Steve’s Place (formerly Georgia Mountain Restaurant), Hiawassee, Georgia, May 18, 2018

This is a bit of a sad entry to write. The Georgia Mountain Restaurant in Hiawassee, Georgia is no more. OK, the old building hasn’t been demolished but the name has been changed and is now Steve’s Place. I remember the Georgia Mountain Restaurant fondly from my time at nearby Young Harris College in the mid 1980s. It was one of a handful of restaurants that students from the college would visit when we needed a break from the campus dining hall and breakfast was usually when we visit because it was a buffet. During my most recent visit to the Georgia Mountain Restaurant a couple of years ago they still had a breakfast buffet.

I stayed in the area overnight after a Friday afternoon meeting at the college and Saturday morning I found myself looking for breakfast. I had already decided to head east through Hiawassee then south through Helen and Cleveland to go home in order to visit a couple of antique shops on the way. I didn’t particularly want fast food and unfortunately, breakfast options in Hiawassee beyond fast food are still relatively slim. I’d noticed on a billboard sign that Steve’s Place offered breakfast so I decided to stop in and give it a try.

The first thing I noticed was that the interior had been given a fresh coat of paint and had been redecorated…same ‘country’ motif, different ‘country’ stuff. The second thing I noticed was that the old buffet bar that stood in the middle of the room was gone and had been replaced with a long table and individual warming trays. I wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or not.

I gave the buffet line a quick once-over before sitting down at a table. My server took my drink order and told me that I could help myself to the buffet whenever I was ready. I loaded my plate with a biscuit, cheese grits, smoked sausage, sausage patties, and some fried ham. For whatever reason there was no bacon on the buffet so my server offered to bring me some. Naturally, I accepted.

Either the restaurant wasn’t really as good as I remember it being back in the day or time and commercial cooking methodologies have not been good to the restaurant. During my last trip in I remember the food being good but not great, yet not bad enough to say I wouldn’t be back. The past year or two haven’t done the place any big favors.

The biscuits were large and I was hoping for light and fluffy like a good biscuit should be. Nope, how about dense and chewy instead. Someone please answer this question for me, why does every restaurant on the planet that offers biscuits have to paint their tops with butter before putting them in the oven? Every…blasted…one. It just makes them greasy! Butter goes inside a biscuit, not on top! The cheese grits had little to no flavor. I should have gotten plain grits and just added salt and pepper. The smoked sausage and sausage patties…not great. Now truth be told, the restaurant had no real control over the way the sausage tastes. That goes back to the sausage maker. The ham was OK…yeah, just OK and the bacon cool and rubbery…might have been good if it was hot and fresh off the griddle. Did I go back for seconds? Nope.

So how did Steve’s Place fare on the Thumbs Scale. After a bit of deliberation I decided on one thumb down. Although the experience wasn’t horrible, I just couldn’t find enough redeeming qualities to get it on the positive end of the scale. Think I’ll pass on return visits anytime soon.

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Happy Hawg – Dine-In Addition, Hiawassee, Georgia, August 26, 2017

I originally intended to simply add this to the end of my previous Happy Hawg entry from a couple of weeks ago.  But…as I thought about it, I realized that this was a different experience and really deserved its own space.  For those that aren’t already familiar with our recent car issues and would like to read the back story, just click on the link above.

The car has been repaired and we’re the proud owners of a new used transmission.  OK, we’re the proud owners of new front brake rotors too.  The car needed them and since the garage had the front end taken apart to replace the transmission, it just made sense to go ahead and do the brakes too because there wouldn’t be any additional labor charge.

But I digress…

The next challenge to tackle was picking up the car from the garage and getting it back home.  Picking up a car from the garage we usually use isn’t much of a challenge.  We simply leave work a little early to get there before closing time of go by on Saturday morning.  When the garage is 150 miles away from home things aren’t so easy.  This was going to require taking a full day off or going to pick it up sometime over the weekend.  Still not too daunting but there were still other obstacles to contend with.  The upcoming weekend was move-in weekend for Jenna at Flagler College…in St. Augustine…400 miles in the opposite direction.  The car would not be ready until Friday afternoon and we needed to be home Friday evening to load up and get ready to hit the road Saturday morning.  We thought about simply driving up Monday morning but found out the garage would be closed Monday in anticipation of heavy traffic because the garage was located within the zone of totality of the total solar eclipse that was set to occur.  We finally worked out a plan to have our good friend and YHC Alumni Affairs Director, Dana Ensley, pick up the car for us on Friday, bring it back to YHC and park it.  We had planned to go up to YHC to see the eclipse ourselves but after driving 400 miles Saturday, spending most of Sunday getting Jenna moved in and situated then driving another 400 miles back home Sunday night, when we looked out at the car Monday morning and thought about the drive up to Young Harris which would take nearly three hours and the likelihood of a five to six-hour drive home due to eclipse traffic and simply said ‘nope’.

