Episode 3731

- [Narrator] Tennessee Crossroads is made possible in part by. I'm Tennessee Tech President, Phil Oldham. Here in Cookville, Tennessee's college town, we are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu. 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. This time on Tennessee Crossroads, we discover why this Beechgrove Country store is famous for homemade biscuits. Then explore a B&B in the hometown of Jack Daniels. We'll sample the menu at a popular tavern in Carthage. Finally discover how an abandoned Nashville building became a thriving marketplace. Hi everybody, that's the lineup for this edition of Tennessee Crossroads. Sure glad to have you. When you live in the South, it's quite an honor to have people say you serve the best biscuits around. Well, Tennessee has a lot of places that do biscuits well, but Laura Faber found a little country store in Coffee County where the biscuits just might be the best in the south.

- Since 1938 along Highway 41 in Coffee County, there has been a country market. It recently has had a name change and a facelift, but what hasn't changed? You can still get the best biscuits in the south here. This is Gregory's Beechgrove Country Store and Kitchen. When you walk through the door, the sign on the floor suggest an attitude, "Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy." It's gonna be $7.68.

- You doing okay today?

- Yeah.

- [Laura] It's here, you can get what might truly be the best biscuits in the South.

- Need smell-a-vision.

- Golden brown, light and fluffy, served with egg and cheese and either chicken, sausage, bacon, country ham, bologna or tenderloin.

- Because if you leave them down, they will sweat, if they leave them sitting that way, so we flip 'em so they don't sweat. Like to get the eggs just right too, like been good hot eggs on that cheese and it melts it up.

- [Laura] Phyllis was the first employee at Gregory's. She is the owner's grandma, don't get in her way in the kitchen.

- In fact, we're working on the order now for 30.

- [Laura] That would be Steve Mitchell's regular order every Thursday.

- So I drive by this place twice a day and just one day on a whim I'm like, "You know what? I'm gonna pop in there" 'cause I kept seeing a sign, "Best Biscuits in the South" and I took them into work and the guys absolutely loved 'em. So I did that for a couple weeks and then the third week I didn't bring any in and they were freaking out on the job, so they're like, "Where are they at? Where are the sandwiches at?" So ever since then it's been every Thursday.

- [Laura] This building has been around a century, it's been a feed store, a deli, hardware store, a gas station, and market. Alexandria and Caleb Gregory discovered it when they moved to Grove and Caleb stopped to try a biscuit recommended by a friend

- And a lot of times on the way hunting, he'd be like, "Hey, stop in there and get you a biscuit." But it didn't look anything like it looks now and like there was this, you couldn't even see inside, it looked like it was just closed.

- Was a biscuit the first thing you ever ordered here?

- Yeah, sausage biscuit.

- It was grab and go.

- Yep.

- Yeah.

- [Laura] What do you remember about that first biscuit that you ever ate?

- I was like, "It's really good."

- [Alexandria] Well, Levi, our 2-year-old at the time was not really eating anything, he was the pickiest eater and he devoured this biscuit and then it basically became the biscuit store. And then he wanted one every morning

- [Laura] When the former owners put the market up for sale, Alexandria felt moved to save it.

- We really had no idea what we were doing. We just knew that we loved this community and we loved people and we love a vibe. I mean, we are kind of like vibe junkies. I think they thought of us as this young couple. Is it still gonna give you that hometown southern feel?

- I was a little concerned.

- I was, yeah.

- Well, just because we just moved out here, we bought it and I'm like, "Maybe everybody's gonna love us, they're gonna hate us, one or the other." Like you go in and ruin our biscuit store or you're gonna make it great again. Yeah.

- We just set aside two weeks, we knew we were gonna be shut down.

- Yeah.

- So we just shut down for two weeks, then redid everything, pulled everything out and we had a all hands on deck for two weeks. This was all like wood style paneling. And we were actually a little bit worried 'cause we plan on doing some other stuff to it while we're ripping everything out. We're like, "Well, let's see what's behind this." And we start to tear it off and I'm like, we're like, "What? The old tongue and groove is still under here, it's been going with paneling." So we just start tearing it off and that's all the original wood. We actually hardly did anything to it. We sanded it a little bit and put a little bit of like wax on it just to kind of help preserve it.

- A great surprise, it was like Christmas. Well, I mean, first off, it saved us so much time and work, but also it was rewarding to preserve its history. You know what I mean? It was like, "Why would you ever even cover this up?"

