Soddy Daisy: Home To Bad Food, Worse Roads, And No Gasoline - And Response

  • Saturday, June 25, 2022
I enjoy Soddy Daisy.  Truly I do.  But over the past six years or so, everything in the town has been going downhill, and quite fast. 

There is simply no place to eat in Soddy Daisy that offers any nutritional value or variety.  Burger King, McDonald's, Sonic, KFC, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Bojangles.  This is what we have to feed our children.  Now a couple people may say what about this little mom and pop restaurant, or that one down the block.  More burgers, comfort food straight from cans, and deep fried everything except the napkin is not acceptable for every meal they eat.  Even on the worst day, larger commercial restaurants offer some nutritional variety or dependability.  Why are there no commercial franchise restaurants here? 
 
Why are there no dependable supermarkets here (I've been writing Kroger and Publix for years to save us, but they don't want to come here)?  Is it a liquor by the drink or beer permit issue hangup?  Town unwilling to throw a tax break or two in there?  All this does is drive dollars out of Soddy Daisy and into downtown Chattanooga or East Brainerd or anywhere else that will benefit.  Such a tax dollar loss certainly shows here.  Why?

The roads in Soddy Daisy are a hot mess.  Years ago, Dayton Pike had a ton of crew people out there to widen the little two-lane road and I thought it would finally get traffic moving.  Instead, all they did was take two years to add a turn lane.  Worse is that quarter mile plus stretch of pure hell from the Erlanger clinic right down Dayton Pike, past the Soddy Daisy Town Hall (anyone home?), and further up and around the bend towards the Food City.  Three times by my count, the road has been dug up.  Not just pavement chunks taken out, but jackhammered out to the point I saw a fellow standing in a five foot hole.  For reasons known only to them, this quarter mile plus stretch was dug up then put back and it makes for the most miserable drive in the state.  If you have a new car I'd avoid that road like the plague because if a rock doesn't crack your windshield, the busted and badly filled pavement will blow a tire or at the very least badly dent the rims on your vehicle.  You'd think a couple tons of asphalt would have been ordered to straighten it out, but apparently the higher ups think that the road being chopped to hell and back is just fine for taxpayers.  But where are they going?

Soddy Daisy has a lack of operable fuel stations.  Time and time again, you'll pull up to one of our "big four" service stations and it won't be out of the ordinary to have only half of the pumps actually working while the others are all taped up in yellow plastic shopping bags.  If they do work, it's going to be super unleaded only.  Now you might think that there would be unleaded replaced in the pumps  within a day or so; yeah right.
There is no hurry to refill tanks and it's not uncommon up here to drive to two or more fuel stations just to find any fuel.  Why? Worse yet is the design of these cannot accommodate cars to safely park at a pump and leave (sans the Food City fuel station).  In fact at one, if you pull into the front of the building to go in for a soda and come out and the stalls behind you are full.....you physically can't leave.  You simply have to wait until another leaves a stall and then be prepared to race through before you're nudged out by a man pulling in grumbling about his freshly dented rims. Can you guess what road he came down?  Think about the idiocy of that for a moment. 

Why is there no industry in Soddy Daisy? There's not a barbershop, dry cleaners, or even a simple little bakery.  But by God we certainly have four Dollar Generals, four smoke/beer shops, and two vape shops.

Bill Thomas 

Soddy Daisy

* * *

Bill, you bring up several points I’d like the opportunity to address.

I’d much rather see the huge variety of locally owned restaurants thrive in our fine city like they do. When it comes to restaurants, here’s a list of amazing sit down places to eat, from north to south. Let’s start at Steve’s Landing in Soddy, their queso and chips are amazing. The ribs though, and man that catfish. Let’s move on down slap in the middle of Daisy. WIMPIES!!! Their beef stew and cornbread, that short rib and brisket burger is to die for. All of their sides are slap yo momma good. Drive right past Veterans Park and hit Home Folks. My goodness, it’s all you can eat bro. Go a little further south and hit Delia’s. Their fajita nachos are to die for, and the best chips around. Let’s not forget Ricko’s, Rafael’s, MoMo’s, El Metate. Then there’s all of the amazing BBQ joints, Shuford’s by the lake and everyone’s favorite Off The Farm.

When it comes to supermarkets, I agree 100 percent. There’s was a whisper of Publix but something scared them off. Places like that are revenue generators that I know for a fact city officials work hard to try and reel in.

There’s a simple explanation for the roads, if you ever been to a City Commission meeting. By your own statement, the road has been torn into multiple times. That’s a fact, utilities are patching in. That’s a time consuming process and the different utilities can’t all do it at once. But it wouldn’t be fiscally responsible to pave the roads knowing they’re getting torn into again would it? There’s a plan to pave this year, but only after all the road splicing has been completed.

The gas stations, I count nine inside the city limits, so try a different one maybe?

When it comes to industry, we have Tri Star Beverage that employs a ton of people, not to mention all of the business in the Industrial Park… I totally question your ability to google when there’s a tried and true barbershop with the candy cane pole on Depot Street. But all the people I know go to the Soddy Celebrity. They do amazing work, and are all locals. But maybe you want a franchise Barber?

We had a bakery, but I don’t really wanna go into why it left.

I know your signature says Soddy Daisy, but dang man. For any further questions, I’d recommend stopping into the Hardee’s any weekday morning from 8-9:30. You’ll find those gents in there more than helpful.

James Berry
Proud to call Soddy Daisy my home

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