Grub Scout: Fountain City spot shakes, rattles and rolls out diner faves

Fountain City is the kind of place that seems ideally suited for independently owned, neighborhood restaurants. The Fountain City Creamery and Litton’s are just a couple of notable local success stories, and now Fountain City Diner is attempting to carve out a niche of its own north of I-640.

I stopped in one evening for a solo dinner, although the diner — which opens at 8 a.m. every day but Sundays — serves three meals a day, including breakfast all day. It was a weeknight, but the place was doing a fairly brisk business.

The U-shaped interior offers a succession of large, wooden booths on both sides of the aisle. Windows are abundant, but other than a few vintage pieces of advertising memorabilia, the clean and agreeably decorated dining area is mostly lacking in thematic decor.

The fare, however, has “diner” written all over it. You could start with a bowl of chili or dig into a fiesta salad topped with barbecue chicken strips, roasted corn, jack cheese and fried onions. Both cold- and hot-sandwich plates are served, including a BLT, a turkey club, a catfish po’ boy and a Reuben dressed with Cajun remoulade as well as turkey, meatloaf and meatball sandwiches served open-faced.

Daily blue-plate specials are also served, beginning at 11 a.m. The lineup ranges from buttermilk-fried chicken breast with cram gravy to chicken potpie to salmon croquettes. Two sides and a roll accompany most of these selections.

I had heard good things about Fountain City Diner’s burgers, and I was interested in going the old-school diner route, so I focused on a beefy selection that includes a barbecue-based Smoky Mountain burger, a mushroom burger, a kraut burger and a spicy fiesta burger. My selection: the Red Hot and Blue Burger ($8.99), made with blue cheese dressing and hot-wing sauce.

All burgers are served with crinkle-cut fries, and purely in the interest of research, I forced myself to order a handmade chocolate milkshake for $4.99 (which happened to make me think of John Travolta blustering about his five-dollar milkshake in the film “Pulp Fiction”).

My waitress, who was thorough and diligent throughout my meal, despite sharing the load of the restaurant with only one other server, delivered my food in a reasonable amount of time. The patty was well done, though it was certainly not overcooked. The blue cheese was applied modestly, and the hot sauce — though not laid on excessively — trickled down the sides.

The burger was filled out by freshly sliced onions, tomatoes and pickles, and all the ingredients combined resulted in a uniquely enjoyable burger. The tartness of the blue cheese and the bearably zesty wing sauce were noteworthy accents but did not overwhelm the patty’s beefiness or the cool crunchiness of the veggies (by the way, I can’t stand the word “fixins”). It’s not the tidiest burger to consume, so make sure you’ve got enough napkins on hand.

I was actually disappointed by the shake, which was served in a traditional soda fountain-style glass and topped with whipped cream and a cherry. The consistency was just right — thick, but not so thick you couldn’t get it through a straw — but the chocolate flavor and richness of the ice cream seemed lacking to me.

It was a nice touch when the owners personally stopped by each party’s table to say hello and check in on the quality of the food and service. So despite my shake letdown, I have no qualms about venturing back to that fountain — or its similarly named diner and exploring other areas of the menu.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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