- [Laura] Caleb's mom, Marlena used her interior design skills to decorate and paint much of the artwork and murals you see on the walls. The Gregory's boys even have menu items named after them.

- "The Levi" is a two pancake plate with a choice of meat, and then "The Lane" is a meat and veggie omelet with hash browns.

- [Laura] Open for breakfast and Lunch and closed by two, Gregory's goes through seven dozen eggs and 90 grab and go biscuits every morning. Their lunch menu is incredible too. How about an inch thick slice of fried bologna sandwich, or patty melt, a fried catfish or hot chicken sandwich?

- [Jane] This is our Beechgrove hot. All of our sauces are made in house.

- [Laura] Or Miss Jane's homemade butterfinger cake. Andrew Todd is a friend of the Gregory's, he helped them renovate the place and eats here two to three times a week. Andrew says, "While the food is great, customers get much more."

- And you know, it just kept like a small town feel with it, and everybody knows each other, everybody is pretty much regulars and you know, it's the place you wanna be.

- [Laura] Great food, atmosphere, history and community preserved for many more years to come in Coffee County.

- When anyone thanks us really, you know, it's like, "Okay, it worked." Like, "I saw this, I thought we could do it," but I've had people actually cry and just say, "Thank you so much, our community really needed this."

- We're kind of out in the middle of nowhere here in , well, honestly wasn't for the local community, we couldn't make it happen. So all their support help definitely is what keeps it going for sure.

- Thanks Laura. When you hear the name Lynchburg, a popular Tennessee whiskey probably comes to mind. Well, as Miranda Cohen can tell you, there's more to Lynchburg than a famous distillery. In our next story, we get to check out the Lynchburg Valley Inn.

- Joyce Adams' days start early here at the Lynchburg Valley Inn. In just a few hours, breakfast will be served. She is a one woman show in the kitchen, and no one is leaving here hungry.

- I'm in the house by seven and I already have the coffee ready, so whoever gets up first turns on the coffee pot. And then I just start cooking breakfast. If I have a crowd, it's bacon, eggs, sausage, sometimes biscuit gravy, fried potatoes, hash brown casserole. And if I have a smaller group, they can, ham and cheese omelets, pancakes.

- [Miranda] Today a little southern delicacy is also on the menu.

- It's hard to believe, but I've never had fried bologna before. You know, I grew up on bologna sandwiches, you know, and so, but fried bologna, never had that. So it was quite a treat.

- [Miranda] Adams believes there is a reason breakfast is often called the most important meal of the day.

- Because they don't do it at home. It's a treat. They are busy and they're on the run and they don't take time to fix breakfast and sit down with a family. Do y'all have everything you need?

- We do, this is awesome, this is a great breakfast.

- [Miranda] The Lynchburg Valley Inn was built around 1808, passing through the hands of Lynchburg Royalty, the Tolley family. They were master distillers and blood relatives of Jasper Newton Daniel, or as the world knows him, Jack.

- Very impressed. Unique location, unique home, just found out was part of the Jack Daniels family, which I thought was very interesting.

- [Miranda] A few years ago when the property came up for sale, Lynchburg native, Tommy Anderson had a dream of turning the stately manner into a cozy bed and breakfast.

- I just loved the old house and I just thought it was a good idea. I walked through it and I looked and all the bedrooms had a private bath, everything was set up fairly good and I had to do a few modifications, but other than that, it was ready to go.

- [Joyce] Well, my business partner, Tommy, has lived in Lynchburg probably 35, 40 years, and he called me one day and said, "Hey, what do you think about me buying this house and turning it into a bed and breakfast?" And I said, "Oh, would you like a partner?" And he said, "No." and here I am.

- [Miranda] These days Joyce tends to the guests and Tommy tends to everything else. The spacious and elegant four bedroom, Lynchburg Valley Inn is less than a mile from the shops, sites and sounds of downtown, and the famous Jack Daniels distillery. Now most guests that visit Lynchburg love to take in some of the local flair and walk away, well, very happy.

- Oh yes they do, and I'll pick you up. If you're too happy, I will pick you up. I've got several calls from the winery distillery. "Come pick up your guest." "Alrighty, on my way."

- It seems Tommy and Joyce have thought of every detail. Now some very famous people have visited the Lynchburg Valley Inn, even President Andrew Jackson back in his day, but no one is more famous or more beloved than Buddy the Beagle. He even has his own storybook. Unbeknownst to the Innkeepers, two of their guests were successful authors. They heard the story of Lynchburg's most adorable ambassador, and suddenly the antics of Buddy the Beagle, were captured in a children's book.

