Episode 3822

- [Announcer] "Tennessee Crossroads" is made possible in part by...

- [Presenter] Some of our biggest checks have also made the biggest difference. The Tennessee lottery, proud to have raised more than $7.5 billion for education. Now that's some game-changing, life-changing fun.

- [Announcer] Discover Tennessee trails and byways, discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made in Tennessee experiences, showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at TNTrailsandByways.com.

- [Presenter] The co-op system in Tennessee consists of independently owned co-ops, driven to serve farmer owners, rural lifestyle customers, and their communities throughout Tennessee and in five neighboring states. More at OurCoop.com.

- [Announcer] Middle Tennessee State University College of Liberal Arts helps students explore the world, engage minds, enrich lives, and earn a living. More at MTSU.edu/cla.

- [Vicki Yates] On this week's show, we prove that we know beans about beans, sample delicious barbecue in Germantown, and go wild on a safari near Alamo. Hi, I'm Vicki Yates, along with Miranda Cohen and Laura Faber.

- [Group] Welcome to "Tennessee Crossroads."

- Many famous products are made right here in Tennessee, from Goo Goos to Moon Pies and beyond.

- In our first story, Miranda travels to Dandridge to learn more about a special side dish you've probably heard of, with an iconic catch phrase. Go ahead Miranda. I know you wanna say this so bad.

- I've always wanted to say that. Roll that beautiful bean footage. When you think of family gatherings, picnics, and barbecues, there is one side dish that always has a place at the table. We are talking baked beans, Bush's Baked Beans to be exact.

- Well, I think it's just a great balance of flavors. Certainly there's a sweetness there, brown sugar, molasses, those kinds of notes. But then, there's a little bit of that savory that comes in with the bacon, with the mustard, and some other spices.

- [Miranda Cohen] Drew Everett is the chairman of the board of Bush Brothers, founded and still located here in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, in Dandridge, Tennessee.

- I'm a fourth generation family member. My great-grandfather started the company in 1908. He had four sons and two daughters. I am the grandson of one of his sons who he named the company after, Bush Brothers and Company.

- [Miranda Cohen] AJ Bush started growing and canning tomatoes on this lush farmland in the early 1900s. Too much water for tomatoes, so he had to switch crops, and he settled on beans. And like many success stories, in the very beginning, AJ Bush and his family struggled to make ends meet.

- [Drew Everett] This house was mortgaged a couple of times in order to keep the company afloat during the early days.

- [Miranda Cohen] But the small cannery was one of the town's only employers during the Great Depression, and Bush was determined to make it, both for his family and for the community.

- [Drew Everett] My aunts and my grandmother would serve meals out on the front lawn and on the side lawn here for folks in the community and folks that worked in the facility.

- [Miranda Cohen] And that's when cousin Condan Bush decided to put his mother's baked bean recipe into a can.

- [Drew Everett] So he came up with this idea of creating, actually, the baked bean that he could sell and market in the area up there. The recipe was inspired by his mother's recipe that she used to serve to the community here and to the family when he was growing up. They figured out a way to get this recipe in a can and taste just like his mother's.

- [Miranda Cohen] The sweet and savory beans in a can caught on. Today, more than a century later, the family is still here on some 3000 acres. The recipe is still the same, but the canning facility is state of the art, which you can see for yourself.

- [Drew Everett] This is the home of our original manufacturing facility and we really designed it around the bean. We can run a lot of beans through the plant every day. We're making about a thousand cans a minute.

- [Miranda Cohen] And the beans are so beloved, they have become a tourist attraction. Scott Schrader is the general manager and oversees the busy visitor center, general store and even the Bean Museum.

- There's so many people that go, "I'm coming to a bean museum," and then they leave and they go, "We went to a bean museum." At our visitor center, we see probably about 150,000 people a year, and it just gives us the opportunity to connect with our consumers and tell our story. There's our early history, our tour video, and then what we've got going on with our brand today.

- [Drew Everett] They can get a feel for what goes into the product, how it's made, and the care and quality that's taken into consideration as we make our products every day.

- [Miranda Cohen] But don't think you're going to be walking away with any secrets, that is, unless you bump in to their most famous family member.

- [Drew Everett] But it's always been a secret. And so there's a more of a public display across the street in the museum, but again, laser guarded, locked away, and nobody knows, just Duke.

- [Miranda Cohen] Oh Duke, that loose-lipped, deep red golden retriever, he is their spokes-dog.

- And low and behold, he's the most popular member of the family these days.

- And if all of this beautiful bean footage is making you hungry, you've come to the right place. When you visit the Bush's Visitor Center, make sure to leave time and room to visit the Bush's family cafe where they will make delicious foods, of course with beans. They will offer you the bean of the day. They will also bake beans into delicious desserts, just like this pinto bean pecan pie. And it's delicious.

