That Food Guy
Friday, December 14, 2018
  Windy City Grille - Maryville TN

Windy City Grille
2641 U.S.  411, Maryville TN 37801
865-724-2508
http://www.thewindycitygrille.com/  

This will be a briefer than normal blog. The occasion was a Christmas get-together of Blount County ARES, a part of the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Services, trained amateur radio operator volunteers organized to assist in public service and emergency communications. It is a group that I am proudly associated. When we get together we talk shop; radio and all that sort of thing. However most of the other members are unaware that on the side I am a foodie and do a blog. My family and some other friends are sometimes painfully aware that I take photos and ask questions about the food, the meals and the service.  On this occasion I strove to be not obtrusive with the camera and the questions (they will get to know that part of me later, I’m sure). This was my first visit to the Windy City Grille and I think that I did, however, get enough material to give you some insight into the Windy City Grille; a place you might one day like to visit.

Lou, our section leader, had made inquiries before but no advanced preparation had been made for our group.  Kaitlyn, the charming young lady who met us at the door and escorted us in, was more that up to the task. In just a moment she had pulled tables together and rearranged chairs.  She took our beverage orders while we waited for the others to arrive.

Our group came and departed at different times, we ordered a full range of dishes and beverages from the regular menu and we were Dutch treat.  That should be enough to drive any server into a panic. Our orders were taken in a timely manner, the orders when served were correct, drinks were refreshed as needed and bills were ready when asked and also were correct.  Our group enjoyed a carefree meal; we enjoyed the food and the company. An efficient server working in the background helps keep it all together and adds to the enjoyment of the night out to dinner. We were fortunate that Kaitlyn was our server.

The Windy City Grille is a casual café. Most of the menu is for pizza, burgers and sandwiches. There is bar service with a large selection of draft and bottled beer to choose from. Lou ordered one of their burgers with French fries.  All of the burgers seem to start with a half-pound patty.  Prices for the burgers run from $8.50 to 9.50 depending, and come with French fries or the house potato chips. Alternate side substitution selections are available at additional cost.

I’m not sure which one Lou chose but afterwards he said it was very good. They are juicy burgers and thankfully there are additional napkins available in the condiment tray in the center of the table. Another burger order down the table from me was with the in-house made fried potato chips.  They are apparently a well-regarded local specialty. Perhaps I’ll try then on my next visit.

My order was for the “Grande Shrimp Platter – 9 large breaded shrimp with side of fries and homemade cocktail sauce. No popcorn shrimp here! - $11.00. The fry cooks did a good job. The shrimp and the French fries were a nice crispy golden brown, cooked but overly so. The shrimp appeared to be butterflied 16/20 and had a nice flavor, no old cooking oil flavor there. The house cocktail sauce is excellent. There was adequate sauce for the shrimp but if I were to order this again I would ask for a second portion of the sauce as it is so much better than plain ketchup on the fries. It was an adequate portion and a satisfying meal. I was happy with my choice.

During the meal a management person came by the table to ask if everyone was happy with the service and the food. It is nice to see they have an interest and it seems to show in the performance of their work staff. As I mentioned, the Windy City Grille is a casual café, much more so than some of , for  lack of a better word, trendier brew bars and cafes in town. However, the food offered at Windy City Grille is on a par with the other restaurants and at comparable prices. There are many large screen TV screens and I could only guess that it would be a rollicking local hangout for local sports fans on big game days.

The online menu and the menu at the table are slightly different in the selections offered. The online version seems a bit more comprehensive. If you have a specific food in mind to order you may want to call ahead to see if it is available.

My only negative thought about the dining experience is the “re-purposed” theme; the ceiling not finished in the conventional manner but all of the ducting and piping exposed. It may be painted a dark color and positioned above the lighting fixtures but it is all there and the hard surfaces echo and reflect the sounds so that even a slight amount of activity can raise the ambient noise level significantly often making cross table conversation difficult.

 Amiable friends and colleagues make for an enjoyable evening meal.  I also enjoyed the meal and the surroundings. If the question arises, “Where should we go out to dinner?”  The Windy City Grille will definitely be one of the choices.

