Aretha Frankensteins

I have been holding on to this restaurant review for awhile even though it is one that I talk about a lot. It was on our last day of our vacation on our last stop in Chattanooga. The place is called Aretha Frankensteins and the reason we went is because Urbanspoon had it ranked as the best place breakfast place to go to in Chattanooga. And after eating there, I can see why it is ranked number one.

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.

The Terminal Brewhouse

Another place we ate at while on our trip was a place called The Terminal Brewhouse located in Chattanooga TN. I saw it on Urbanspoon while looking for places to eat on our way down to Florida and once I saw it and some of the reviews I just had to make a stop there.



The design of the building alone is cool enough to go. It looks like a warehouse and on the inside it is floor on top of floor with steel piping and wood covering most of the interior. I believe it had 3 or 4 floors in all. We decided to sit outside on their patio type area. It was very green with grass floors in one area and plants surrounding the fence of 3 steal pipes.



It reminded me a lot of Rock Bottom here in Cincinnati, so naturally, I got the beer sampler to see how the beer tasted down in Chattanooga. It was what I expected, and I just wish I was in the drinking mood that night. But after being on a vacation with 2 young ones for an entire week and heading home the next morning, I was pretty beat. My favorite of the beers was the Belgian White, probably because it was the most refreshing beer they had and being in the warm weather the whole week, it hit the spot.



I split a pizza with my son and skipped getting the burger. My daughter got the kids burger, so I was still able to try it, but I am sure it wasn't nearly as good as their real burgers would have been. I still liked the mini burgers she had, but they weren't the greatest thing. My pizza, was very good and had a lot of different types of cheese on it. Again, it wasn't the best pizza I ever had, but it would be something I would order again. If I wasn't splitting the pizza with my son, I probably would have gotten the BBQ Chicken pizza or at least pepperoni. My wife got some sweet potato fries with her meal which was recommended on Urbanspoon, and she LOVED them. She got some sort of chipotle bbq sauce with it and she said it was amazing.




I want to go back sometime without my kids though to really experience the beer and food and have time to relax and enjoy the atmosphere. With a drive of only 4 1/2 - 5 hours, I think I could make a nice weekend out of Chattanooga with a group of friends. Hopefully I will be back.

Ted's Montana Grill

We stopped in Atlanta for a night on our way down to Florida. I booked a hotel in downtown Atlanta so we could be close to the Zoo and so we could experience the downtown experience and walk around and hopefully find a good restaurant to eat. That is how we landed at Ted's Montana Grill and thank goodness we did.



We were greeted with a smile when we walked in the door and seated right away. The hostesses and waitresses were very nice to us and fell in love with our kids right away.



They took our drink order and put some fresh cucumbers on our table for a free appetizer. The cucumbers were something different then I am use to for a free appetizer, but they were fresh and hit the spot. I ordered a local IPA that was on tap and enjoyed it very much. I wish I could remember the name of the beer.



My wife and I both ordered burgers and got mac and cheese and fries for the kids. Luckily the waitress told us how big the mac and cheese was because we were going to order them both their own. One was plenty for the both of them to share and they thoroughly enjoyed it. The burgers were fantastic! We both were amazed at the quality and couldn't get over how good they were. The meat was mouth watering and would fall apart in your mouth. They were so big that I couldn't even finish the whole thing.



Another thing that was awesome about the experience was that when we were waiting for our food after we had ordered, our waitress came over to us and asked us if we liked Strawberries. My daughter LOVES strawberries and was very thankful that she had brought them for us to eat while we waited, at no additional charge. The strawberries were so fresh and some of the best I had ever had (which is weird to say about strawberries, but it was true). It made my wife want to order there tower of strawberry shortcake, but since she couldn't eat another bite, we passed on getting the dessert.



The whole experience was great, the best experience we had at a restaurant the entire trip. I would recommend this place to anyone that was passing through Atlanta and I hope to go back there myself. They did mention to me that there are other Ted's around the country and to check to see if we have any in our area. It looks like there is one in both Columbus and Lexington, so I will have to make a road trip to one of these places. I hope the customer service is just as good as the one in Atlanta though.

Home Base

First off, Joanna, you can't read this until you write you own version of the trip ... then we will see what we both remember or how we felt about the trip.

I had a blast. That pretty much sums it up, but I will do my best to describe why and some things that we did.

It was a completely different experience I have ever had. I have never been to a big city, no Chicago, no New York, no Boston, nothing, so that alone was pretty amazing to see. We headed out Friday afternoon and got there around 5pm their time (they are an hour behind if you didn't know that). We checked in and met up with Jared and his roommate. Their condo was AMAZING, I was not expecting it to be that nice or big. We hung out there to have a few drinks and plan the night ahead. His roommate decided not to come out with us (big mistake) but Andrew Ackerman met up with us and so the four of us headed out to Linkin Park via taxi. I had only been in one maybe two cabs in my life, so taking them every where we went was hard to get use to, especially getting use to how much it cost just to go a couple miles.