- It is our signature dessert and it is a must try when you come to the cafe. One of our goals here is to teach people how to use beans in their everyday meal occasion. So we've got a lot of bean bowls. We've also got times where we'll do lasagna with beans in it or potato soup with beans in it.

- [Miranda Cohen] Generations tell stories about the entrepreneurial patriarch, AJ Bush, instilling his values of honesty and integrity to his family and his staff, and they are using that very same secret recipe today.

- [Scott Schrader] Bush's is a very wholesome company and we try our best to treat people right. When they come to the visitor center, we treat 'em like family and they feel at home and they enjoy hearing about and understanding where their food comes from.

- How we've been able to create a product and a brand that folks can trust and that they really have an affinity for. And that's pretty humbling actually, to be honest with you. And pretty incredible to think that we were able to kind of build that from our roots here in East Tennessee and continue to build on that going forward.

- Well congratulations everyone, we officially know beans, and we also know what we need to keep "Crossroads Traveling," and that is you.

- Absolutely. We're three weeks into our campaign to keep "Crossroads Traveling" in 2025, and we need you to help make it across the finish line. If we can get 500 donations at any level, we can keep "Crossroads" on the air during the Nashville PBS March membership drive. Stories like the one you just saw are only possible with your support. We're off to a good start, but we still have a ways to go to hit our goal.

- We know how much the show means to you. Loyal viewers like you have made "Tennessee Crossroads" one of the most watched, locally produced public television shows in the country. We are very proud of that and we take our commitment to our community very seriously. And while not everyone may be able to contribute, the folks that do make this service possible for all. Please make a gift to your community by supporting the effort that it takes to bring you the best of Tennessee. Call the number on your screen or pledge anytime online to help us reach our goal. We also wanna tell you about an exciting event happening on February 22nd, right here at Nashville PBS.

- [Announcer] You are invited to "Tennessee Crossroads" annual Whiskey tasting, Saturday, February 22nd, 2025, showcasing some of the best whiskey producers from Tennessee. Each distillery will feature two to three products with many of them hard to find. For tickets, use your phone or scan the QR code on your screen, or go to WNPT.org/events.

- What a great event. Now we're really looking forward to seeing you all there. We have the very best fans and we're proud to bring you "Tennessee Crossroads" each week. "Crossroads" has been the flagship show at Nashville PBS for nearly 40 years, and I have no doubt we can get to our goal of 500 contributions, but we need to hear from you. So call the number on your screen or visit us online to pitch in. And while you're there, check out all the ways we have to say thank you for your pledge of support.

- [Announcer] You can help keep "Crossroads Traveling" with a financial gift that's just right for you. At the $72 level, or $6 a month, you can show your support with this polyester blend short sleeve t-shirt. At the $96 level or just $8 a month, you can enjoy this limited edition t-shirt. For a one time gift of $156 or $13 a month, you can keep warm in style with this limited edition hoodie. Finally, we'd love to see you at our annual whiskey tasting on Saturday, February 22nd at Nashville PBS. Visit the studios of "Tennessee Crossroads," meet the crew, and sample the best spirits from across the state. Tickets are $65 or $125 for the VIP package, which includes a WNPT gift bag, a meet and greet, and a barbecue lunch. We hope to see you there and we thank you for helping to keep "Crossroads Traveling."

- It takes a team to keep "Crossroads Traveling" and no team member is more important than you. We're counting on our loyal viewers to get the job done. Please help us to keep the stories coming in 2025. And speaking of stories, you're up next, Laura. Where are we going?

- We are heading west. The Bluff City and barbecue go together like peas and carrots. There are a number of amazing restaurants that serve it up Memphis style, but we found one that claims to be among the best.

- [Representative] You come to Memphis, you're out of town, "Hey, I gotta have Memphis Barbecue," and we're one of the go-to places.

- [Laura Faber] For more than 40 years, the cooking has started early in Germantown, Tennessee.

- [Chef] Throw one of those links down there too.

- [Laura Faber] Ribs, chicken, sausage links, and more, are first rubbed down with an original salty, sweet, and slightly spicy seasoning blend, then homemade sauce, and finally, cooked slow over local hickory wood. This is the Germantown Commissary. Pit masters, like Anthony, know when the meat is perfect with a smoky flavor.

- [Anthony] I see it looks good though, for real.

- [Laura Faber] The pork is pulled by hand. In fact, everything here, except the french fries, are homemade, the seasoning rub, the sauces, the sides, and the desserts. Coconut cream, chocolate, and lemon ice box pies are made every morning on site. The cakes made locally, caramel, coconut, and strawberry, and customers go bananas over the banana pudding.

