We crossed the Tennessee River on the 14th Street Bridge and turned onto Market Street to find the restaurant for dinner. It had been a heavy day of sight-seeing, and we were ready for a relaxing dinner. We had input the restaurant's address into the Acura's navigation system as well as the smart phone. It became rather amusing hearing two female voices giving directions using different descriptions. I expected that any minute they might get into an argument. The address was 1400 Market street, and we managed to pass it by but took the next left and found ourselves in an alley. I noticed some people in waiter clotting puffing on cigarettes and surmised that we were near an eatery. As we entered Market from the alley I noticed "Station House" on a sign and knew that we had found the place. But, alas, signage said, "For Hotel Registered Hotel Guests Only" and Claudette would not park in an unauthorized space. Behind the hotel we found a friendly fellow on a golf cart who said that the restaurant was right behind him and that we could park in the lot behind the hotel.
We alighted and found ourselves near a number of old railroad cars of various vintages. There were dining, pullman, and regular passenger cars. There was a multi-colored nineteenth century steam locomotive and a streetcar from the same era as we followed the signs to the Station House. We entered and a pretty girl in black asked if we would follow her to our table. I actually would have followed her anywhere, but, of course, I was not alone. It was a huge room and quite dark. I thought to myself, "This is another of those places where they don't want you to see what you are eating". The room had once been the baggage handling area for the railroad station. You could see flashes of polished brass and light from the neon beer signs and stained glass lamp shades. There was a large bar in front of us with a bandstand behind it, and I thought I heard a bit of "Sweet Home Alabama" from an electric guitar. (This place was looking good!)
Our waiter announced, "Welcome to the Station House, I'm Billy, and I'll be taking care of you". We ordered a couple of sweet iced teas and headed for the all-you-can-eat salad bar. It wasn't anything fancy but was fresh and with a lot of variety. There were mounds of peel-and-eat shrimp which I noticed most of the blue jeans and baseball capped customers did not eat. We ordered our entrees: New York strip for me and prime rib for Claudette when Billy returned. About halfway through our salads one of the waitresses took off her apron, grabbed a microphone, mounted the stage, and commenced to belt out a great version of Aretha Franklin's "Think". In one of the next songs Billy joined the back-up singers and hit the high notes. For each song selected waiters and waitresses would remove their aprons, mount the stage, perform, and put their aprons back on before grabbing platters of food to serve hungry customers. Three girls did a great job on Wilson Phillips, "Hold On", and Claudette got serenaded with a version of, "Jailhouse Rock" by the first performer to leave the stage and continue singing. Billy, our waiter, brought our food and was summoned to the stage to sing lead in the Hues Corporation's "Don't Rock the Boat'. We heard quite a few songs from the sixties and seventies and the Andrews Sisters' "Sincerely" from the forties in perfect harmony. We finished up the meal with some apple cheesecake. The band finally played the obiligatory "Chattanooga Choo-Choo", and we had had about as much fun as we could handle. We left and crossed the bridge for another night on the steamboat.
The Station House has the recipe for good fun and good food.
