Episode 3905

- [Narrator 1] "Tennessee Crossroads" is brought to you in part by.

- [Narrator 2] 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.

- [Narrator 3] Discover Tennessee Trails & Byways where adventure, cuisine and history come together. With 16 scenic driving trails, you can discover why Tennessee sounds perfect. Trips can be planned at tntrailsandbyways.com.

- [Narrator 4] 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.

- [Narrator 5] 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.

- This week on "Tennessee Crossroads," we're serving pizza with a side of steak. We'll take a stroll through two centuries of Nashville history, climb a mountain for some delicious baked goods and get on board at Chattanooga Choo Choo. Pardon me, boys but that sounds like a great show. I'm Miranda Cohen. Come along for the ride. There's a popular Greek restaurant in Manchester that's been around for half a century. So Laura Faber had to find out the secret to their success. What isn't a secret is how good the food is at J&G Pizza and Steak House.

- [Laura] Is it really like my "Big Fat Greek Wedding" here?

- Yes.

- Yes, it is.

- [Laura] More than half century ago, Jim and Lisa Rouvelas moved from a small town in Greece to America, eventually landing in Manchester, Tennessee to open a restaurant right off Highway 55. J&G Pizza and Steak House was open before Interstate 24 was complete.

- [Lisa] I didn't even own a cookbook.

- [Laura] All these years later, Lisa is still the heart of the restaurant.

- I think it's the spices we use, the Greek spices because everybody says it's so delicious, so good.

- [Laura] The day-to-day management of J&G is now the job of Lisa's daughter Kiki Sherrill and her husband Justin.

- I literally grew up in the stock room in a playpen. I think they would just move me around, me and my sister Dina. And I don't know that I knew that this was going to be my passion, like when I was a teenager, even in college. But I soon found out that yeah, hospitality is where I belong.

- [Laura] The restaurant has the spirit of a small Greek village.

- [Kiki Sherrill] Mom is still here every morning. She comes in and she usually stays through lunch. I learn so much, you know, from her, you know, and then you sometimes you're just like, wow, you know, she's always right, you know? I mean, she does know.

- [Laura] The responsibility of J&G's homemade pizza dough has been passed down to Justin.

- [Kiki Sherrill] And he's just like a natural at it.

- [Laura] On average, 75 pounds of dough a day using a 52-year-old commercial mixer.

- So I've been doing this for about 19 years and my father-in-law did not want me to just take off and start doing it on my own. He wanted to keep an eye on it. He didn't measure, he didn't measure anything. If he was watching me, he would definitely be telling me right now, like, "You put too much oil, you didn't put enough water." Our dough is a different type of dough. It's got less yeast so it won't rise on you and take off and blow up like some of the other dough. So this actually gets a little bit better with a little bit of time. We measure every every dough ball, but honestly, after this many years, I mean, you can feel in your hand what... You know what 10 ounces is, you know what five ounces is.

- Bits of the Greek culture are sprinkled throughout J&G's from the secret recipe spices that are used to season all the food to the decor, like this massive mural of the Parthenon, which is the centerpiece. The menu at J&G is huge and everything on it has a Greek twist. All of the seasoning and sauces served here are a secret family recipe.

- [Kiki Sherrill] We're very much known for our pizzas. They're very unique. It's a thin and crispy crust and we braid the edges. So it's a little different than, you know, your typical pizza. I would say our most popular dishes are any of our marinated grilled meats, like our grilled chicken, our shish kebab. The shish kebabs are original to the menu and that's kind of like, you know, in Greece we have souvlaki, which is skewered pork. That is kind of our way of incorporating that Greek cuisine. Our grilled chicken, our Philly cheese steak sandwich is, you know, we are famous for that.

- [Laura] Most of the customers are regulars and considered family. Same with the staff.

- They call me yaya or mom, you know, and I love it. We have our cooks. I feel like they grew up here.

- [Laura] Head server Natasha has been here 19 years. Tricia 13. Head cook Andre has been here for 30. Customers appreciate this. Carter Same comes two to three times a week.

- Our little community doesn't have anything that really compares to this, that touches so many people on a daily basis or a weekly basis. And it grounds us. It defines us.

- [Laura] Allison Dotson is also a regular. She's here with some local business owners.

- Well, they're consistently good. And I mean, everything you order's gonna be good, but also, it's the people that own it. So, I mean, they're great people. They do a lot for the community. Everybody wants to know the recipe for the chicken marinade.

