April 2007 HistoryBlog articles

Here are the HistoryBlog articles that were posted during the month of April 2007. Click on the link below to go directly to the article you are interested in.

During the month, I randomly selected restaurants from my MEATandTHREE.com web site and posted them in an article, to help provide some additional traffic to each restaurant's page. I also had several visits to Middle Tennessee meat-and-three restaurants and wrote about those visits in separate blog posts.

• Carson's Country Cooking in Greenville, SC


• The New York Restaurant in Copperhill, TN


• Lunch at Grassland Soda Shop in Franklin, TN


• Louie's Restaurant in Paris, KY


• Lloyd's Restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama


• Bell and Sons Cafeteria in Winston Salem, NC


• Jeff's Family Restaurant is new in Murfreesboro, TN


• Weaver D's in Athens, Georgia


• Lunch visit to White House Cafe


• DayBreak Diner in Anderson, SC


• Southern Kitchen in Charleston, WV


• Lunch at 2 Country Hot Spot in Hendersonville, TN


• New Meat and Three in Madison, TN


• Threadgill's Home Cookin' in Austin, TX


• Niki's West in Birmingham, AL


• White House Cafe in White House, TN


• Lunch visit to Jay's Family Restaurant in Nashville, TN


• Hub Restaurant in Rocky Mount, Virginia


• Jim's Family Restaurant in Summerville, Georgia


• Bon Ton Mini Mart in Henderson, Kentucky


• Nanny's Country Kitchen in Hattiesburg, Mississippi


• 4 Dice Restaurant in Fordyce, Arkansas


• Box Car Cafe in Woodruff, SC


• Daisy's Diner in Montgomery, Alabama

Thanks for visiting.

Phil Roberson (mn3guy)

MEATandTHREE.com (Home)
MEATandTHREE.com (USA page)
MEATandTHREE.com (Photo Gallery)

May and June 2007 HistoryBlog articles

Since MEATandTHREE.com's blog is now being hosted on Google's "Blogger" as of 7/29/07, I thought it would be a good idea to create a "path" to the old "HistoryBlog.MEATandTHREE.com" articles. Take a look at the posts below for ones which might be of interest. You can click each one individually to get to the post itself.

July 2007 Articles:

• 07/19/07 - Adams, TN Schoolhouse Cafeteria and Tea Room

May 2007 Articles:

• 05/29/07 - Lunch at the Copper Kettle Cafe in Nashville, TN
• 05/18/07 - Take a Kid to a Meat and Three Restaurant
• 05/18/07 - Lunch at Sylvan Park in Nashville, TN - times three
• 05/16/07 - Carol's Place in Nashville, TN for lunch
• 05/16/07 - Lunch visit to K and F Cafe in Madison, TN
• 05/16/07 - Grassland Soda Shop in Franklin, TN is closed
• 05/14/07 - Walkers Cafeteria in Birmingham, AL
• 05/04/07 - Providing feedback to Meat and Three owners
• 05/04/07 - Mary's Kitchen at Elm Lake Golf Course in Columbus, MS

Meat and Three Restaurant Photos Needed

Do you have any photos of meat and three restaurants, diners and/or cafes that you are willing to share?

I am really needing to add to the Photo Gallery page on my MEATandTHREE.com web site. Would love to be out traveling more and taking a lot more meat and three pictures, but that is just not happening right now.

Of course, you would receive full credit on each photo when I post them up on the site. They would probably find their way onto a blog entry at some point, as well. It would be a great help in continuing my quest to bring the meat-and-three dining genre more into the forefront. There are so many of these great little places all over the country, and I want more and more people to be exposed to them ... really, from all over the world.

The photos are a great tool for people that travel out to unfamiliar meat and threes, and they can also be quite interesting just to leaf through. No two meat and threes are alike (which is a very good thing) in appearance or ambiance, and rarely the same in food offerings, even when two or three are owned by the same person. This is one of the things that makes the "meat-n-three" so attractive to so many diners, and keeps people like me on the trail for new ones.

I would really appreciate hearing from you about any photos, past or present, that you could share with the rest of us. If you will contact me (see my profile), we can discuss (via email) the best way to get your photos to me. Digital is really the easiest and best option, if at all possible. I can scan actual photos, too, but prefer not to go this route as there is some cost to this option for both sides.

Oh, one more thing: I am only looking for photos of actual meat-and-three restaurants, per my definition (serves a one meat and three sides/vegetables menu choice; or a meat and two). You can read a more detailed definition on the MEATandTHREE.com site (click here). If you have any doubts, go ahead and contact me and we'll sort it out.

Thanks a ton!

