IT WAS A LITTON'S CHILI DOG DAY IN TENNESSEE

Sixty-three years ago (1946) Eldridge Litton founded Litton’s Market originally located in the small north Knoxville community of Inskip. Litton's Market became known for offering a wide range of groceries, produce, hardware, feed, and it was a full service gas station!

Today, in the heart of Fountain City it's a crowded institution (restaurant) that is well known to the locals for high quality ingredients and what are arguably the best burgers in Knoxville. Newcomers need to know that when you arrive, you need to put your name on the seating chalkboard to ensure you get a table as orderly as possible.

Litton's interior is similar to a country style market with products they serve proudly displayed. Several meat cases display the meats served in the restaurant and to the front and right of the counter is some of the best desserts Knoxville has to offer.

Litton's Market and Restaurant is known for their burgers and have graced the pages of Southern Living Magazine as being the best. If you visit at peak serving hours, expect to wait. Litton's is clearly a Knoxville tradition and the local regulars will definitely out number the new comers.

One other plus of satisfaction, is that Litton's recently received a 100 on their Health Inspection Report!

Judy and I broke tradition, having been wanting a good chili/slaw dog for sometime, and ordered the huge Chili Dog. It's a quarter pound all beef frank grilled then topped with slaw, cheddar cheese, homemade chili and bun, and fresh onions. We also got an order of onion rings on the side.

There's nothing ever frozen at Litton's, and even the onion rings are hand made at the restaurant.

Unfortunately, even though I decided to take half of mine home, I still had no room for dessert! That's a shame at Litton's because their homemade desserts are celebrated as the best anywhere! However, my recent surgery seems to be working well and holding down the amount I can eat at one sitting. Hopefully, that will be a good thing!

Judy had an appointment earlier to get her 10-year old "permanent cosmetics" refreshed! I won't go into that here, but it keeps her beautiful, so I went along to help locate the shop which had since relocated. I ended up sitting in the car for the most of 3 hours, with a short break at the new Kroger store nearby. Their facilities were big, new, clean, and came just in the nick of time!

Before stopping at Litton's, we did a short "Dogwood Arts Festival" tour of Gibbs Road. The garden side of the Fountain City trail begins on Gibbs Road where the houses and the bright pink dogwood trees date from the early 1920's.

When those trees were planted, pink dogwoods were big news in horticulture. They had only recently been developed by grafting wild pink trees on white dogwood rootstock. Native pink dogwoods are very rare, but a few of them exist in Knoxville's woodlands. In the wild, their blossoms are a very pale shell pink.

The festival last the entire month of April, so if you ever plan to visit East Tennessee, try and schedule so you can see the beauty of Knoxville in spring!