- And the banana pudding, oh my gosh, if you want a good dessert, get the banana pudding.

- [Laura Faber] This place wasn't always the Germantown Commissary. For more than a century, it was a country store, selling everything from blue jeans to bologna. Walker Taylor's dad bought it in 1973.

- My dad started selling barbecue to go in 1975, and it was by sheer accident.

- [Laura Faber] He was smoking some pork for a dinner party that night and a customer offered to buy it. It wasn't truly a restaurant though, till after Walker bought it from his dad in 1981.

- [Walker Taylor] I said, "Sell it to me. I wanna turn it into a barbecue restaurant," and I did. Young, dumb and full of fun.

- [Laura Faber] And success was not immediate.

- [Walker Taylor] Yeah, I was in here from 7:00 in the morning till 9:00 at night, about four years before I took a paycheck.

- [Laura Faber] A fire in 1984 nearly wiped walker out.

- [Walker Taylor] The floor didn't burn because we had put brick floors in here when we did the remodel. 81 days later, after being taken to the ground, we opened back up, and you could never do that now in 81 days.

- [Laura Faber] Today, Germantown Commissary is an institution in this town just outside Memphis.

- Yeah, I'll put those up here if y'all will run those back. I'll hit a couple other tables. We get used a lot of times as directional references, like, "Well, you know where the commissary is? Well go down the street and make a left."

- It's just a really cool area that everyone knows where it is. That's how we tell people to get to our office. It's one of those places that has that kind of a vibe to it where everybody wants to bring their family when they come in town.

- [Laura Faber] Known for their ribs, they are truly first rate. Crested with seasoning and sauce, a hickory scent and meaty, the smoked sausage and pork tamales are worth a try, and of course, the pulled pork is always popular, but the thing customers order almost more than anything...

- Probably the barbecue nachos.

- [Laura Faber] The barbecue nachos, a menu item Walker claims one of his former longtime employees, named Rosie, invented in 1982. While working concessions at a local horse show, Rosie added some barbecue to chips and cheese for her own lunch break.

- A customer came up and goes, "What's she eating back there?" And I said, "Oh, some nachos," said, "Rosie, you got some barbecue on those?" And she goes, "Mmhmm," and I said, "Well, what are those?" She goes, "Barbecue nachos, fool." And the man goes, "Can I get an order of those?" That's when they were born.

- Another Germantown Commissary original, the deviled eggs. They make 750 deviled eggs every day here at a minimum, and you get one with everything you order here at Germantown Commissary.

- That was clearly an accident. This was about 1983 or four, and one of my employees had stopped somewhere and gotten a plate of deviled eggs. She put 'em in the deli box, and they were up front, and a person came in and said, "I wanna get two of those deviled eggs." And we went, "Uh, okay." That's how they were born.

- Okay darling here I am.

- Thank you.

- [Laura Faber] The other thing that always gets talked about besides the food is the service and the loyal staff. Manager, Lori Picard, has been here 27 years. Manager, Terry Wilkerson, 16, waitress, Cynthia Rivers, 26, and then there's Katie Butler.

- Hey sweetie, you need anything else? What I do? Everything. Manager, wait tables, work the orders, whatever need to be done, I do.

- [Laura Faber] She's worked here 40 years.

- [Katie Butler] All right baby, what are you having?

- [Laura Faber] And what is it about this place that you think people in this community love so much?

- [Katie Butler] The atmosphere, the love, the warmness, the happiness, and the food. You know, the personality make the food better.

- There you go. Thank you.

- Thank you.

- [Laura Faber] Walker Taylor says he would've never, in his wildest dreams, imagined his little country store turned barbecue restaurant would mean so much to so many people, and to him.

- Still seeing customers that come in and have been coming in for over 40 years. I get a real thrill out of that, being part of something that's been enjoyable for other people. Thank you. Y'all come back.

- Y'all have a great day.

- That was a great story, Laura, and you know what I remember about that? Those deviled eggs, they were amazing.

- One with every meal, and they are great. And let's just say, we did not need a to-go box.

- I can see why. Now in our last story, Joe Elmore explains how you can go on safari without ever leaving Tennessee, or even your car for that matter. All you have to do is journey up to Northwest Tennessee, near Alamo. What you'll find is a family adventure that brings you up close to some exotic and hungry creatures.

- Visitors wanna see animals in a naturalistic areas, large open spaces. I mean, people just don't wanna see animals in cages anymore.

- [Joe Elmore] Since Tennessee Safari Park opened in 2007, it's become one of the top tourist attractions in the state. A drive-through zoo, where you traverse seven and a half miles of open territory, inhabited by about 150 species of exotic, free-roaming animals. Most are very glad to see you, and for good reason.

