In fitting tribute to Zarzour Cafe's 90th anniversary, Chattanooga's oldest restaurant is featured in the latest edition of Roadfood: The Coast-to-Coast Guide to 700 of the Best Barbecue Joints, Lobster Shacks, Ice Cream Parlors, Highway Diners, and Much, Much More by Jane and Michael Stern (Paperback, Broadway Books, 592 pages, April, 2008).
The road-weary and asphalt-beaten Sterns crisscrossed America in a quest for the most affordable and memorable non-chain eateries, and chronicled 35 in Tennessee, but Zarzour’s was the only Chattanooga restaurant to make the cut.
Tucked away on tiny Rossville Avenue behind No. 1 Fire Hall, the proverbial hole-in-the wall is legendary for its Southern meat and vegetable plate lunches, homemade cornbread, and hand-formed hamburgers.
Just how Jane and Michael Stern initially found the café is anyone’s guess. “When you get lost trying to find Zarzour’s,” as the book recounts, “don’t bother looking in the phone book…its number is in residential listings, under the name of the manager’s mother-in-law.”
The mother-in-law is Shirley Z. Fuller, granddaughter of founder Charlie Zarzour, a Lebanese immigrant who first opened the café in 1918. She still operates this plate-lunch jewel with the aid of son Joe and his wife, Shannon, who manages the restaurant.
The guide describes Zarzour’s turnip greens as “murky...pork-sweet, as tender as long-steamed cabbage, and heavy with tonic pot likker.”
Particularly pleasing to the famous dining duo was the "antediluvian" baked spaghetti, described as "timidly sauced, toothless pasta laced with crumbled beef, chewy shreds of cheese scraped from the edge of the casserole, and a web of hardened noodles from the top.”
Monthly contributors to Gourmet Magazine and weekly reviewers on the "Where We Eat" segment of American Public Radio's The Splendid Table, the Sterns have highlighted Zarzour's in two consecutive editions of the famous dining guide, and in a feature article in Gourmet Magazine (November 2004).
Their American Public Radio review of Zarzour’s is still available in the “Where We Eat” audio archives at www.thesplendidtable.com.
Other recommendations in the book include some of America's most treasured culinary destinations, including Louis Lunch in New Haven (likely birthplace of the American hamburger), Anchor Bar in Buffalo (home of the original Buffalo wings), Pat's King of Steaks in Philadelphia, Carnegie Deli in New York, Cattlemen's Forth Worth Steak House, and Philippe's the Original in Los Angeles (originator of the French dip sandwich).
Enjoying a double dose of national publicity, the diminutive eatery recently captured an envious spot as purveyor of one of the country's best burgers in George Motz's Hamburger America: One Man's Cross-Country Odyssey to Find the Best Burgers in the Nation (Paperback, Running Press, 312 pages, April 2008, also on DVD).
A successful filmmaker, author, and noted hamburger expert, Motz names the top 100 hamburgers in America, and describes Zarzour's version as one of the best he's ever had.
Motz explains that each Zarzour's burger starts with ground chuck scooped out of a Tupperware container. It's then hand-pattied and cooked to order on small flattop griddle, with no burger looking exactly like its immediate predecessor.
Zarzour’s Café
1627 Rossville Ave.
Chattanooga, Tennessee 37408
423-266-0424
Monday - Friday: 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
South of E. Main Street behind No. 1 Fire Hall