- But--

- It's secret.

- [Allison] Yeah, it's secret. They're not gonna get that out. I don't blame them.

- [Laura] Captain Bob Mathern and friends eat here every week.

- The people that own this are fabulous. They're treat everybody like family and the food is spectacular. The portions are, some of 'em are gargantuan, like the baked spaghetti. There's only a few humans on the planet that can eat it all at one sitting.

- [Laura] It is a big Greek family affair at J&G. Kiki and Justin's son Dimitri helps roll the dough. Jack and Gus bus tables. Nine-year-old Juliana often helps at the hostess stand.

- More people don't like own a business. And it's kind of crazy that my family does 'cause it's really hard to like get a business that like popular and...

- [Laura] And that sticks around.

- Yeah, I'm happy

- [Laura] J&G Pizza and Steak House is a happy place, serving up great food and great culture, a priceless combination that has filled hearts and bellies since 1972.

- Obviously, you know, my parents are great cooks. I mean, they like tasty food, you know? I feel like Manchester grew with my parents, you know? So they saw us grow up and now, you know, there's, you know, multiple generations of families coming here. It just feels cozy I think.

- We love them and they love us and we think, I mean, just because them, we're still here because the community, they keep us here because if we didn't have the support, we wouldn't be here.

- Thanks, Laura. When it comes to destinations, cemeteries are usually one of the places you might want to avoid as long as possible, but the Nashville City Cemetery has countless stories to tell. Cindy Carter took a tour not long ago and learned a lot about its fascinating 200-year history.

- [Cindy] Just about a mile from downtown Nashville's booming Broadway Street, there's a quiet place where silent voices still have so much to say. The Nashville City Cemetery is more than the final resting place for more than 20,000 people. It's also a green space, a garden, a public Metro Nashville Park, and an outdoor museum.

- Nashville City Cemetery is in effect a history book of Nashville. The founders are here, some of the principal early settlers are here. This tells us the story of how Nashville came to be and how we came to be the city that we are today.

- [Cindy] Past Cemetery Association President Jim Hubler leads a tour through the headstones and monuments, providing context for the stories they represent.

- [Jim] Follow me, Mr. Robertson.

- [Cindy] And some visitors strolling through the park just might be lucky enough to spot a ghost from the past, eager to share their story.

- [William] Good afternoon. How are you folks?

- Good.

- Yeah. I am Governor Carroll.

- [Cindy] William Carroll was elected governor six times and held the office longer than any other Tennessee governor. His military career includes service under Andrew Jackson during the Creek War, and again during the war of 1812.

- I had the great distinction of commanding the Tennesseans at the Battle of New Orleans, and after that amazing victory, I came back here to Nashville and embarked on a certain business endeavor. You see, I brought the first steamboat to Nashville and named it after my friend Andrew Jackson.

- [Cindy] Full disclosure, this is not the ghost of Governor William Carroll, but the cemetery does often call upon volunteers to embody some of the notable individuals buried here.

- I've always just loved the past. It's what makes us who we are today, and if we don't really remember where we come from, who are we gonna be in the future?

- Now, the headstones don't just mark the graves. Many of them are unique works of art, and it's really cool to consider what the symbols might reveal about the person buried underneath, such as obelisks, which represent greatness or ivy, which represents immortality. But few are as detailed as William Driver's, the man who gave the American flag its nickname Old Glory.

- [Jim] The grave's interesting. It's a tree that's cut short because that was a symbol for a life cut short. It also has a ship's anchor on it because he was a sailor.

- [Cindy] The symbols and crumbling stones were in danger of becoming a forgotten footnote until the City of Nashville intervened with restoration projects for the graves and monuments.

- [Jim] And by preserving it, we're handing it on for generations to come.

- [Cindy] Today the Nashville City Cemetery is a quiet refuge, a place to learn. And remember, the many souls buried here still have something to say to all who care to listen.

- So thank you for visiting my tomb today.

- Thanks, Cindy. Beautiful place. They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. In our next story, we travel to Tracy City to meet the owner of the oldest bakery in the state and learn how she is savoring the sweet success of the original family founders. We are at Tennessee's oldest family-owned bakery. We are at Dutch Maid Bakery, started in 1902 by John and Louise Baggenstoss.

