BLT meet Double Cheeseburger

There are a few reasons to visit South Pittsburg, Tennessee. One is Lodge Manufacturing. "America's Original (and best) Cookware." The second is the National Cornbread Festival. One of the "Top 20 Events in the Southeast." The third and possibly most important reason is to eat at the Dixie Freeze. One of Mrs. Sippi's two favourite places to eat.
On the one hand it's a drive in with walk up service. Park your car, walk up to the window and order. On the other hand it serves good ole southern style cooking in the dining room. Either way you look at it, you're in for some good eats.
For a small town, they sure have some great reasons to stop by. S. Pittsburg is part of the Greater Chattanooga Area and is just north of the Tennessee/Alabama state line. US 72 skirts the town so if you want to drop by, just veer off the highway and into the "Tidiest Town in Tennessee."
Opened in 1948 the Dixie Freeze sits one block over from beautiful Main Street. The family run business cranks out some great burgers, dogs and sandwiches along with some fantastic plate dinners in the "Meat and 3 style." Our Thursday evening visit at supper time saw a steady stream of people walk up to the window as well as take a seat in the dining room. Daily specials are written on the white board and erased as they sell out. Which is usually. They also have home made deserts. Our first visit was punctuated by an unbelievable coconut meringue pie. The recipe for which we were able to procure before we left. They also get so many requests for their apple pie recipe they keep photo copies of it behind the counter.

So how was dinner??

The sign says "Dagwood Sandwich is our specialty."
This item, named for the enormous sandwiches engineered by Dagwood Bumstead in the Blondie cartoon consists of multiple layers of meat, cheese, condiments and lettuce. You'll often see them topped with and olive and pinned down with a toothpick. As the title of this entry suggests this had all the earmarks of a double cheeseburger topped with a BLT. It's honestly one of the best burgers I've ever had. I'm a big fan of both components so this was clearly having your cake and eating it too.
The slaw that came with the sandwich was used to top my cheese dog. I added some mustard and had a great side dish. One great feature was the use of real cheddar cheese.
Mrs. Sippi went with the catfish dinner. Two large pieces of fish with hush puppies, fried okra and green beans. The fish was great. Nicely battered and fresh tasting. "It was real" she said. Perhaps the best catfish she's ever had.
The green beans were very tasty as were the fried okra.
The hush puppies were fantastic and again, "Real." I've had some pretty bad ones lately but these were redeeming.
If not already famous for the Dagwood they could be famous for their "Triple Thick Shakes." Shakes so thick you could stand re-bar up in them. My chocolate one was very tasty.
For desert we had coconut cake. Back in the day no self respecting southern eatery wouldn't have this. It's partly gone the way of the Dodo though. It's multiple layers of coconut butter cake topped with seven minute frosting and coconut is very time consuming. This scaled down version had big coconut taste and a delicious real deal frosting.
So we've returned and have more for you.

The special of the day was meatloaf and my sides were mac n cheese, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans and I opted for the dinner roll.
The meatloaf was excellent. One of the best specemins I've had. A nice ketchupy bbq sauce on top with a good onion/bell pepper taste to the meat. No surprise here, this straight ahead, keep it simple meatloaf. The mashed were whipped (I like mashed) and were good and the gravy was very good. The beans were simply seasoned and quite nice. Good dinner roll for sopping up all the left over goodness.

 Mrs. Sippi went with the country fried steak with fried okra, corn (meat n 2) and opted for cornbread. I'm given to understand that "Country fried steak" is breaded cube steak with brown gravy and "Chicken fried steak" is the same with white gravy. She was disappointed when she got brown gravy on her meat but said it was quite good. The fried okra once again perfect and the corn is, well, corn. Of course when in the home of the National Cornbread Festival, you have good cornbread. 

For desert the strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting was calling me. A nice sweet strawberry cake with a nice sugary tasting frosting. It tastes like it looks.

You can find the Dixie Freeze at 200 Elm Ave, South Pittsburg, Tennessee. 


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Well that's all for now.

Davwud