Fast forward to Saturday.  We finally had the opportunity to make the trek up to Young Harris to get the car.  We arrived on campus around noon, spent a few minutes in the bookstore and decided to grab some lunch before picking up the car and heading home.  It didn’t take us long to decide that we wanted to go to the Happy Hawg and give the dine-in option a try.

The Happy Hawg is a tiny place off Highway 76 between Young Harris and Hiawassee.  When I say tiny I mean that there are five tables inside.  Fortunately, there are another ten to twelve tables outside in the front of the building and on the deck overlooking Lake Chatuge.

We placed our orders at the counter, got our drinks and picked an indoor table.  ConnieLou ordered the pulled pork plate with cole slaw and Brunswick stew on the side.  I ordered the pulled pork plate with Brunswick stew and fried corn.

We sat down to wait on our food and I noticed that each table had three bottles of barbeque sauce on it.  ConnieLou had already made the same observation and picked up a spoon along with our other utensils and napkins because she knows that I’m a bit of a sauce nut and that I’d want to taste each of the sauces before deciding which to put on my pork.

She knows me well.

Their sauces include a tomato-based ‘House Sauce’ that’s thick, smoky and just a little sweet – think about a cross between a Georgia-style sauce and a K.C.-style sauce, a North Carolina vinegar-based sauce that’s tangy with a little bit of a pepper kick, and a South Carolina mustard-based sauce that’s a nice mix of sweet and tangy.  All three were quite good and all got a bit of use on my plate…not overlapping of course.

When our orders arrived, I was a bit surprised to find that the fried corn was fried on the cob rather than being cut off and then fried.  It wasn’t what I was expecting but was still quite good.  ConnieLou enjoyed her slaw and we both enjoyed the Brunswick stew which was a little chunky without being too chunky, if that makes any sense, and tasted quite good.  I ended up giving mine a small squirt of one of the sauces but that’s not unusual.  As for the pork…we had no complaints at all.  It was moist and smoky without being overwhelming and paired quite well with each of the sauces.

So how did the Happy Hawg (dine in edition) fare on the thumbs scale?  Four thumbs-up out of a possible four…easily.  Needless to say, the Happy Hawg has earned a spot in the list of restaurants that we tend to return to over and over when we’re in the area.

Happy Hawg, Hiawassee, Georgia, August 10, 2017

How does one write a review of a restaurant that one has never actually been to?  Well, it can be done and, of course, there is a story behind it.  Here goes…

A few months back, Melanie Hale, one of our long-time friends from Young Harris mentioned the Happy Hawg to us and raved over their ‘Hickory Tater’, which is basically a baked potato topped with chopped pork barbeque.  We’d intended to go give it a try the past couple of times we were in town but with other events demanding our time, we just weren’t able to work it out.

This past Friday I had a morning meeting to attend at Young Harris College so I decided to head up Thursday afternoon with the intent of finally stopping in and giving the Happy Hawg a try.  Of course, as often happens, things didn’t go quite as planned.  I’d turned on to Highway 76, was on my way into Hiawassee, and about to head up the hill in front of Towns County High School.  I pressed the accelerator, the car engine revved up and…the car began slowing down.  Not good.  Time to make some phone calls.  Connie Lou, in turn, called Melanie to see if she could recommend a reputable mechanic (of course she could) and then began texting me numbers for our Allstate Motor Club account so I could arrange a tow.  In the mean time I managed to nurse the car into a nearby parking lot.

As it turned out, Melanie wasn’t far from where I was and offered to give me a lift over to the college.  By this time I wasn’t all that concerned about supper.  Well, Melanie being Melanie, was concerned for my well being and when she arrived to pick me up, had a piping hot Hickory Tater in the car waiting for me.  Yeah, she was worried about me not getting to give the Happy Hawg a try yet again.  That’s just how she rolls.

Anyway, Melanie dropped me off and I settled into my overnight digs and finally dug into my tater…and I wasn’t disappointed!  The Hickory Tater was a large baking potato, split lengthwise and topped with a heaping helping of chopped pork barbeque and came with a couple of tubs of barbeque sauce and ranch on the side.  The pork was smoky and tender.  I really don’t have a preference over chopped or pulled but chopped works quite well here.  The sauce was a basic, slightly sweet tomato (ketchup?) –based sauce that worked quite nicely with the pork and baked potato.

So how did my Hickory Tater fare on the Thumbs Scale?  An easy 2 out of a possible 2.  I definitely need to stop in next time I’m up that way and see what else is on the menu but if everything else is as good as the Hickory Tater, it’s going to be tough to choose.

Oh, and maybe you’re wondering about the car?  Yep, transmission is toast and is going to have to be replaced.  Ouch.  Oh well, could be worse.  Fortunately cars can be fixed or replaced and we have good friends that are willing to help us out when circumstances go south.  Life is good, make the best of it.