This is a biased review of a small-town diner (yet located in a decent-sized city). It's not a recreation of what used to be, it's a time capsule, a relic that seems to have averted dormancy.
Trying to employ a level of self-awareness with a nod towards my own blind spot/s, I'll start with these two disclosures: I'm an elder Millennial and my grandfather owned an operated a mom-and-pop deli from before I was born through the 1990s. Put those together, and you get this: I basically grew up in a restaurant like this, so to say that nostalgia clearly colors my view is an understatement.
The interior, man, oh man, is an atrocity. It's 45 years old, in all the derivations of yellow-base (yellow! orange! brown!!!) that make skin crawl. It's like an eternal palate of autumnal horror. Think the old Burger King colors, sans red. And it absolutely makes my soul sing with joy. Lattice work. Formica/plastic adorns everything. Admonishments about being kind. Stuff on the walls that look like somebody's kid drew it. Chalk-board specials.
That said, the dedication to the theme, the overt nostalgia, the fact that either Reagan or HW or Clinton could have been in office, brought a sense of ease and comfort. Nearly bliss.
The woman who took my order made me feel like family. This wasn't that she was faking the well-trained corporate smile as decreed in on-boarding literature, a la, "be sure to say 'my pleasure' after being thanked for the spicy chicken sandwich and waffle fries"; I swear to you, I think this woman, despite me being in there for the first time ever, circumspect of the fact that customers' experiences usually determine commercial viability (rather than, say, an influencer touting a passing experience because they need to be noticed and your restaurant happened to be a part of said influencer's soulless daily wanderlust in search of a sense of never-to-be-found self-actualization which leads to no one going any where (or every one going no where?) but thinking that everyone's doing fine through their filters and screens), had a genuine appreciation for others and a tacit interest in other living, breathing human beings. This is something that doesn't happen much anymore to my experience. She was delightful, courteous, accommodating- if you look up Southern hospitality on Wikipedia, this woman's picture should be staring you in the face. Kind-hearted smile, raspy voice, petite but tough-as-nails and all.
Ok, ok! We get it, you wordy, parenthetical bastard! Get to it! The food, damned you! Well, yes, of course there was food.
In this instance, it was a loaded omelette. Here's what I absolutely loved about it: absolutely no filler (read: starch) in the omelette proper. Egg, cheese, sausage, ham, tomatoes. Period. See how I didn't say hashed browns? This is exactly as it should be. The starches, graciously, were placed to the margins of the plate: toast and grits. No mas. When queried about hot sauce, already overwhelmed by the copious amounts of protein before me, I paused. The delightful waitress, again, knowing what to say to make my socks roll up and down so violently that the seams would strain asked, wait for it, "Tabasco or...Texas Pete?" (Hell to the YES. She knew I wanted hot sauce, and like she had some sort of flippin' dossier on my culinary proclivities, could read that I think Tobasco is crap and had a remedy in hand). The omelette was buttery, the textures inside varied but were all dense and satisfying; the paradigm wasn't challenged, much less smashed, but this was a damned fine utilitarian omelette, designed not to be written about in Bon Appetit, but to launch a preemptive strike on daylight hunger.
The grits were great, the toast was toast, the omelette was extraordinary. Literally.
All in all, my gut was full. So was my soul/emotional well-being/ spiritual state/ mental health. Walk in hungry, walk out centered.
Top tip: if/when I'm back in Chattanooga, I'm turning my phone off before I go in. Unplug and immerse.