- [Joyce] And he comes over here and has breakfast, and I say, "Oh buddy, you're on your way to work." He goes up to Jack Daniel Distillery, hangs around there, comes back, hangs around town, hangs around the cigar store, they make pizza. So he's really thrilled to hang around there. And then he'll get a ride home or he'll walk home and he'll start it again the next day.

- [Miranda] So whether you come to see the town or get away from the city, the Lynchburg Valley Inn is the perfect place to soak in some true southern hospitality.

- I loved it. It's so relaxing, and just the house is beautiful, the rooms were very nicely done, and it was really nice.

- I've enjoyed it ever since. It's just been a good experience meeting a lot of people.

- Then they have a good time and they share their stories and they all go on their way, and they enjoyed their breakfast and enjoyed their visit, and I try to make 'em feel at home. I really like everybody, everybody has a story and I love the stories.

- Thanks a lot, Miranda. Next, we traveled to Carthage to visit a restaurant that's been a hit with the locals since about 2017. Cindy Carter samples the menu at Ebel's Tavern.

- [Cindy] In Carthage, Tennessee, there's a name for folks who regularly venture off Main Street, past the Smith County Courthouse and take the third Avenue steps down to this small tavern, they're called "Ebels Peoples", and they are a loyal bunch.

- We actually have items on our menu that are named after locals because they would come in and they would order certain things a certain way and then everybody would see it and say, "Ooh, I want that." So we have what's called "The Lori Special."

- [Cindy] Erica Ebel and her husband Cole, are the proud owners of Ebel's Tavern.

- How are y'all doing today?

- [Cindy] And when they opened for business in 2017, the couple knew they wanted this tavern to have the same feel and fellowship taverns once did during America's colonial era.

- In Smith County, one of the founding fathers was William Walton and he had a tavern. And so to us, a tavern is historic. I kind of, I lived up in Maryland for a long time, we had all the founding fathers taverns up there. America was kind of birthed in a tavern like, you know, they talked about the constitution, they talked about freedom down there, we talked about stuff like that all the time down here.

- [Cindy] And so it's appropriate that Ebel's Tavern is in the basement of a building that once gave voice to community concerns.

- It's really historic, this building was built in 1917. It was for the Carthage Courier, which is the local newspaper. They had the printing presses down here in the basement where we have our tavern.

- From the building's history to the food, Ebels is incredibly unique. Take the tables, for example, no two are exactly alike. They are hand carved by a local woodworker who used wood from one of Smith County's original log cabins. This one says, "Bye-Bye Blackbird". And this one wisely Notes, "Just because you shot Jesse James, don't make you Jesse James." The tiny tavern fills up pretty quickly come lunchtime. The kitchen staff use its fresh ingredients and unique flavors for each and every dish. From a menu that reflects both Cole's Tennessee upbringing and Erica's South Louisiana background.

- I hear a lot of compliments about our seafood. I'm originally, my family's from Louisiana, I'm a Cajun girl at heart, love that seafood. We've got oysters, we've got amazing grouper sandwiches, we have shrimp, we have poboys, we have steaks.

- [Cindy] And of course they have a full bar, I mean, come on, this is a tavern. And the Ebels say the promise of swapping ideas, discussing politics, sharing community news, oh, and having fun over a tasty beverage is key to the taverns sustained success.

- We're the first restaurant on the square since prohibition to serve liquor by the drink. That gave us some great fans, that gave us some enemies as well. However, that was something where people were like, "Okay, we can congregate, we don't have to like hide in our houses, we can go somewhere and have an adult beverage with some friends and laugh.

- We've got amazing local wines, we've got local beers on tap, craft beers, drinks, just really good stuff. You want a River City Rum runner?

- All around.

- We're known for our River City Rum runner, which is a vacation in the glass, you drink that, you feel like you're on a cruise ship.

- [Cindy] And when you step into this cozy space, you can't help but feel like this will be time well spent. Food, family, and friends.

- We have trivia nights, we have poker nights, we have live music, we have darts back there. These are all things that have really helped us to keep going. It's built a really loyal patronage here.

- [Cindy] Ebel's Tavern attracts people from all over who enjoy stopping in for a hot meal and a cold beverage. And that has helped bring life to the town square.

- There's kind of almost a reawakening downtown Carthage of just businesses, small businesses coming in, coffee shops, boutiques, and it's really cool to kind of see it grow like that small town America feel.