- [Child] Oh my God.

- [Joe Elmore] This 300 acre park is part of the Conley family farm, which has been around since the 1850s. According to John Conley, the idea was a result of economics as well as a special love for exotic creatures.

- We had to figure out a way to make the family farm work. We had a few exotic animals here, and we loved it. The family came together and said, "We've gotta make it work." We really didn't have any other choice. And so we started small, grew ourselves into it, and it's been an amazing adventure.

- [Joe Elmore] Well, here's how it works. You drive up to this window where you purchase tickets, cash only by the way. And don't forget to buy some buckets of feed for the fun part. Then you slowly drive through the open park and stop wherever you wish. And here, you'll quickly discover some animals, like ostriches, have terrible table manners.

- [Child] Not one!

- They want close up encounters with animals, you know, they don't wanna see 'em from a distance. Our concept creates a perfect opportunity for visitors to see animals from around the world in a safe environment. And they wanna see big, beautiful, healthy, fat animals, and lots of babies, and this is the place to come. So these are greater kudo from South Africa.

- [Joe Elmore] While Safari Park is mostly known as a tourist attraction, it's also an ambitious breeding center for rare and endangered species.

- A lot of these animals are extremely endangered and the work we're doing is gonna save these animals for future generations. She's expecting a calf, and so, like I said, we have 16 of the painted camels, and so they come in all different color variations, and spotted, and the blue eyes are probably the most striking feature.

- A Brazilian taper, pretty rare occurrence. And he's so, man, he's built well.

- [John Conley] Yeah.

- [Joe Elmore] Yeah.

- Oh!

- No.

- [Joe Elmore] I do not look like food. You'll often find John's wife, Whitney, at work behind the scenes in the nursery, today nurturing some ostrich eggs and chicks so they become healthy, adult birds. After you complete your ride through the exhibit area, there's also a 20 acre walkthrough park and petting zoo. Here you can even get a close speeding encounter with a giraffe. Visitors can easily spend two to three hours at Safari Park, which by the way, is open year round except for holidays. For John Conley, every day's unique and demanding, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

- You know, we're always doing something new and exciting. Animals are being born daily. Yesterday afternoon I delivered a Bactrian camel, and before that, we were working on plants and flowers. And so it literally, it's something different every day. No day is the same. The public obviously loves the concept, and so we just keep growing on what works.

- Okay, that looks like a great place to take the kids.

- I see all those animals. Okay, ladies, forgive me. Here's a little blatant self-promotion. We have done another safari story. We shot it a few weeks ago. We are editing it, and it will air very soon.

- And we're looking forward to seeing it. Well "Crossroads" fans, we'd like to remind you once again that we're in the middle of our "Keep Crossroads Traveling" campaign. No matter the topic, stories are expensive to produce and we count on your support to keep us on the road. Please call or click now to help us reach our goal. And when you do, there are several ways we'd like to say thank you.

- [Announcer] You can help keep "Crossroads Traveling" with a financial gift that's just right for you. At the $72 level or $6 a month, you can show your support with this polyester blend, short sleeve t-shirt. At the $96 level, or just $8 a month, you can enjoy this limited edition t-shirt. For a one-time gift of $156, or $13 a month, you can keep warm in style with this limited edition hoodie. Finally, we'd love to see you at our annual whiskey tasting on Saturday, February 22nd at Nashville PBS. Visit the studios of "Tennessee Crossroads," meet the crew, and sample the best spirits from across the state. Tickets are $65 or $125 for the VIP package, which includes a WNPT gift bag, a meet and greet, and a barbecue lunch. We hope to see you there and we thank you for helping to keep "Crossroads Traveling."

- That's going to do it for this week. Please check out our website at TennesseeCrossroads.org and watch us anytime with the PBS app. Until next time, thank you, and remember to-

- Keep Crossroads Traveling.

- [Announcer] "Tennessee Crossroads" is made possible in part by...

- [Presenter] Students across Tennessee, have benefited from over $7.5 billion we've raised for education, providing more than two million scholarships and grants. The Tennessee lottery, game-changing, life-changing fun.

- [Announcer] Discover Tennessee trails and byways, discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made in Tennessee experiences showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at TNTrailsandByways.com.

- [Presenter] The co-op system in Tennessee consists of independently owned co-ops, driven to serve farmer owners, rural lifestyle customers, and their communities throughout Tennessee and in five neighboring states. More at OurCoop.com.

- [Announcer] Middle Tennessee State University College of Liberal Arts helps students explore the world, engage minds, enrich lives, and earn a living. More at MTSU.edu/cla.