds last February.  The storm blew the roof off the adjacent Super 8 Motel into their glass windows.  It took them several months to repair/rebuild from the damage and reopened this summer. (The Super 8 has been torn down, a total loss, and not yet rebuilt.) They seem to do a good business... being near the motels on the exit definitely helps, as it gives people a non-chain option.  The Cracker Barrel here is the #2 store in their chain in volume.  We don't dare go there at peak meal times.  The same goes for many of the other places near the exit.

FYI, NC, I live about 5 minutes from the exit area, so I know that area very well.  I've been down here since '91 and the area around the OS had changed a lot.  It seems like the only things that have stayed the same along that strip of the exit are the OS, Shoney's and the Captain D's next to it.  The other little mom-and-pop right there was Johnston's Inn, a restaurant and motel.  They closed about 10 years ago, sold the land where the motel was, and a Holiday Inn Express was built.  The restaurant building still exists, being split into one of the plentiful mini-lottery/casinos and the other half is a revolving assortment of restaurants they open and close a few months later.  Currently, a seafood place is slated to go in there shortly. 

Here a good example of the lack of good food in Western NC, the local paper runs a contest of sorts once a year thats the "best of", Captain D's was voted Best Seafood! Now I'll admit I've never eaten at a Captian D's but on a good day I doubt the "seafood" is all that good:-)

nocarolina


Thanks, Jim, for the info and the website links. That was an interesting article about the Omelet Spot and I wish them luck with the restaurant. Are you familiar with a place in Bluewell, on 52, called Dick's Swiss Burger? I ate there once, maybe thirty years ago, and wasn't at all impressed with the food. It's still in business though, and I'm curious about the current food quality there.

I've heard of it, but never eaten there.  I don't get out on that side of Bluefield very much.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've loved bridges; the more ornate the better. This handsome example is just below Hwy. 460, which runs along a hillside.

Less than an hour after crossing the state line, I arrived in Pikeville, one of the largest towns in eastern Kentucky. Located here is one of the very few outlets of Dairy Cheer, a longtime KY fast food chain that, as far as I can tell, has never grown beyond a half dozen or so locations. It had been a number of years since I had sampled one of their Smashburgers, and I wasn't all that thrilled back then. Once again, however, my curiosity got the best of me ( remember Speedy Chef? ) and I stopped in to give it another try.

The good news: my Smashburger wasn't as bad as Speedy Chef's Chef Burger. The bad news: it wasn't that much better either.

As I headed north out of Pikeville on 460 towards Prestonsburg, twilight started setting in, and I realized that, once again, my passion for photography had screwed up my travel schedule. I was eager to do some picture-taking in Morgan County KY, where my mother was from, but the approaching darkness ruled that out. I continued on to Mount Sterling, where I had a room waiting, and spent the entire drive mentally kicking myself in the behind for messing things up again.

Here's a photo that I took for my own amusement. It's an illuminated soft drink vending machine, somewhere along US 460, after dark. Ale-8-One is a regional brand whose distribution is limited primarily to Kentucky. It's a ginger ale enhanced with fruit flavor that has been produced in Winchester KY since 1926.   http://ale8one.com/    

Hit  a Captain D's for the first time this last September. Reminds me of Long John Silvers in Wisconsin.  One would think there would be better seafood a couple of hours from the coast. 

A couple of hours on the toilet proved overwise.....

Wonder if you looked around Grundy at all. Heard they moved the whole town to the other side of the river a few years ago because of flooding throughout the years. Probably been 10 years or more since I've been through there.
I also used to travel up to Jenkins, Pikeville and Prestonsburg once a month and that's a tough area to find a good meal. There is or was a Lee's Famous recipe fried chicken around that area that a lot of folks seem to like.
Great report I am really enjoying it.

It was after 9 PM when I arrived in Mount Sterling KY and got checked into my room at the Days Inn. Next it was time for a late dinner, and, unfortunately, the town's dining options are limited to a number of chains clustered together by the interstate. In the second edition of Roadfood back in 1980, the Sterns wrote about a storefront place in downtown Mount Sterling called the Corner Restaurant, but that disappeared twenty years ago. There's one pretty decent place in town for those of us traveling on a budget, and it's one of the five survivors of an otherwise defunct family restaurant chain called Jerry's.

In the '60s and '70s, Jerry's restaurants could be found in just about every good-sized town in Kentucky, along with central and southern Indiana. In the '80s, though, the chain started a downward slide that it never recovered from, and today there are just five Jerry's left; I believe that they're all in eastern Kentucky. I usually spend the night in Mount Sterling once or twice a year, and experience has taught me that Jerry's is the best bet in town for a decent dinner.

