Blue Plate Café

In this cheery café that was once a private home (built by Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson), breakfast, served all day, is the specialty of the house. The menu includes omelets with great hash browns or grits on the side, and flavorful knobby-top biscuits served with silky cream gravy dotted with bits of sausage. Once a bastion of thin, small-tread waffles, the Blue Plate Cafe has gone to Belgians, but the pancake repertoire continues to uphold high, from-scratch standards. Of special note are banana pancakes, available with crunchy peanut butter syrup — a nutty, fruity combo that Elvis would have loved, especially with an order of crisp bacon on the side.

Lunch is good ol’ meat-and-threes, with such entrees as pot roast, baked pork chops, chicken and dumplings, and fried shrimp (that last one is every Friday). The vegetable roster is about twenty items long, including real mashed potatoes, turnip greens, creamed corn, mac ‘n’ cheese, etc., etc. If you want something simpler than meat-and-three, there are salads, soups, and sandwiches, including a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Apparently, that one is health food: it is served on whole wheat bread.