A last note in passing…  At the door to the café there is a Missing Man Table, sometimes called a Fallen Comrade Table. It is set symbolically as a remembrance and to honor those who will never be able to accept the invitation. It is frequently seen on Memorial Day and National POW/ MIA Recognition Day. Lost in service to Country those missing men have protected rights to dissent and eschew traditional things. But please remember they have also protected my right to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I fondly remember many friends and comrades for whom that table was set.  Thank you Windy City Grille for remembering and honoring them.



 
UPDATE: August 30, 2019

“The Windy City Grille is winner of the 2019 “Best of the Best” awarded by the Best In Town Network, a Knoxville-based restaurant marketing and survey company.”  Daily Times, August 30 2019.



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Thursday, September 07, 2017
  Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen - Alcoa, Tennessee

Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen

 
250 Hamilton Crossing Dr, Alcoa, TN 37701
(865) 983-5582    https://cheddars.com/
10:30Am – 10:30PM (11:30PM week ends)

 My birthday was coming soon and I was told that I could pick the place for breakfast. I gave it a lot of thought trying to select someplace new perhaps or maybe unique but not one that anyone might object to. I wandered over my mental map of the area, thinking about any recent drives and what I might have seen. Cheddar’s came to mind! After a quick check of their web page I learned they opened late morning for lunch, no breakfast service. I asked our go-for-grub pals if a lunch was okay and I received positive replies. Then lunch, instead of breakfast, it would be.

This would not be my first visit to a Cheddar’s restaurant. In January of 2014 my wife’s dear Aunt Effie and Uncle Gilbert treated us to lunch at their new discovery, Cheddar’s Casual Café in Pinellas Park, Florida. It was a very positive experience and I looked forward to this next encounter. You can see that blog here.


The wife and I arrived a few minutes late. I noticed a change had taken place since  my first Cheddar’s encounter.  Cheddar’s Casual Café was now Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen. When Aubrey Good and Doug Rogers founded Cheddar’s in  Arlington, Texas back in 1979 their stated credo was ”… when a meal is prepared and cooked fresh just for you, it not only tastes better, it makes you feel good.” Perhaps the name change is paying homage to their beginnings. There are a few stores in the Great Plains and some in the Southwest but by far the majority of the 164 Cheddar’s locations are in the Eastern half of the United States. In 2012, Zagat ranked Cheddar's the nation's No.1 full-service restaurant chain as well as Top Overall American Cuisine. Consumer Reports and others have given high ratings and customer satisfaction reports. We were about to see if the reports were true.

Abbie and Mariano, our go-for-grub pals, had secured a spacious booth next to a shaded window. It looked to be a cozy comfortable spot for lunch. The waitress was already there taking beverage orders. I’m sorry I didn’t get here name as I would have liked to thank her by name for her good nature and thoughtful service. She wished me a happy birthday and I then knew I had been setup by the go-for-grub pals.  I just hoped that Cheddar’s didn’t do fool-crazy things designed to embarrass their patrons.

The wife Janis is a light eater and her selection was the CLASSIC LUNCH COMBO ($6.79 Select two of the following: HALF CHEDDAR’S CLUB SANDWICH - HALF MONTE CRISTO - BOWL OF SOUP - HOUSE SALAD - CAESAR SALAD - LOADED BAKED POTATO - BAKED SWEET POTATO) Her particular choices were the half Club Sandwich and the Caesar Salad. The salad was a nice bowl of crisp greens and some croutons, dressing not too heavy, not to light. It was accompanied with a butter glazed croissant. Her preference would have been without the butter but the croissant as well as the salad was very good and fully enjoyed.

Her sandwich arrived a short time later. A diagonally sliced sandwich of two slices of toasted bread well filled with ham, turkey, cheese, bacon and tomato, it was very similar to her order during our first Cheddar’s encounter. The only significant difference was it was cut as a half sandwich instead of the more traditional quarters. As with the salad, it was thoroughly enjoyed.

