My wife and I have been married over 40 years. Rarely do you see one of us that you do not see us both. Neither of us can stand to just stay at the house. Not because being at home is bad. In fact, we sit at home a lot as well as ramble. Buuutttttt. If rambling is an option, then that is the option we are going to take.
Life is an adventure. I have found that there is always something new to experience. Somebody new to meet is always right around the corner. A new place to go, or a new place to eat is always there.
Last Summer I actually did do some traveling by myself. I went out 5 trips throughout Southeast Alabama. I ran several thousand miles visiting rural map dot towns. You know, the ones that are not on the interstate. The ones that sadly are now in a terrible situation. Those places that so many people relate to. Many times, they are remembered now as places we went to when our grandparents were still alive. For many more they are where we were raised. They represent a different place and a different time. For most of us it is good memories. For so many of us it is a place and time we miss so badly and would love to be back in.
On one of my trips last year, I took a photo of a neat looking place over in the vicinity of Grady, Alabama. I honestly think I took it more for the fact that there was a neat sign with a water tower in the background. When I am out taking photos of that type I normally always capture a few shots of water towers.
I think the place was closed that particular day, or possibly it was the hour of the day that I was there. After I got home and shared photos and communicated with folks and so forth, I came across this business on Facebook.
The name of the business was Red’s Little School House. It is a restaurant. I have followed them on social media ever since. I have commented on their page more than once that when I was back working in that area that I was going to have lunch there.
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were talking about some future excursions. The subject of Red’s Little School House came up. I commented that we had been in Lowndes County recently working and should have broken off one day and went up and given it a try. Unfortunately, we had been preoccupied and did not think about it. My wife said, “why don’t we just ride up there and give it a try?” With that said she got online and found out when it was open, and we made plans.
Now we have been to some incredible places, and we have been to some places that we are not going to go back to. We set out early to mid-morning of Wednesday June 6. We located it on the map and followed GPS. When we got there, I looked, and we had driven exactly 100 miles. That is a pretty good ride to eat lunch at a place you have never been to nor talked personally to that has eaten there before. I had told my wife on the way up more than one time, “I hope we are not disappointed.” Her response every time was, “we have been disappointed before, and I bet we have had worse.”
When we drove up there were cars in the parking lot, but we were kind of early, so it was not crowded. We walked in and were immediately greeted by a friendly young lady who told us to sit wherever we chose. When we got settled at a table she came and took our drink order. She then said help yourself to the buffet.
We headed out! Fried Chicken, chicken livers, pulled pork, camp stew, hamburger steak in gravy, vegetables, fried cornbread, and rolls. OH MY. I loaded my plate. I wanted to try as many different things as possible, but realized real quick that there was no way I could try it all.
We went to the table and all I can say was wow! There was a sign I read in there that said, “If you find food any better your grandmother cooked it”, or something very similar. That my friends, was an understatement! I have eaten folk’s grandmothers cooking that was not as good as that was. Actually I have had a lot of home cooking that was not as good as that.
The only thing I regret about that trip is that instead of just going through the line and helping my plate, I wish I had gone through and checked it out before. I LOVE fried chicken, and I love chicken livers. That fried chicken was excellent. The livers were as well. HOWEVER, WHEN and I said when not IF I go back if it is on a Wednesday and they have the hamburger steak I definitely will load up on that and if they have the camp-stew, I will load up on that. There was not one thing we tried that was not wonderful in our opinion.
So to recap this, we drove a hundred miles to a local restaurant that serves a lunch buffet for lunch. If you have never been there, we highly recommend you give it a try. We definitely will go back and eat there if we are anywhere close to the area. In fact, we are subject any time to get up one morning and make the drive back and give it another whirl.
My hat’s off to Red’s Little School House. Your food in my opinion is better than you portray it to be. I highly recommend you to anybody hunting great home cooked Southern Food.