If you travel to the Cummins Falls Marathon, you’ll be well advised to set aside a couple of extra days to see local sights and sample local restaurants. A famished runner can find a truck load of cool eating joints in Cookeville, Tennessee. But you need to know where to look. I am here to help.
One hundred and thirty-two, that’s the number Google gives me for the aggregation of restaurants in Cookeville. That’s maybe more than you’d expect for a “small town” of 31,010 souls. But the town’s activity is much larger than its population suggests: it’s a university town, with the influx that brings; it sits at the crossroads of TN-111 and I-40; and it serves as a hub city for the whole Upper Cumberland region. People come to shop, eat out, see ballgames and watch movies. I once read the dubious claim that Cookeville triples on the weekend. I don’t believe that number, but it does grow.
So, yes, 132 restaurants. That number includes the usual expected chain restaurants such as O’Charley’s, Outback, Ruby Tuesday, and so on. Most of those restaurants are strung along Interstate Drive, parallel to and one block north of I-40, visible and handy to the Interstate traveler. Ah, but I rarely go there. Jo Ann and I chose the home grown restaurants in the old part of town, in the Westside and Eastside.
Without making any claims of good taste in food or anything else, I will tell you the places where this runner actually goes to eat. For what it’s worth, here they are:
Read the full story by Dallas Smith HERE