We started out at a bar/restaurant called State. It was really nice and had about 100 TVs all over the place and even personal TVs at each table that came up out of a little box. Joanna and I shared some nachos for our dinner, nothing special there, and had a few beers each. Brit, Jared's friend, met up with us there. Then we all piled into another cab and went to "home base" (a bar that Jared and his friend all call home base because they always end up there), hopefully Joanna can remember the bar's actual name. Apparently they go there because they have the cheapest beer prices, it was $2.50 for domestic bottles (boring). But no worries because I decided to make two new friends there who ended up buying me a couple rounds of Guinness for some reason even though I told them I didn't want them to. Joanna and Jared thought it was pretty funny that I talked to these guys for a couple hours about who knows what. Joanna found her new favorite shot, a pineapple upside down cake, and she took that shot every time someone would buy a round of random shots. I think I had about 5 or so shots, which if you know me, I don't do shots. We closed down that bar and were going to hop in a cab to close down a 4AM bar, but when we got outside and started to walk, one of us could barely walk anymore .... and no it wasn't joanna! It was Brit ... so Jared walked her home while Joanna and I took our own cab back to our hotel, which was the Sheraton, and went to bed.



The Sheraton was nice. The lobby and main area was very nice and big, but the rooms weren't anything fancy. The beds were VERY comfortable, I didn't really notice that until the next morning. But for $60/night, we really couldn't beat the quality.



The next day we could only sleep till 10AM. So we got up and got ready and met up with Joanna's cousin, Hannah. We went to Heaven on Seven which was a great choice. I found them before I even got to Chicago on Urban Spoon and heard they had a good breakfast and fun atmosphere. And they were definitely right. It had a mardi gras look and feel and had some delicious omelets. I had the sausage and cheese one which was served with cajun potatoes. But before we even ordered they brought us some amazing blueberry cornbread. It was a good start to the day. We then shopped around a little, but soon headed back for a nap.




After our nap we headed to Giordano's for some pizza. It was THE BEST pizza I ever had, no doubt. We split a small pizza and caesar salad which was plenty for the two of us. I did try the 312 Urban Wheat, which I was not a fan of, but I have never been a big fan of the Americanized Wheat beers ... if I am going to drink a wheat, I rather have a Belgian.




We then took a taxi over to Jared's place where he was having a hard time finding anyone to want to go out. We eventually just headed out with him and his roommate and headed up a to wriggly-ville (after finally getting to the first bar which was completely packed). The bar we ended up at tried very hard to be a club, so the music was VERY loud and lights flashing all over the place. It was pretty funny because there was no room to even move and definitely no room to dance, even though some people found a way to do it, train style hahaha. We stayed there till 2AM, but couldn't really get excited and in the mood to drink like we did the previous night. It was a combination of lack of people wanting to do anything and the fact that I hadn't drunk like that two nights in a row in a very long time. So we just headed back to our hotel and ordered some late night pizza and garlic bread from our hotel room. That definitely hit the spot and I got to watch a little bit of the Australian Open which was on at 2:30AM.

Then we just headed out the next morning to get home to see our kids.

It was such a weird feeling being out just the two of us. We had never been on a honeymoon or any trip just the two of us. So it was a lot of fun just being able to do what we wanted and being able to talk just the two of us. It was also very hard to be away from our kids, but we tried to put that past us so we could have a good time.

I don't see how anyone could live up there and spend money like that every weekend. It was definitely tough for me to spend that kind of money, but I tried to not think about it and just have a good time. It felt like we were gone for a week and we were only gone for 2 days. And when I got home, it felt very weird and I still felt like we were going to be hopping in a taxi and going somewhere that night. I am still in a little big of a fog about it and can't stop thinking about it. There is just so much to do and we barely did anything, it is tough to do much in a day up there. I do feel like I am closer to be able to spend money easier. Ever since I have been home I have been trying to think of things we could do around here or places we have not been to try out. I think I am half way to being able to spend money, but my head only lets me get so far and then I just say, probably not. It is hard to explain but I have been dealing with it ever since we got home and I am not sure what to do about it ... I am sure I will go back to being my frugal self shortly.

We definitely won't be going anywhere without our kids for awhile, but it was interesting to see what our lives would be like without kids. We both agreed that we much rather have the lives that we have and wouldn't trade them for anything. We aren't made for the bars and clubs, we are meant to be parents and just hangout with friends at home.

I did want to thank Jared for entertaining us while we were up there and showing us around, it was a lot of fun and it was cool to hang out with you since we barely ever get to. I also wanted to thank the Witte's for staying with the kids the whole weekend. Also, my mom and anyone else that went over to help out with the kids while we were gone.

And of course, thanks to Chung and Ivan! :D (that reminds me that I need to try some kung pao chicken)