While doing a two week consulting stint in Atlanta, Georgia, I decided to take a one day weekend trip to visit the city of Savannah. Let me just say this right off — with three centuries of history one day is not enough time to fully experience and enjoy Savannah!
It took about 3 and a half hours to drive from Atlanta to Savannah. Although I was aided by my Hertz “Never Lost” GPS system, it’s a fairly straight forward to get from Atlanta to Savannah using I-75 to I-16
Since I didn’t have much time, I elected to take the “Old Town Trolley Tour”. This would allow me to pack as much of Savannah as I could into a few hours. What I found is that Savannah is filled with 22 little 18th and 19th century public squares. These sometimes wooded and other times gardened squares are what makes Savannah a beautiful and yet unique city.
Savannah is also the the setting for several very familiar movies. Once of the first was Roots, featuring Levar Burton. Another more recent blockbuster hit was Forrrest Gump starring Tom Hanks, Robin Penn Wright and Sally Field. The movie featured several locations in Savannah.
Maybe one of the biggest reasons that some people pay a visit to Savannah is due to Paula Deen. For those who may say “Paula who?”, Paula Deen is a Food Network celebrity chef who is famous for her southern fare — and you know what that means — fried chicken, greens, and desserts that will add pounds to your waistline while putting a big smile on your face (so hopefully no one will notice those extra pounds). Paula’s restaurant…
The Lady and Sons
102 W Congress St
Savannah, GA 31401
912.233.2600
…has people lining up for hours just to get a reservation. As my Old Town Trolly driver told me, “If you want to eat at The Lady and Sons for dinner, they begin taking dinner reservations at 3:30 and this does not mean you can show up at 3:30 and get your reservation — you’ll need to stand in line if you want reservations for tonight.” He was right, when I got there at about 2:15pm there was already a line more than a block long and those in line told me that the line would not even start moving until 3:30 when they start taking the reservations. Given the short amount of time that I had to spend in Savannah, I was starting to wonder if this would be worth the wait given the limited amount of time that I had to spend in the city. My doubts quickly dissipated when several people who had joined me in line told me that they had been here before, waited in this line, and that it was definitely worth the wait. “You’ve got to try the fried chicken, it’s the best” was the recommendation that I heard most often.
When I got to the head of the line, I was told that since it was just me that I could probably come back and just ask to be seated at the bar. But, not wanting to chance anything given the amount of time that I had waited in line I asked for a reservation and was given 8:15. This was much later than I wanted to start dinner given that I planned to drive back to Atlanta that night. I came back at 6pm and asked to be seated at the bar and was seated immediately. My recommendation is that if you have a small group (1 to 4) people, you might ask at the hostess station before you wait in line what the chances are that they might be able to seat you at the bar. If are traveling alone, you can avoid the wait in line by asking to be seated at the bar.
I was there on a Saturday evening and since the only way to get the fried chicken as well as a few other items is to order the THE LADY’S SOUTHERN BUFFET $16.99
As you would expect, the Southern Buffet is an all you care to eat Southern feast of Fried Chicken, greens, mashed potatoes with both brown and country gravy, fried fish, pork chops, green beans, ham and beans, broccoli as well as several other dishes that I didn’t get to try.. In addition there is also a fresh salad bar and once you’ve had enough you’ll be offered a dessert to complete your meal.
The food was worth the wait. The fried chicken reminded me of the chicken that my grandmother use to make – moist and perfectly seasoned. I’ve never been a big fan of collard greens. But I am now. I don’t know what Paula does to make them so tasty, but there were so good that I helped myself to seconds.
I noticed a lot of things on the menu that were not on the Southern Buffet. Given that I didn’t get to sample some of the other great dishes, let me just finish by saying — one day is not enough time to fully experience and enjoy Savannah!