My server was a very sweet and attentive young lady who was very excited about her upcoming wedding, and she's the one who told me about Jerry's current status. A sixth Jerry's in Cave City KY closed not too long ago and I hope that these last five can weather the economic storm that we're going through. One of my favorite dinners is a chopped steak and baked potato, and the Mount Sterling Jerry's does a very respectable job on this dish.

nocarolina


It was after 9 PM when I arrived in Mount Sterling KY and got checked into my room at the Days Inn. Next it was time for a late dinner, and, unfortunately, the town's dining options are limited to a number of chains clustered together by the interstate. In the second edition of Roadfood back in 1980, the Sterns wrote about a storefront place in downtown Mount Sterling called the Corner Restaurant, but that disappeared twenty years ago. There's one pretty decent place in town for those of us traveling on a budget, and it's one of the five survivors of an otherwise defunct family restaurant chain called Jerry's.

If I remember correct it was the Jerry’s chain that started Long John Silvers.

In the '60s and '70s, Jerry's restaurants could be found in just about every good-sized town in Kentucky

....so there were 3 or 4

If I remember correct it was the Jerry’s chain that started Long John Silvers.

Sort of...same company Jerrico, Inc owned both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ohn_Silver%27s#History

The first restaurant was opened in 1969 in Lexington, Kentucky. (The original location, on Southland Drive just off Nicholasville Road, was previously a seafood restaurant named the Cape Codder, which accounts for the Cape Cod style of LJS’s early chain restaurants.) Until its bankruptcy in 1998, Long John Silver's was a privately owned corporation. The chain began as a division of Jerrico, Inc., which also operated Jerry's Restaurants.

Per that article too, there are "a dozen or so" Jerry's still open in Kentucky and Indiana.

I was aware of the common ownership of Jerry's and Long John Silvers by Jerrico, but frankly, I was just too tired last night to do all the additional typing ( who stole my Geritol??? ) Thanks, ETR, for doing it for me. From what my server at Jerry's told me, that Wikipedia article is out of date; she said that there are only five Jerry's left, and that all of the Indiana locations are gone.

The Wikipedia article mentions that what's left of the Jerry's chain is now called Jerry's J-Boy Restaurants, but I've only seen one location bearing that name. At least two ( Pikeville and Mount Sterling ) still have the classic Jerry's sign from the 1960s. Below is the sign in front of the Pikeville restaurant...

nocarolina


Here's a photo that I took for my own amusement. It's an illuminated soft drink vending machine, somewhere along US 460, after dark. Ale-8-One is a regional brand whose distribution is limited primarily to Kentucky. It's a ginger ale enhanced with fruit flavor that has been produced in Winchester KY since 1926. 

Cool picture! What Canon are you using again & are you taking the photos in program mode or setting them up manually? (I think it must be the later as the photos are excellent!) :-)

It's a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS ( 8.0 mega pixels ) and it's a great little camera. As far as settings are concerned, I haven't a clue... I just aim and shoot ( I'm technologically challenged. ) 

nocarolina


It's a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS ( 8.0 mega pixels ) and it's a great little camera. As far as settings are concerned, I haven't a clue... I just aim and shoot ( I'm technologically challenged. ) 

Well you have to still have an eye for these things & you do:-) I pretty comfortable with tech. but the artist part is where I think I'm lacking:-)

Thanks for the compliment. I've never thought of myself as being particularly skilled as a photographer, but lately so many people have told me otherwise... hey, who am I to tell all those folks that they're wrong??

When I got back to my room, I was still berating myself for screwing up the day's schedule, and for missing out on my chance to photograph my mother's childhood stomping grounds. The more that I thought about it, the more unwilling I was to let this opportunity get away from me. Since the next day would be the final one of the trip and I wouldn't be on a tight schedule, I decided to get out early and double back to Morgan County to do a little picture-taking. The Mountain Parkway, a primarily two-lane former toll road, served as a quick route for the fifty miles back east to my destination.  

After a quick stop at Hardee's for a biscuit n' gravy breakfast, I headed over to the Mountain Parkway, which took me back east to Morgan County. I left the Parkway at the exit for KY Hwy. 191, which is the road that goes past the now-defunct farm that my mother grew up on.

There is a Jerry's Family Restaurant on 10th st in Jeffersonville, IN, across the river from Louisville, and about a mile from I-65.

Thanks, Mayor. Looks like the young lady at Jerry's has been misinformed about the chain's current situation.

