Bluegrass Grill

Family-Run, Family-Friendly Cafe

It would be wrong to spend a morning in Chattanooga and not have breakfast at Bluegrass Grill on the city’s bustling Southside. Locals as well as visitors flock to it because it provides a casual, friendly, and well-prepared taste of downhome Dixie fare.

Home Fry Heaven at the Bluegrass Grill

If you do come to Bluegrass Grill and wonder what to eat off its very broad breakfast menu, consider home fries. Honestly, in most situations I prefer twiggy hash browns to chunky home fries, but these beautiful potatoes make me a believer. Lively seasoning infuses a vastly variegated melange of bite-size nuggets, some dark and crusty, others pliant. Alongside eggs of any kind or on their own, these spuds demand attention.

In fact, the Bluegrass Grill devotes one section of its menu to five different dishes the kitchen makes with the marvelous potatoes. They build “P1” using black beans, green onions, salsa, and Swiss cheese or tofu. Chorizo sausage, cheddar, and jalapenos star in “P3.” Gyro meat, tomato, feta and mozzarella cheese make up “P5.”

Corned beef hash makes the most of home fries. The kitchen laces a jumble of them with little thin tiles of corned beef and chopped green onion. Melting Swiss cheese blankets the great, yummy pile. I must warn you that you’ll work to get this hash off its plate. The molten cheese clings in strips to one’s fork and rises off the plate like festoonery. An egg cooked the way you like it crowns the hash.

So Many Choices, It’s Hard to Choose

Other breakfast worthies: Some of Roadfood’s favorite eggs Benedicts, especially the one made not with skinny Canadian bacon but with thick, sweet slices of ham. Plum raisins dot big, soft cinnamon rolls. Herbed cream cheese accompanies alderwood smoked salmon. You even can order blintzes (Jewish-accented crepes) with seasonal fruit. The morning menu also lists several options for vegetarians in which tofu takes the place of meat. On the subject of nutritional virtue, the kitchen’s downhome Dixie biscuits are made using whole-wheat flour. All bread is baked in-house.

Lunch is served, too: sandwiches, soups, and salads.