- [Miranda] There are a few places and people in Tennessee who need no introduction. Since 2005, Cindy Day has been the owner of the famous Dutch Maid Bakery here in Tracy City. It's the oldest family-owned bakery in the state of Tennessee and the 13th oldest bakery in the country.

- They bought this lot and they built the first bakery in 1902 and they had six boys. They lived upstairs and they worked downstairs, as with many European families that moved to America. And all six of the boys grew up inside the bakery. They all learned to work and to work very, very hard.

- [Miranda] The picturesque views from the Cumberland Plateau reminded the family of their home back in Switzerland. They started baking and feeding the growing community.

- [Cindy] When I bought the place, the original recipes, there was like this huge shelf full of all these notebooks, and some of them, that was the most remarkable part, was some of 'em were handwritten in German.

- [Miranda] During the early 1900s, the bakery thrived in the booming town of Tracy City. When duty called, all six bag Baggenstoss boys gladly went to serve their country. They all came back and went to work in the bakery. Thanks to hand deliveries, horse-drawn wagons, and the newly installed railway, breads and cakes from the bakery were sent all over the state and even to 17 different countries.

- [Cindy] And in the '70s, that was when our famous fruitcake really took off.

- [Miranda] Once selling 30,000 fruitcakes a season, and Cindy uses the same tried and true recipe today.

- We're just honored to, when we use those old mixers, to remember that many went before us and used those old mixers, and that old dried fruit, the raisins and the dates and the cherries and the pineapple and all that going into it. So yep, it's a lot of memories in that. I learned if a recipe calls for real butter, you should use real butter. If it calls for real heavy cream, you have to use real heavy cream. So we do all of those kind of things. We use real dark rich cocoa, you know, like we use all of the things that make it the best. Cinnamon rolls is like my number one favorite thing. It's a easy basic scratch recipe, but I love it. I make cinnamon rolls about every day.

- [Miranda] Every day Cindy and her staff are still hand rolling and proofing the same breads they baked back in 1902, including the Chuck Wagon bread and the Salt-Rise bread.

- [Cindy] We also make a variety of sweet breads that they didn't necessarily make back then. Like we make like pistachio almond, we make a chocolate raspberry.

- [Miranda] But today she is also serving up hearty breakfasts, old-fashioned sandwiches and plated lunches.

- So we do eggs, omelets, pancakes, French toast, and you haven't lived till you've had French toast on our bread. It's so delicious. And today we're making chicken and dumplings and green beans, pinto beans.

- One day a man walked into the Dutch Maid Bakery and asked Cindy Day about the famous whiskey cake. Well, Cindy didn't know they sold a whiskey cake, but in fact they did. Years before, this particular man used to buy about 250 cakes for his employees. So Cindy consulted her very famous and very old recipe books, and sure enough, she found a recipe for the whiskey cake. And as soon as Tennessee made putting moonshine in baked goods legal, she solved that problem. The Dutch Maid Bakery is once again a hub and a meeting place in Tracy City. Even the Mayor Stacy Hutchinson likes to indulge.

- Well, I'm a native here. This has been here my whole life. I can remember coming in as a kid getting some cookies, and now I bring my granddaughter. We come in and get cookies and the chess bars are my favorite in that department.

- [Cindy] It means so much to me when people come in and then they tell me that they remember this when they were a child. I wanna be that link between the past and the future. I think that when I first bought the bakery, I did not realize what I was really getting into. I just felt like it was an old business that was important to Tracy City, but I didn't realize how important it was to Grundy County and how important it is to southeast Tennessee and the whole state of Tennessee. I've tried my very, very best to keep it as much authentic but yet into where we need it to be to survive.

- Our final story is from one of the original "Crossroads" producers, Jerry Thompson. Now, Jerry was quite a character who was famous for a number of hilarious segments over the years. He was also a big fan of trains and this flashback on the Tennessee Valley Railroad is one of his best.

