Burger Tour Part 2 - Earl's Garage Grille - Savannah, TN
There’s nothing ordinary at Earl’s… Most certainly not the burgers!
If you’re looking for something different….
It’s Earl’s
by Lucianne Shoffner
Photos by Katijane Shoffner
When you go by Earl’s, you might notice the sign with the word Garage crossed out, or you might notice the full parking lot - front and back, but nothing prepares you for the moment you walk in, or the wonderful smells greeting you. It literally looks like a garage where you might get your car or bike fixed, not your appetite!
“I’m a registered nurse, and my husband has a commercial heat & air company, this is not really what we expected to be doing,” Mary Warren smiled as she and her husband Robert sat down with us. “We wanted to do a restaurant for years, even when our kids were small, but it was never a good time.” The building is one of the best restaurant transitions that I have seen. It was a used car lot at one time, then Robert used it for his HVAC company - he actually ran his business out of it. “We had all of his stuff in here, but during covid, we had it for sale. We had decided to put the shop at our house, but the building wasn’t selling, so I was walking with a friend one day, and we decided, ‘this would be a cool place for a restaurant.” Robert laughed, “I said, ‘WHAT? Are you serious? That was in June, and we opened in November.”
The couple started right in the middle of COVID. Starting with the drive-through, they got their feet wet. In March, they decided to open up the dining room. “The dining room wasn’t even finished, we had sawhorses set up with plywood and the paint wasn’t on the walls.” Mary laughed, “But people said, ‘we don’t care - we just want to come in and eat’ and we let them!” Still working on the space, Robert had a curtain up across the middle of the dining room where he was working on the other half, “I”d come up here and work and then at 10:30 I’d pull everything behind the curtain and we’d open up and feed people until 4:30 - then we’d close and I’d open the curtain back up and start working again.” Mary laughed again, “People were beating down the door to come in, so we let them, and we’ve been very blessed with this.” They are still working on the building, adding space in the back with an open-air patio. Plans are to enclose the patio and then they will be adding a deck with a larger open-air patio. Right now they can seat about 150 people but can double that with the additional space.
Memorabilia lines the wall, from fuel signs, and a motorcycle, to a Pennzoil sign that Robert has had for about twenty years. Mary chuckled, “Robert likes to collect things and this has given him a place to put it.” They have gone all over looking for perfect additions to the restaurant. Everything adds to the atmosphere, and it is planned precisely that way, even down to the Farrah Fawcett poster that hangs in the bathroom, as it does, or did, in so many garages across America. They’ve also had a lot of people bring things in, but as far as things they’ve found, the bar is one of their favorites. “That bar is 130 years old, it came from the Hassell’s Mercantile in Clifton. It was delivered from St. Louis on a steamboat in 1890 in three pieces, we have the last remaining piece.” Robert told us the tale of the bar, “It was in a big two-story building, one got cut up and divided, one was partially burned when the store burned and we have the other one. I think it was in just about every business in Clifton at one point in time or another. It popped up on Facebook marketplace and I bought it. I had to have it - when you look at it you can tell it’s that old. You can’t find wood with that kind of grain anymore. It’s pretty neat.” Mary’s favorite piece of memorabilia is the Harley Davidson pump outside, “Our boys actually made that for Robert for Christmas one year. They painted it, bought all the stuff and repurposed it.” Robert added, “That’s the one thing that we’d have to take with us, if we ever leave, it goes back home. I like the 1950 Woody Station Wagon hanging on the wall, too, with the headlights on.” Everything in the restaurant, Robert hung up or made. AND you have to check out their bathroom. According to Robert, it very well could be the most photographed bathroom in the state!
Other fun memorabilia include state maps, prior to the advent of the cell phone. “When I take one down, kids thirty years old don’t know what they are - they ask ‘what is it’ and when I tell them a map, they say, ‘A what?’.” Robert laughed, “They have no clue what they are.” Oil cans, oil barrels, and parts and pieces are placed around, making tables and creating inspiration.
The Burgers… the reason we stopped in the first place. Oh my. For more on Earl’s - read the rest of the article in the actual printed version of Cypress! Subscriber here