While driving to try and find it, I was worried that our Garmin was lost again. We ended up in a little neighborhood with houses that reminded me of being in a college town, with older houses with great character. We had "reached our destination" and we were still on the same small street. But low and behold, we looked over and there it was, just another one of the small houses with character, but with a sign saying Aretha's and people relaxing on the front porch and down below on a concrete patio.
We parked on the street and walked over to the "house" with our two young kids and tried to figure out if we should seat ourselves or wait to be seated. Since no one was coming to our rescue, I asked a local and they told us we can sit where ever, the only problem was that there wasn't a 4 person table anywhere. There were bar stools around the bar inside and all along the wrap around front porch, but our baby would have had a hard time balancing himself on the stool, so we decided to wait. We got there at the worst time, there was no line, but there was just enough people there that we were the odd men out. Finally when people left, about 3 tables became available at the same time, so we chose our best option and sat down.
We had been looking over the menu already and knew what we wanted to get. I got the sausage, egg and cheese biscuit and home fries while Joanna and the kids got some french toast and bacon to share. I actually think Joanna got something else too, but I cannot remember what it was.
My biscuit sandwich was very good and very big. The biscuit itself was amazing and having them cover the entire thing with melted cheese just took it over the top. The home fries didn't really stand out in my mind, but they were still good.
But what makes me want to go back and visit Chattanooga was the French Toast. It was soooo good. I have never even been a fan of french toast because it is usually just really soggy and not that good, but that was not the case here. At Aretha's you could really taste the cinnamon and it was almost cake like. It was not mushy and stayed together even after dousing it with syrup even though you didn't need any. It is hard to explain it, you'll just have to make a trip down there to try it, you won't regret the 5 hour trip. While you're down there, head to The Terminal Brewhouse the night before and wake up for Aretha's the next morning, and request the bed at the Sheraton :D
I had already cut up the french toast for Grace, so I don't have a picture of it in full form.
The only downfalls of this place is the service, it was hard to find much since there seemed to only be about 2 or 3 people working. The wait they couldn't do much about, but it did take awhile to get our food, but it might have seemed even longer because we had two young, whiny kids that just wanted to get home. I would have not minded relaxing and waiting for my food if it was just Joanna and me. And that is exactly what a lot of the over night nurses were doing, some with beer in hand.
I would love to take a trip back down to Chattanooga with a small group of friends, I think it would be a blast. Let me know if you ever go down there and try this place out.