Phil Roberson (mn3guy)

MEATandTHREE.com (Home)
MEATandTHREE.com (USA page)
MEATandTHREE.com (Photo Gallery)

Do you Squidoo?

Squidoo is one of those community networking-type sites that seems to be gaining a lot of ground these days. I learned about the site late one night, and got a little bit addicted.

"What do you do on Squidoo?" You create "lenses" for whatever subject that you want to create a lens for.

"What's a lens?", you may ask? Well, a lens is basically a personal web page that you can create, adding various modules full of your own content, links, photos, Amazon or eBay products (on which you can earn commissions), surveys or polls, guest comments, etc.

It is free to set up a lens, and you can set up lots of them. I saw a person today who has set up over 60 of them.

I immediately created one for Meat and Three restaurants, of course (http://www.squidoo.com/meatandthreerestaurants/). Once there, you can check out some of my other lenses, some of which are about meat and threes and some are not. You can also get to the Lens of the Day (LOTD), view the current Top 100 lenses, or browse through the various categories to find ones that interest you.

However, please do not forget about your favorite meat and three blog. Make sure you bookmark either this blog or my main web site, MEATandTHREE.com and come back to visit me.

It was quite easy to create the first lens and does not really take much time, if you have an idea of what your subject is and already have some content. It's really easy to play around with, experimenting with different looks and modules, so that you can get the look you want. My mum (no, I am not English - have just always wanted to say that in print or in a radio interview or something) has created several, so I know you can do it. She is not necessarily a web programming queen ... yet.

If you have heard the buzz about Squidoo already and want to start your own page, click on this link to get started. When you have your page(s) done, shoot me a comment on this entry. I'd like to take a look at it.

Here is one of the Squidoo link buttons:

If you have any questions about how I did something on one of my Squidoo lenses, just ask me. I'm still leaning, too, but I'll try to help.

Have a great week!

Phil Roberson (mn3guy)
MEATandTHREE.com (Home)
MEATandTHREE.com (USA page)
MEATandTHREE.com (Photo Gallery)

Southern Living 2007 Readers' Choice Awards

You may not have seen anything yet about the Southern Living 2007 Readers' Choice Awards, but you should check it out for a couple of reasons.

First, there is a great prize that you could possibly win: a weekend trip for two to Kiawah Island, South Carolina ($4,700 value). The trip includes a stay at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort, golf, tennis, spa visit, a meal certificate, and a carriage tour of Charleston. Just enter the contest for a chance to win. You can click this link to go right to the entry page.

Second, there is a section at the bottom of the entry form for entrants to record their "Southern Favorites". One of those 'favorites' is the category, "Family Restaurants", and the recommendation says the following: "no chains; only those with one location, please".

This is an open invitation for me, you and many others to do their part in making sure that a meat and three restaurant is the winner. Makes sense to me, and I hope you agree. If you are a real champion of the "meat and three", I hope you will take part in this contest and vote for your favorite, email friends and family who also love them, and maybe post this entry on your blog or write your own similar post to help get the word out.

Sure, there are plenty of great single location restaurants here in the South, and many of them are not meat and threes. However, there are some mighty good meat and threes that could really be contenders. I (selfishly) am hoping that a meat-and-three restaurant will come out on top, which will help these great places to get even more publicity and recognition than they are already getting.

Some say they are a dying breed, but I am seeing and hearing about more and more of them almost every day. My goal is to really get the word out about these wonderful places. I want this genre of dining to find its way into more of the mainstream. It certainly would not hurt the effort, were a meat and three restaurant to achieve the top place in a contest such as this Southern Living one.

So, please don't leave this message without linking over to the contest and voting (click here to go right to the entry form). Also, brainstorm with me about other ways to get more meat and three lovers to vote for their favorite: comment on this post with your ideas; email me personally (see my profile) if you've got an idea you want to "chat about" privately; or create radio and tv promotions for all major markets in the U.S. (just kidding, I guess, unless your name is Donald Trump or Oprah). Of course, Oprah is from Nashville, you know, and Nashville is really the mecca of meat and threes. Hmmm...maybe I'm on to something there.

In any event, thank you for reading, and thanks for your interest in "meat and threes".

Don't forget to vote!

Phil Roberson (mn3guy)
MEATandTHREE.com (Home)
MEATandTHREE.com (USA page)
MEATandTHREE.com (Photo Gallery)

New blog for MEATandTHREE.com

This entry is really a test post, to make sure that the blog entries are showing up on the new blog. The old blog articles through 7/29/07, at http://historyblog.meatandthree.com (opens new browser), are still available. These will remain as is, will be referenced, at times, and may end up on this blogger.com format eventually. Going forward, I want to see how this new blog format works. I would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks, and stay tuned.

Phil Roberson (mn3guy)