Reindeer Lady brought us our Antipasto salad at Grandpa’s Restaurant.Chicken Stew at the Caribbean Restaurant. Great rice and plantanos. This was a Haitian dish.Antipasto salad for two at Grandpa’s.A Caribbean meal at PSL’s best Caribbean restaurant.Grandpa’s offers up many Italian dishes. We did like the Antipasto salad.Pork chunks at our new Caribbean restaurant with black rice and beans.
American Press Travel News December 5th,Port St Lucie, FL–Bob and Barb “On The Road Again”–Grandpa Bert Veluca, a New York original has had 35-restaurants serving Italian specialties. He retired, but wanted to be socially active and not bored. So, Bert affectionately known as “grandpa”, opened Grandpa’s between Ace hardware and Publics, just off US 1, South Federal Highway. Serving daily breakfast, lunch and dinner. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed shrimp and grits, a broiled cod meal. We tried a short order of chicken wings and drums in garlic and parm sauce, too. Grandpa Bert told us that beef liver and onions, fish and chips, and meatloaf are entrée’s most often ordered at Grandpa’s. Grandpa’s has the breakfast, lunch and dinners anytime you want to visit a real local, non-commercial food spot. On another day we lunched at Flavor Restaurant and Seafood off of S.W. Bayshore Blvd. They call it “best Caribbean food in town.” We had Stew Chicken with black rice and fried pork dish with mushroomed rice. Flavor Restaurant is located on Bayshore Blvd. in Port St Lucie, FL
American Press Travel News-Nov 21st–St Lucie West, FL.—-Barb and Bob “On The Road Again” This time, stopping at Linda’s St Lucie West, Café for lunch. This was our second visit, we usually attempt a 2nd visit to be sure the good, the bad is, or is not consistent? Well, two times we enjoyed fine meals, excellent service and in this restaurant-café, a feeling of coming home for lunch, and a visit with mom or auntie Linda. WOW! The pies-hot apple, cold Coconut Cream, both left our plates with no crumbs left in the dish. Home made all the way and we as most patrons would know and taste the difference, for sure. We started out with Linda’s sons gourmet Chili. Perfect meat and consistency. The flavor was best in class! A new item; their Cuban sandwich was not dry or flat. It was tasty to the max. Pork, ham, turkey Cuban Bread, pickles, some cheese and WOW! Potato salad, and Cole Slaw are also made fresh here and you taste it too. Barb ordered a Rueben and I tried a favored special at Linda’s; a marinated chicken breast, with a topping of bacon and swiss cheese bedding on a Brioche bun. Breakfast and lunch here and at her sons place Linda 2 on US-1 is served all day and watch it, Linda’s Cafe’s are habit forming-they are that plainly great dining spots!
Barb entering the magnificent Blythewood Inn Historic Bed & Breakfast.Innkeeper,Dinah Vire was an amazing lady. She loves the history of her Inn and is truly a lady that goes all out for her guests who come as customers and leave as welcomed friends.Spoiler alert! Our room during our stay at the Blythewood Inn. It was like living in the lap of luxury, surrounded by the flavor of the past!Probably the most spectacular B&B dining room ever!! Old world charm, with AC too!!Barb admiring a display of James K. Polk, reproduction White House China dishes.Stairway to our suite!! Feels great stepping back and up in time from those antebellum days of the south.
Fishing in jet propelled shallow water river boats with the Mayor Wess Ward, and Sheriff Nick Weems of Linden, and Perry County, two men that knew where the lum-lunkers lurked, was a blast!!Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems, took time to show me the action on the Buffalo River!!
American Press Travel News-July 4th, Eastern, TN.– “Bob and Barb On the Road Again.” Part 2 of our adventure in Linden, TN.–when we met Michael Dumont and his wife, Kathy, we knew were in a special place. Not to over dramatize our visit, but we felt more confident that in Linden, we could relax and experience a bit of the historical aspects of this region, east of Memphis and about two hours west of Nashville.
Michael took us for a tour of Perry County area. A fabulous rural area, rife with fabulous water, valley and mountain vistas as well as all manner of wildlife! We visited and drove along the Tennessee River, to the Mousetail Landing state Park, with RV facilities including 5 different levels of fitness trails, and views that are sensational. We toured the Lindens riverside nature of the Buffalo River, and Michael introduced us to a new Bed and Breakfast, he had completely rehabbed close to the TN. River, in a nearby, small hamlet of Clifton, “Tennessee’s best preserved river landing town.”
Yours truly, enjoyed the bassin’ on the Buffalo River.
In Clifton, we visited the T.S. Stribling Home & Museum. Thomas Sigismund Stribling was the first Pulitzer prize winning author of 14-novels, plays and short stories in Tennessee. A great stopover and visit during our stay, and well worth visiting. The museum is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Go: www.cityofclifton.com or call (931) 676-3370 for tours information. Lots to marvel at.
Great country cooking in Linden! Real Southern cooking at 1991 prices.The Commodore Hotel is framed from the past into the future!Next door to the Hotel Commodore, you can find Buffalo River Artisans. Mellissa Goodwin teaches Barb how to create a neat piece of art. Great hands-on for young and old!!!
The town of Linden in Perry County, Tennessee 1819-2019 had this nice hotel building, but according to Michael Dumont, “the town had seen better days.” The hotel was basically shuttered and needed everything! But getting to know him and his wife Kathy, I saw what they saw, and felt that with their drive and entrepreneurship, that they certainly made a huge difference in bringing a large spurt for economic revival to this town and county. They went to work with enthusiastic support from several towns folk in bringing back a huge measure of curbside appeal to Linden. They pushed getting rid of all the crisscrossing powerlines, that opened up the towns look, and feel that it wasn’t a hodge-podge anymore, of neglect. Like many towns, the rural roads were once the main roads, but as in this case for Linden, when I-40, the east-west interstate cutting through the state, was completed, traffic on the once, main route, 100 decreased to mainly local traffic and businesses soon to be gone, on Main Street. So the businesses, and well-kept stately buildings became just old, non maintained, and almost all abandoned. from the car dealership, vehicle repair shops and retail stores, and the bus stations that once serviced travelers from Memphis to Nashville, virtually ended. Sufficient to say when the Dumonts came to Linden in 2007, the little town showed 14 vacant storefronts. Michael says now there are no vacant stores. Perry Chamber of Commerce lists that in 2009, unemployment was 28.9-percent. Today, its between 2-3-percent. and now Linden is not a pass-through, according to Mitchell Rhodes, Chairman of the Perry County Chamber of Commerce, Linden is a destination with a proper hotel again, restaurants and the “Bloomin Arts Festival along with music, music, music! Go: Commodorehotellinden.com and call (931) 589-3224 for a visit. Note* next post will detail many more amenities and businesses in and around the town of Linden!!