- [Jerry] At first glance, you might think this is a story about trains and it is, but it's also about dreams. It seems the two often go hand in hand. When I was a kid, I could stand out in my yard and hear the trains go through Springfield. There's just something about the moanful whistle of a steam locomotive that conjures up dreams, dreams of all kinds, lovers' dreams of being brought together, adventurers' dreams of being taken far away to strange and exciting places, mothers' dreams of trains bringing their sons safely home for more and the dreams were as endless as a person's imagination. For me, I always dreamed of driving a steam locomotive, of feeling the rumble and the power and the heat, and blowing the whistle. I guess that was the highlight of my dreams, blowing the whistle. Of course, as I grew older and steam engines became obsolete, my dreams faded. But sometimes dreams, even those of yesteryear, do come true. I found this out on a recent visit to Chattanooga where steam locomotives still run the rails on a regular basis. I could feel my heart pound a little faster and my mind racing back to my childhood. As I stood on the platform and watched old 630 pull into the East Chattanooga station. I even pinched myself just to see if I was dreaming. Dave Marshall is the operations manager for the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. The museum operates a restoration shop and a fully functional railroad. Now, the engine in the old 630, when was it built?

- It was built in 1904. It's 84 years old now. Probably one of the oldest engines in active, regular service. Now, there are some older engines around. We've got some older ones here, but running every day, there're not many of 'em that that do that.

- [Jerry] And you carry passengers every day on the line?

- Yes, sir, during the summer months, we're open seven days a week, Monday through Saturday. We run seven trains a day. Sunday we run five and every day till Labor Day. Then after that, we go to weekends.

- [Jerry] Now, in October when all the leaves change color, you have a special excursion trainage.

- Right, that's our Autumn Leaves special. It runs from downtown Chattanooga to Oneida, Tennessee this year. This is our first year to Oneida in several years. It goes up through some very scenic country as far as East Tennessee, the mountains, the plateaus go. It's a beautiful trip.

- One of the problems with a train is turning it around. The Tennessee Valley Railroad has a working turntable just for this purpose. The turntable was built in 1916, and it's so perfectly balanced. It takes only a 25 horsepower motor to turn a train that weighs many tons. Not only does the museum operate a railroad, they also restore locomotives and rail cars. This is the Eden Isle and this is the way corporate executives traveled more than a half a century ago. This private rail car was built especially for the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He used it as a rolling office to take him throughout the system. And what better way to travel? Thick carpet, solid mahogany. And what better way to keep an eye on your business, see how things are running? He could look at his own personal gauges and find out whether or not he's on schedule. He'd tell what the temperature was and how fast he was going. That's the way to travel. I also took a walking tour of the yard just in case I ever wanted to buy my own rail car. How do you inspect a rail car? I did it the only way I know.

- Aboard.

- Finally, it was time for my dream to come true. I took my place in the cab of the engine. You know, ever since I was a kid in Springfield growing up on a farm, and I could hear the trains go through every morning, every afternoon, the old steam engines were the most lonesome whistle I've ever heard. I always had a dream that I'd like to sit right up in the cab of one of those big, powerful locomotives, and even drive it. Well, part of that dream I'm fulfilling today. I'm sitting right up in the cab of a powerful steam locomotive. Who knows, before the day's over, I might complete the rest of that dream. They might let me drive it. And they did. I found the throttle very responsive, engine very powerful, and the fire box very hot, but it didn't take long to get everything running smooth. That's when I could devote my full attention to blowing the whistle. A fella can be real creative with the train whistle. He can make it a quick blast or make it moan and groan. I brushed creativity aside and I just blew the whistle. After riding in the engine, I went back to the passenger cars where I enjoyed the scenery and the freedom to relax and move around. However, some passengers left no doubt as to the soothing effect the click of the rails has on a person. Sometimes it'll even put you to sleep. As I stood at the rear of the train and watched the glistening rails play out in the endless ribbons of steel, I wondered if my young friends would remember this day as I would. I wondered if their first exposure to a train pulled by a steam engine would fan the flames of their dreams into a lifelong love affair with trains and with dreams too in that moment. I hope so because old 630 stands as a huffing, puffing monument to a bygone era when people had time to dream as lavishly as they could imagine, and my presence on this train and the rumble and the heat and the smell of coal smoke in the air all stands as proof that some dreams really come true.

- Great story. Jerry was such a great storyteller. Now, you can check out all of our stories any time at tennesseecrossroads.org or on the PBS app, and please be sure to meet us back here next week. Thanks for watching.

- [Narrator 1] "Tennessee Crossroads" is brought to you in part by.

- [Narrator 2] 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.

- [Narrator 3] Discover Tennessee Trails & Byways where adventure, cuisine and history come together. With 16 scenic driving trails, you can discover why Tennessee sounds perfect. Trips can be planned at tntrailsandbyways.com.

- [Narrator 4] 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.

- [Narrator 5] 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.