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Feature article
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Old College Inn scores with mettwurst, beans
By Fred Sauceman
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The Old College Inn
LOCATION: 2204 Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville, Tennessee
PHONE: 865-523-4597 |
On the Cumberland Avenue “strip” in Knoxville, Tennessee, hamburger steaks fried by Greek cooks have given way to turkey wraps and fruit smoothies. Descending into the beery Roman Room for a Vol Burger is only a memory. Sam & Andy’s steamed sandwiches have moved west of town. Drugstore check-cashing for students has virtually disappeared. Cottage cheese croquettes from the University of Tennessee’s Sophronia Strong Hall cafeteria were abandoned years ago.
Bordering the UT campus, the crowded roadway is testament to the changing tastes and fashions of college students. One restaurant, though, has held out, avoiding the squeeze of chain restaurants, its signature dish defying most diets. Today’s Old College Inn opened in 1939 as Brownie’s, and platters of mettwurst and beans still anchor the menu.
“Brownie’s was an old-style diner like you might see in a five-and-dime, with a flat grill, old stools, a guy in a white shirt and paper hat, cooking grilled cheese and burgers and offering up plate lunches,” says Mike Clark, who owns the Old College Inn with his brother Randy.
Mike says the owners who sold them the business in 2002 were adamant that it not be bought by a corporation and specified that the restaurant should remain in the hands of UT alumni.
For faithful fans of the Big Orange, mettwurst and beans are treasured on the same level as “Rocky Top” and the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. The sausages are scored, steamed in a sandwich steamer, and finished off on the grill. They come to the table boldly, encircled by home-cooked white beans, homemade chili, a garnish of onions, relish, raw horseradish and a side of pumpernickel bread.
“What makes the metts special are the spices and the type of casing,” Mike reveals. “Most customers cut the sausages in bite-sized pieces and dip them in the beans and chili, then sometimes the relish, onions, and horseradish — a bite of everything. Then they sop up all the leftover gravy from the beans with the bread. It’s a stick-to-your-ribs meal.”
When the name changed to Old College Inn in 1972, hot plate specials like turkey and roast beef dinners were joined on the menu by hamburgers, catfish sandwiches and Cheese Bing appetizers — cubes of cheese that are breaded, deep-fried, and served with marinara sauce or honey mustard.
Throughout the restaurant, headlines proclaim the glories of UT sports: “Lady Vols Nation’s Best”; “Sugar Vols Are Perfect”; and “Big Orange Snake Hisses on ‘Strip’ as Post-Game Frenzy Hits Streets,” above the story of Tennessee’s dramatic 28-27 football victory over Alabama on Oct. 21, 1984.
In what the brothers call the Annex, the Russ Bebb Collection of historic UT sports photographs salutes former wide receiver and track star Willie Gault and the late defensive lineman Reggie White. Bebb, who wrote for the Knoxville Journal newspaper, worked as a spotter and statistician for popular play-by-play broadcaster John Ward during UT football broadcasts and as official scorer for Volunteer basketball games. Ward called him “the human adding machine.”
“My father and I played golf with Russ a lot,” Mike remembers. “After he died in 2004, his widow La Wanda allowed us to go through his archives and take out anything we wanted.”
The Clark brothers are conservators of Knoxville’s past. The walls of their Cumberland Avenue bar and restaurant chronicle the sports history of their alma mater while their menu preserves a 70-year tradition of serving mettwurst and beans, stiff with horseradish, awash in chili, and safe from passing fads.
--------GoTriCities--------
Food writer Fred Sauceman, author of the book “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Level,” is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University. E-mail him at sauceman@etsu.edu.
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