CFB Travel Guy

Exemplary Southern cuisine in an elite Southern college town

Before I get rollin’, a necessary disclosure: The Place was founded by two brothers I’m proud to call friends. But make no mistake: as much as I like them, my hatred for their fandom and matriculation choices would not prevent me from panning their restaurant if it were terrible. I’d probably even bark in their faces while doing so. Fortunately for them, The Place is far from terrible.

I met up with Alan, one of the founding brothers and the current owner-operator of The Place, on the Friday night before The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. We hung out in the second-floor bar area, where an attentive and outgoing staff plied us with expertly mixed Old Fashioneds and a variety of local craft beers on tap.

After an hour and a half of catching up with Alan over cocktails and lamenting our teams’ woes (Georgia was coming off an emotional loss to Bama while my Gators sputtered to a 2-2 start), I couldn’t hold off on the food menu any longer.

My biggest issue with The Place is that its menu is small, yet every item sounds incredible. It makes me want to order one of everything. It seems almost villainously deceptive in that way, an accusation I’ve leveled directly at ownership. Seriously, the one item on the menu that doesn’t entice me is the bourbon-glazed salmon, but only for the fact that I detest salmon to the degree that I would need a fifth of bourbon instead of a mere bourbon glaze to make it palatable. But if you’re one of those people who digs fish that can’t even swim in the proper direction, I’m sure it’s fabulous.

While stuck in this menu conundrum, I decided to put the onus on the waitress to pick my entree — a choice I narrowed to the chicken & waffle or the shrimp burger. I was anticipating the suspense to linger until my mystery plate arrived, but her immediate exclamation of “Ohmygosh, I eat the chicken & waffle basically every shift!” gave the game away early.

In hindsight, her excitement made sense. The dish is delectable, a mix of well-balanced savory and sweet.

Stuffed and satisfied, I headed out. But it wasn’t my last interaction with The Place during this trip…

Following the game on Saturday, I stopped back in with my friend, Dan, who had hooked me up with a ticket to the showdown with Auburn. The 3:30pm kickoff meant Downtown Athens was hopping postgame with hungry and victorious Bulldog fans searching for supper — a festive atmosphere ratcheted up by news of Alabama’s shocking defeat at the hands of Vanderbilt.

Counter-service spots had lines out the door and the sit-down establishments were quoting as high as 2-hour wait times. We figured we’d take a stab at getting back into The Place, despite knowing that it would be packed and that Alan was wrapped up in gameday catering duties and would not be onsite.

While I’m disappointed to report that my capacity for ostentatious name-dropping remains extremely high, it did land us a quick table. I never claimed to be a great person.

After the very manly experience of watching pads pop for 3+ hours, I had a primal craving for a slab of meat. We started with a couple of palate cleansers (read: beers) and an order of Southern Bruschetta: toast points covered with pimento cheese, chopped bacon, tomatoes, and scallions. I decided to satisfy my meat craving with the grilled pork chop, while Dan opted for the hanger steak, a dish I had sampled on a previous trip.

My pork chop was a revelation. On a menu full of delightful options, I think the pork chop may be my new favorite. The succulent bone-in chop is marinated and topped with an apricot glaze. While apricot is not exactly the flavor that first comes to my mind when pairing with pork, it fit perfectly. The char from the grill also provided perfect browning.

I was also surprisingly impressed by the mashed potatoes, a side dish typically known for its ho-humness. My personal ranking of potato preparations generally scales from crispier at the top to creamier at the bottom of the list, so I don’t willingly choose mashed potatoes very often, but these were flavorful and creamy and topped with caramelized onions that were actually caramelized — not the grilled or lightly sautéed version you often see called “caramelized” on menus. There was also a very subtle hint of something (maybe balsamic?) to the onions that rounded out the potatoes nicely.

Dan, ever the generous friend, offered me a bite of his hanger steak. It was just as phenomenal as I remembered, a Guinness-and-garlic marinated cut of beef cooked to a perfect medium rare.

There’s no need to take my word for all of this, though; I could just be a guy hyping up his buddy’s college town eatery. Look instead to ESPN’s College Gameday, which selected The Place to be its on-set food provider for the 2019 Notre Dame-Georgia game and has invited The Place back into the same role for each of Gameday’s subsequent appearances in Athens.

Alright, so I wrote a lot of nice things about a restaurant owned by a friend. Big whoop, right?

But you must understand how much I loathe Georgia football, how much it pains me to say anything nice about the university, how my gag reflex is initiated every time I’m forced to admit that Athens is a top-tier college town. I’m a Florida alum, so I take it as my sworn, solemn duty to tear down the University of Georgia — and, by extension, the town of Athens — at every opportunity.

So if I’m gonna even try to be objective about a program and university I frequently wish harm upon, please know how much of a relief it is to at least be able to offer honest and genuine praise for a fantastic restaurant run by folks who have earned the moniker of Damn Good Dawgs.

If you make a trip to Athens, you don’t have to venture far from the UGA Arch. The Place is the place to be.