Chat and Nibble
June 12, 2007 – 6:45 pmIn Eminence Kentucky there are very few choices for a sit down restaurant. One of those choices isn’t exactly full service, they don’t keep full hours, and they aren’t very well advertised. But they have something that most of the other places don’t have. They have a sense of Eminence, Kentucky.
This beautiful small town still has a volunteer Fire Department, Police Officers in T-shirts, and small restaurants named Chat and Nibble where a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches, a huge helping of fries, and many refills of Icedtea will run you around five bucks. But you better get there before 3:00 PM, because that’s when they close. Dairy Queen, on the other hand, is open much later.
At Dairy Queen, you can order that same dish and pay just about the same price. In fact, I did just that. Shortly there after, my wife overheard some locals asking “What type of a person would order grilled cheese at a Dairy Queen?”. The question baffled me before I understood where they were coming from. They were citizens of Eminence. They were eating at Dairy Queen in an attempt to escape the small town and couldn’t understand why it was that I was looking for home cooking. Of course I was, it was after 3:00 PM. If it had not been, I would have known exactly where to find it; at the Chat and Nibble. You see, I am not looking to get out of Eminence. I am looking to get into Eminence.
I am tired of not knowing my neighbors because any efforts in that direction are met with suspicion. I am tired of not smiling or waving at a child because its parent will think that I am a pervert. I am tired of coffee from corporate chains and fast food in Styrofoam boxes. I am tired of drive threw windows and Corporate America gobbling up everything Mom and Pop.
I want Eminence Kentucky and I want Chat and Nibble.
4 Responses to “Chat and Nibble”
It is ok Yeti….Put down the sword…if you want a home cooked grilled cheese and fries, I will personally come down there and make you some…I will even make the fries home made so they are not from the big ole ugly corporate America….it is ok…there -there….
all better now?…..
awe….you know I am just kiddin with you!!
By Jaden on Jun 12, 2007
I knew of a similar place in Alabama. Some of the best food I have ever eaten and the conversation was not bad either. The town (whose name escapes me at the moment, though I think it was near Aniston) was small and dominated by the local factory.
I miss that place. There is nothing like personal attention when you visit a resturant. My mom used to run a small cafe and she always went out of her way to meet and greet the patrons.
Sadly, this practice has gone the way of the dodo in the Corporate controlled world we live in today.
So, forgive me but, I envy you the experience of the Small Town. Enjoy it while you can.
By WonderGoon on Jun 12, 2007
When you find the flavor of the town, share it with us. Having grown up in a town that boasted about fifteen hundred people year round, I also miss all of those things “mom and pop.”
Perhaps I can vicariously experience them through you, here. At least a little.
By Aislinnfae on Jun 13, 2007
You and Aimee are at a path in your life where you are looking into whether or not you want to choose city life for the sake of your children, or should you try you some of that “Eminence”. I understand this, even though I am not a mother. I have lived way out in the boondocks, I have lived in an urban area, and I have lived in a suburban area. Mostly suburban/boondocks, though. Aimee and I talked about how we have both shared the disdain of thinking of moving back to BFE. I lived in Adams Co. Ohio (above Maysville, KY) a good part of my life, and she told me that she grew up in Portsmouth. Now she has Aub and Andrew, so of course her attitude changes–it is now an attitude in which includes that motherly-instinct–that “I want my kids to be safe and be happy”.
AND if you get enough acreage and a good bit of trees ’round your house, you can walk around freely in your boxers anytime!
Make sure that you are clothed when you interact with your neighbors, though ;).
Also, don’t be the cityfolk that move into the country and annoy the countryfolk. We had neighbors like that down in Adams Co. who would drive us INSANE and were honestly bad people–but fit the stereotype of “city folk coming into the country and trying to control everything” as if they lived in a freakin’ suburb.
By Leila on Jun 15, 2007