If you look past the scores of chain restaurants that line our city’s streets, you will find there are a whole lot of great independent restaurants to discover in Clarksville. As I continue to explore the Clarksville Food Scene, my goal is to highlight as many of them as possible, giving them a bit of free advertising and a whole lot of exposure.
My purpose is to tell of my experience at the restaurant. I don’t announce that I am coming. I want to receive the same food and service that anyone else would receive. Sometimes things are better than others. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I did or didn’t like the restaurant. I am simply recounting my experience while eating at these locally owned restaurants, and inviting others to go and experience the food for themselves.
Over the past year, I have discovered cuisines from neighbors who are not native to Clarksville, but who have come here to make a life. I have tasted flavors from lands that I have yet to explore—Jamaica: Jamaican Kitchen and Taste Jamaica; Vietnam: Little Saigon; Germany: Silke’s; Japan: Kisoro; Greece: Sam’s Greek Café, among others. By visiting locally owned restaurants, I have seen the realizations of people’s dreams: Miss Lucille’s Café, Hops Road, New South Café, Pbody’s, Madison Avenue Bistro, and Fox’s BBQ, to name a few. These restaurants, the owners and staff, have given me (and you) the opportunity to experience what hard work and heart mean to each one of them.
This all sounds rather poetic, and perhaps it would be better to focus on the practical. Supporting local restaurants keeps more of your hard earned dollars in our local economy. Local restaurateurs are more likely to be involved in their communities. Local venues have an original flair and the freedom to flaunt it, as what they do and offer is not dictated by someone outside of our community. There is a sense of pride and accomplishment that comes from the restaurants locally owned. These are not just businesses that follow the rules of a large corporation. The names on the loans are those of your neighbors.
Does the sense of local pride mean that you will never eat at a chain restaurant again? Does it mean that every meal you have at the local independent restaurant will be perfect? Probably not, but perhaps, when you have the choice, it will make you more inclined to think about supporting your neighbors. And maybe, if we all rally to show a huge swell of support for our independent restaurants, more will come along, more will strive to offer really well-made food, more will thrive, and we will be able to savor all the more the flavors of people’s dreams and hard work right here in Clarksville.