The Purple Daisy

With a Ura State Elmo resident or one of the tourists bound for the lookout mountain attractions, then you will find a new and appetizing dining option that's right along the way. The Purple Daisy picnic cafe sits right at the foot of the historic incline railway. Here to give us all the details, Tony and Lisa Davis, Now it'said that you're new, but I feel Is that right? Oh yeah, we opened 13 years ago this s That's what I thought. Now we're celebrating recently because you had a huge feature story. Tell us about that publication. We was on the cooking channel on the show Southern and Hungry and they come in and did filming for a couple days and then were on with two other restaurants in Chattanooga. They did a Chattanooga segment and they featured our barbecue on that show. That's awesome. How did you get a part of that show? Did you have to apply for it? Did they find you? They just found us. They just called us out of the blue one day. They just, internet research and things Well perfect. We eat here a lot at WDEF because you are right down the road from us, but for our viewers at home if you're not familiar with their food, talk us through what you brought with us today. It smells so good in here. Well they featured our barbecue so we thought we would bring some of that and then we would bring some of our most popular items and some things that people don't really know that we serve there at the restaurant. So our first one is probably our main seller which is our stuffed potato. Things are huge. You've got to be really, really hungry to eat this. It weighs about a pound and a half, two pounds when they're completely finished. It's our biggest seller at the restaurant. That's the most popular one? Okay. Then next to it you have ribs. A lot of people don't want to know we do ribs. We didn't do ribs the first six or seven years and then we started adding them as a special and things But now they're on the menu full time for the last three years or so and they're becoming a very popular item. They just fall off the bone ribs. Absolutely. They look great. They do a couple of different salad options. Maybe it looks Yes. These are actually our barbecue nachos and we added them to the menu about a year ago and they are one of the hot items. It's got the white queso cheese and you can top it with lettuce, tomato, onions, sour cream, jalapenos. You can get pork or chicken on them and they're just really delicious. All on that great, better crunchy tortilla chips. Right? Yeah. All right. And then for your health conscious of course. And this is what a lot of people don't know we have is this smoked chicken salad. It is really one of the top salads around. I mean we put all fresh vegetables and all the fresh smoked chicken on top of it and we do sell a lot of these. But a lot of people don't know we have things I've ordered that salad several times and this smoked chicken blows me away each and every time. It is so tender but it's not so juicy that it ruins the salad. It's perfect. It's just a perfect compliment to a salad. Okay. So what do we think about picnic or cafe? We think about our sandwiches and so you brought along some of your classic sandwiches as well. This is definitely the classic sandwich. This is the rainbow sandwich. This is the one everybody talks about and goes over. Most restaurants don't do this sandwich. So it is a tea sandwich with a layer of chicken salad, cuc It's all the favorites at the moment. Just a big burst of flavor when you eat it. I didn't eat one of these things for I'm And finally I did and it'so a lot of the men, they eat that sandwich too with the women. That does not make you any less manly because it tastes good. Yeah. Some of them will leave the crust on. There we go. It makes them feel better. Put the picky down, right? Okay. Talk us through your great side options as well. Yeah. And we have multiple sides. We make all these from scratch. We have our, of course, our baked beans for barbecue and when we make the potato salad and we have the hash brown casserole is the most popular side. The cheesy hash browns and all the gooey stuff in there. Who doesn't love a good hash brown casserole? Oh, yes. I mean anything with cheese and potatoes, you cannot go wrong. And they featured that on the show as well. Yeah. That was one of the big items. We do our make our own coleslaw and then we have the spicy mustard based coleslaw that goes along with the barbecue really, really well. And then you have some chilies as well? We do. And that's a lot of people. See, I did not know that was on the video and I did a lot. Exactly. Yeah. So a lot of people don't know we do homemade chili and we sell a lot of homemade chili. And then the big one is the Brunswick stew. This is, we make that and it is really one of the best Brunswick stews you'll ever eat. Now what is really a Brunswick stew? It's, they call it a barbecue stew. Okay. So we put the pork and the chicken in it and a barbecue sauce and it has lime and beans and cream corn and. So it's a nice hearty soup though. Oh yeah. And we'll run out of people there. Where's the Brunswick stew? Where's the Brunswick stew? But we keep it all every day starting here in the fall. We'll keep it every day. Perfect. And it cannot go wrong with the classic banana pudding. I know that's what is down there. This is We won Chattanooga's Best Banana Pudding a couple years ago and he got to wear a banana crown. Oh perfect. Very nice. But yeah, this is really popular. It's got cream cheese in it. Makes it nice and creamy and just delicious. And now you do have, you could do to go orders. You can come and sit down inside or outside. You can even accommodate large groups as they come through. Tell us a little bit about your services. Well, we do have, we seat So we have both seating there. We do have groups come in from the incline and different church groups and things. But one of the main things people that don't know what we really do is catering. And we do lots of catering. And so we are able to do these potato bars. Oh perfect. And then we can do the pork. I mean, any of these things up here we can do for catering also. All right. That is good to know. Okay. So how does someone need to get in touch with you if they want to talk to you about catering or just come down for lunch or dinner? Oh yeah. They can call 822-6477 is the n And we do have a website. It's the purple daisypicknetcafe. com. And they can just call and talk to me or Ashley about catering and we can get it all handled for them. All right. Tony and Ashley, Thanks for bringing this delicious food. And I know I'll see So hopefully The purple daisypicknetcafe right down the road on St. Elmo Avenue at the foot of Lookout Mountain. We'll be right back on Let's Chat.