- [Cindy] Who knew a tiny tavern could have such an impact? Ebel's Peoples, that's who, and of course, Erica and Cole, who had the revolutionary vision to open a colonial American inspired tavern, Tennessee style.

- Hey, we love you, come on in, we want you in here. You know, we wanna bring you into Tennessee, show you what it's all about.

- Preservation of an old Tennessee landmark is always momentous, especially when the result is a new place people can enjoy. Such as the case of Nashville's L&L Market, an old structure that might have been destroyed had it not been for the vision of the current owner. About 40 years ago, Tamay Ozari moved to Nashville from Turkey and fell in love with the city. When he discovered the L&L building, it had been vacant for years after a history that goes back to the late 20s. That's when apparel manufacturing joined printing and publishing as a leading local industry. The L&L building housed a hosiery mill making silk stockings.

- All the people around the neighborhood, all the ladies, they worked in this hosiery mill, and years went by. And during the war, they start manufacturing parachute here, 1941 for Fort Campbell. Years later, Jenesco made shoes here, then the building sat empty until Tamay bought it, first for his restaurant supply business. Then as years went by, he decided to share this architectural gem by making it a home for local retailers. So the National Landmark went from this to this, 55,000 square feet of locally owned stores.

- I want people with love and passion what they do, and they brought it here. And whoever comes in here, they will feel it, they will see it, and Southern hospitality will go with it.

- [Joe] Now it doesn't get more local than this, which according to manager Jenny Webb is everything the name implies.

- Well, Made in Tennessee is the easiest way to shop all of your favorite local products. Anything from Goo Goo Cluster, to Moon Pie, to Loveless, so the big names that you know and love, you can always count on us to be fully stocked in those items. But then we have so many other, just maybe newer up and coming local artists and creators that we're proud to carry as well.

- [Joe] According to Jenny, the number one attraction for visiting millennials is everything and anything about Dolly. Yeah, I'd vote for her too, I think. And Anonymous philosopher once said, "Coffee is a hug in a mug." And Honest Coffee Roasters is a top gathering spot for visitors here to grab a mug and gab with a friend. Plus their baristas take their coffee making craft quite seriously. Good.

- If you want a pastry to go with that coffee, five Daughters Bakery is right across the room. And for a unique dining experience, it's hard to beat culture and company. It's an open space, cheese, charcuterie and wine focus place. And get this, thanks to a rotating conveyor belt, it's an interactive experience like none other. See something you like? Just grab it. Need some jewelry? But here's a place where you can watch yours being made before you make a purchase, all thanks to Judith Bryan. Since 1995, Judith has been a leading designer of handmade jewelry. Here at the L&L Market Store, you can watch these talented ladies creating everything from earrings to bracelets.

- We love to make jewelry by hand, and I always say it's, you know, jewelry handmade by women for women, one piece at a time. And so having an open studio concept really drives that home. So you can actually see what you're purchasing and see the people that are imbuing your peace with all of their love in their heart.

- [Joe] Now Judy says her jewelry is for purposeful gifting and the stones have more purpose than beauty alone.

- If you're going through a hard time, you know, for example, you might purchase Labradorite and that's for strength and perseverance. So when you look down at your piece, you just remember, "Okay, keep going." So it's really with that kind of spirit that we encourage people to really look at what they're buying so that it means something to them.

- [Joe] Well, that's just a sample of the merchants that the L&L market has attracted. And the best part for Tamay.

- We are a 100% lease, we don't have any room left.

- [Joe] The history, the timeless architecture, the ambiance, they could have gone away in the name of progress with a new building, but Tamay Ozari had a vision of something better, something he could share with the people of his adopted hometown.

- I'd be able to give back to Nashville, Tennessee, and this community. What I've done, I think this place will be years to come and a lot of people will be happy.

- Before we go, would like to take a moment to recognize the passing of a former colleague from the Crossroads Crew. Back in 1987, Mark Kelly was assigned the task of coming up with the format for a new magazine style show for what was then WDCN television. For the title, he came up with Tennessee Crossroads, as well as the format of featuring four segments every week. Mark was innovative, creative, hardworking, and a downright pleasure to work with. Even though he left the station a few years after Crossroads began, he left his indelible mark on the show today. Well, that's it for this week, don't forget to visit our website when you get a chance where you can download that PBS app. And don't forget to join us next week, we'll be looking for you.

- [Narrator] Tennessee Crossroads is made possible in part by. I'm Tennessee Tech President, Phil Oldham. Here in Cookville, Tennessee's college town, we are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu. 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.