From the Mountain Parkway, north to its intersection with US 460, KY 191 passes through a number of rural farming communities, starting with Helechawa. Until its abandonment in 1933, the Ohio & Kentucky Railway, a small coal-hauling line, ran through Caney Valley. The railroad's northern terminus was in the town of Licking River, and it continued south for about forty miles to O & K Junction, near Jackson.

This old Southern Railway caboose is on display in the park next to the public school in Cannel City, the tiny community where the O&K Rwy. had its offices and shops.

Here's the Cannel City School, which my mother attended during the Depression years. Cannel is a grade of coal that at one time was abundant in the valley.

Here's the Cannel City School, which my mother attended during the Depression years. Cannel is a grade of coal that at one time was abundant in the valley.

That's incredible! Awesome photo.

Golly Uncle Bob, The trip report just gets better, I look forward to seeing the latest updates :>)

This miniscule structure next to the school is the Cannel City post office. If it isn't the smallest one in the country, it's certainly in the top ten.

I love this hand-lettered sign...

Smallest Post Office in the U.S. (with picture): Ochopee, FL (It is 7' by 8'.)
 
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/14154

6star


Smallest Post Office in the U.S. (with picture): Ochopee, FL (It is 7' by 8'.)
 
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/14154

Haha, that's great.

Shannon Mitchell works in this tiny place as its clerk, and she says that she has the coolest job in the world. She has a phone, a computer, an air conditioner, a fluorescent tube for light, and a pair of tiny sliding screen doors to keep out the giant horseflies. Everything that she needs is obviously within reach. The job is quiet, as you might expect, although she does get occasional visits from people from all over the world who stop by to get something postmarked. Shannon has a stack of Ochopee Post Office post cards on the counter, pre-stamped both domestic and international, for when the tour busses pull up. If nature calls, there's a Subway about three miles west, and Skunk Ape Research Headquarters is a mile east.

Wow... that's amazing. I've seen phone booths that were bigger than the Ochopee post office. Cannel City, step aside! 

The next community along northbound KY 191 is Caney, where my late mother and her ten (!) siblings were born and raised. Just ahead is where KY 1000 branches off to the east.

It's a close one:

Note the Ale-8-One machine on this store's porch. In the Bluegrass State, Ale-8-One rules.  

Heading north on 191 through Caney...

This bridge carries KY 191 over Caney Creek, which meanders through the valley.

Just a few miles north of Malone is the junction of KY 191 and US 460 in the community of Index. I turned right onto eastbound 460 and drove the three or four miles into the town of West Liberty.

West Liberty is the county seat of Morgan County and the site of the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex, a medium-security prison on a hilltop overlooking the town. One of my relatives in the area had told me about a roadfood-type restaurant on the east side of town, and since it was lunchtime, I headed in that direction.

Here's the place, specifically Pattie's Place on Prestonsburg Street. This restaurant definitely has a "roadfood" look to it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I don't really get the "Home Cooked Meals" thing with restaurants....isn't that the difference between an eatery and a house? I know what they mean but seems like there should be a better way to explain it...scratch made, homegrown recipes, I don't know....but a home is a home and a restaurant is a restaurant.

I ordered the meatloaf with corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cornbread.

EatingTheRoad


I don't really get the "Home Cooked Meals" thing with restaurants....isn't that the difference between an eatery and a house? I know what they mean but seems like there should be a better way to explain it...scratch made, homegrown recipes, I don't know....but a home is a home and a restaurant is a restaurant.

I always get a chuckle out of that as well, if I want "home cooked" food I'll simply eat at home:-)

nocarolina


I ordered the meatloaf with corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cornbread.

I wonder what Skillet Cabbage is? Sounds interesting.

The corn was obviously from a can, but everything else appeared to be freshly prepared ( the potatoes were nice n' lumpy. ) Overall, it was a pretty good meal, definitely better than anything that you'd get at Denny's/Perkin's/Applebee's etc.

Oops! I wuz mistaken... no gravy this time. 

My server mentioned that they made their own pies, so of course I had to try the chocolate cream pie ( my favorite. ) It was good but slightly disappointing as the chocolate flavor wasn't as intense as I expected it to be. In fairness to Pattie's, earlier in the month I had a slice of the terrific chocolate cream pie at Schmucker's in Toledo, and that's a tough act to follow.

With lunch out of the way, I headed back through town towards Index on 460.

Back in Index, on westbound 460, I noticed that the local Dairy Cheer had closed. Apparently I'm not the only one who wasn't thrilled with his Smashburger.

Driving west out of Morgan County, the verdant hills of eastern Kentucky give way to the gentle, rolling terrain of the central part of the state.