Bethea’s Restaurant
For many years, the restaurants and theaters along Brainerd Road were popular with Chattanoogans going out for dinner and a movie. Let’s travel back through some of those years, and see how many of these “date night” places you recall.
1947
After I drive through the tunnels in my 1947 Hudson automobile, powered by its Super Six engine, the main business district of Brainerd is immediately visible. There are small groceries and other businesses, including the Mary Ann Bake Shop. The car is low on gas, so I stop in to see Fred and Frank May at the May Brothers service station at Brainerd and Germantown. Frank would later co-found the A&M Toy Stores, while Fred would become well-known for restoring old radios.
There are few restaurant choices along Brainerd Road, though the highway is a major route into Chattanooga. One of the older restaurants is the Green Lantern at Brainerd and Tunnel Boulevard. Kay’s Ice Cream serves customers at its store near its processing plant at 3744 Brainerd Road. Our choice this evening is Bethea’s Restaurant and Drive-In at 3850 Brainerd Road.
Richard W. Bethea has owned the restaurant since 1936. When he bought the diner, it was known as Eddie’s Grill, but he renamed it Bethea’s in 1946. The specialty item on the menu is fried chicken. Mr. Bethea invented a small wire chicken basket which doubled as a utensil for frying the chicken and as a basket for serving it. Other items featured at Bethea’s include frog legs, cornbread hoe cakes, country-fried steak, and fresh vegetables. Bethea’s remained open until 1986, and is now the home of Smokey’s Bar-B-Q.
After dinner, we drive a short distance to the Sky-Way Drive-In Theater, where Eastgate Mall will be developed in the future. Adults pay 40 cents for admission, while children get in for 9 cents. If they don’t do something about these high prices, I don’t know how that people will afford to live!
1957
With hair slicked down by Vitalis, I head east on Brainerd Road in a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air. We see that there are more choices than ever for Brainerd dining. The Green Lantern Restaurant is still there at Tunnel Boulevard, and several other eateries have joined it. The Krystal operates a drive-in, curb-service restaurant at the intersection with Germantown. At Moore Road, the Dairy Gold has bright yellow neon streaming from its diner, and features hamburgers, fries, and shakes.
Development along Brainerd Road has continued to push eastward during the 1950’s, replacing farms and a cottage cheese processing business. The Shake Shack is a restaurant choice at 5321 Brainerd Road, and will later have a branch location inside Eastgate Mall.
Our dine-out choice this evening is the Talley-Ho Restaurant a 5001 Brainerd Road near Lovell Avenue. The restaurant’s name comes from that of its owner, Benjamin L. Talley. Customers can order “full course dinners, short orders, or sandwiches.” His specialty item is barbecue. After dinner, we drive back towards Missionary Ridge, and see a movie at the Brainerd Theater at Germantown Road and also do some roller-skating at the Southland Rink.
1967
Wearing a double-breasted green plaid suit and turtleneck shirt, I exit onto Lee Highway from Highway 153 in a gold 1967 Chevrolet Camaro convertible. Even with the widening of Brainerd Road to six lanes in the early 1960’s, traffic can become clogged on a Friday or Saturday night.
The restaurant choices seem endless. Many national brands are now seen in Brainerd. At 5955 Lee Highway is Jerry’s Hamburger Drive-In, with Lulu’s (home of the Lulu Burger) a nearby competitor. Shakey’s Pizza Parlor and Ye Olde Public House dishes up twenty-one varieties of pizza at 5911 Lee Highway. Shoney’s Big Boy Hamburgers are now served at 5912 Lee Highway.
Continuing onto Brainerd Road, we see Tomlinson’s Restaurant, which relocated from McCallie Avenue after the city leaders decided to make it one-way. Wonder if they will ever reverse that one-way decision? Some other restaurants that we pass are the Longhorn (a local chain started by Bill Hall of the Town and Country Restaurant, not the national franchise) and the Mr. Fifteen Hamburgers, where the old Green Lantern was.
Our destination, though, is back in the old part of Brainerd at Carl’s Drive-In. Owner Carl Martin has run a restaurant at 3430 Brainerd Road since the 1950’s. In1960, he introduced Col. Harland Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken to his menu. Prior to frying chicken at his own stores, the Colonel crossed many roads to sell his secret recipe for chicken and pressure-frying equipment to existing restaurateurs.
After seeing ‘The Dirty Dozen,” at the Eastgate Theater, we stop off for a round of Goony Golf.
1977
Wearing a powder blue leisure suit and Hawaiian shirt, I’m motoring down Brainerd Road in my red 1974 Ford Pinto. Brainerd Road is aglow at night with the lights of many restaurants - and with the headlights of many cars stuck in traffic after the movies let out.
The scenery has changed a lot from earlier days. Michael’s House of Steaks is now open where Carl’s Drive-In was. They tore down the Krystal Drive-In, and Neil’s Package Store now occupies the site. Greensleeves Tropical Greenery took over where the Shake Shack was. National chains are well-represented along Brainerd Road - McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Ruby Tuesday… the list is too long to mention. There is one new locally-based diner – Milty’s Hamburgers – that is a favorite of mine since it’s close to the Showcase Cinema and the Brainerd Village Mini-Cinema.
Our restaurant of choice this time, though, is Lott’s Prize Sandwich Shoppe at 5257 Brainerd Road at McBrien. Lott’s provides some alternatives to the usual burger-and-fries. The specialty item is a steamed roast beef sandwich served on a hot sesame seed bun. Various sauces, such as Old English, are available to top off your sandwich. Other deli sandwich choices are the ham and swiss, served on hot rye bread, and the chicken sandwich, made from a whole, de-boned filet. Lott’s also has pizza and ice cream sundaes on the menu.
It’s getting late, and we promised that we would be home by 11 p.m., so this concludes this flashback to some dinner-and-a-movie evenings in Brainerd. If you have memories of any of these restaurants or their owners, please send me an e-mail at jolleyh@signaldata.net.
Talley-Ho Restaurant