 Our go-for-grub pals, Abbie and Mariano, opted to share a big platter of HOUSE SMOKED BABY BACK RIBS (Add a House or Caesar salad, $3.29 HALF RACK $10.99 FULL RACK $15.99 Homemade rub, slow smoked in-house, and grilled with a honey BBQ sauce. Served with French fries and coleslaw.) Coleslaw is not their favorite and at their request the server provided a house salad instead. The serving of ribs and French fries was, to say the least, more than ample for two hearty appetites (luckily for Mariano, Abbie is also a light eater). It was a pretty serving thick and clingy barbecue sauce adding a delicious shine to the ribs. The meat was very tender easily separating form the bone. Abbie and Mariano had eagerly anticipated their visit to Cheddar’s for the ribs and I do believe they enjoyed them very much.

 

I like light meat chicken and love shrimp. The combination dinner plate of chicken tenders and shrimp caught my eye; CHICKEN TENDERS & SHRIMP ($11.19 Served with two sides. Add a House or Caesar salad, $3.29 Grilled or hand-battered fried shrimp with our homemade chicken tenders. See a list of sides at end of blog.) For sides I ordered mashed potatoes and gravy and coleslaw. For a big appetite the plate piled high with chicken, shrimp, mashed potatoes and coleslaw was a welcome sight. Included were cocktail sauce and honey mustard dipping sauce.

The coleslaw was dressed with a slightly seasoned sauce that added to the flavor but itself did not clamor for attention. Nice crisp cabbage; I would call it a good slaw. The mashed potatoes were of the industrial grade variety but acceptably smooth. The gravy was very tasty and would be most welcome on a chicken fried steak.

There were four, possibly five (sorry, I didn’t count them) large butterflied, battered and deep fried shrimp. The coating was golden brown and slightly crispy and pleasingly not oily. They were large shrimp, the meat was cooked just right and moist and tender. (As an aside: This serving of shrimp in a basket with some French fries would have more than made a beach-front fish shack offering of a shrimp basket.) They were very tasty fried shrimp.

There were four very large “chicken tenders.” I suspect they are more than tenders, more like a chicken breast sliced in two pieces. Breaded and deep fried to a golden brown, well drained and not oily, the meat was tender and very moist; lots of good chicken flavor. I tried a bit of the honey mustard sauce; a nice blend, not to sweet, not to tart but good mustard flavor. I am on again – off again with honey mustard and today wasn’t the day. I tried a bit of cocktail sauce; good but a bit too much tang from the horseradish to go with the mild taste of the chicken. I thought about asking for some plane old ketchup but decided to just eat the tenders down to the finger lickin’ end as they were. They were that good all by themselves. As you can probably guess, I really enjoyed that meal.

In the few years that we have been here, for various reasons two other local restaurants, best described I guess as up-scale beer and burger places with lots of big television screens, had become our fall back places to go. The food was good, they were close; known entities were we felt comfortable. I feel that Cheddar’s will replace the other restaurants as the spur-of-the-moment place to go. It is still quite close to the house, the prices are competitive and the menu offers more of a variety than the others. The interiors are brighter,  more focused on the food and dining and offering a more relaxed and casual (as in casual café perhaps) dining experience. On this visit Cheddar’s has validated the aforementioned awards and positive citations.

 

Just before we left, the hostess came by the table to offer her birthday congratulations. She brought a small bag with two still hot, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (sort of a mini version of their giant cookie Sundae). I was grateful for the remembrance especially since it was low key, quiet and private.

 FYI: MADE-FROM-SCRATCH SIDES – Substitute any side for a House or Caesar salad for an additional .99  Steamed Fresh Broccoli, Buttered Off-The-Cob Corn, Freshly Made Coleslaw, French Fries, Idaho Mashed Potatoes, Homemade Black Beans, Mac and Cheese, Broccoli Cheese Casserole, Baked Sweet Potato, Loaded Baked Potato, Seasoned Rice, Southern Green Beans.
 Add a side to any order, 2.49  -  Honey Butter Croissants, 3 for 2.99
 The full menu is available online in pdf format.

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