Southern Comforts

If you have a refrigerator or a cooler, you're in luck because there are very few people who can completely get through any of the gargantuan meals you will be served there. They do have sandwiches, eggs, and the like for less than $10--I simply went with the main meals. They also have lobster and wine if you want! My favorite dishes are the open-faced turkey sandwich [with potato, salad, and bread] and the chicken souvlaki with a side of fries and extra tzatziki sauce. It depends on how you like your meatloaf on whether you'll like theirs [slightly dry with brown gravy], but on the whole very little will disappoint you there!

Shipfeifer has simple Greek food, from wraps to platters. You can get gyro meat, chicken, or vegetarian. The atmosphere is casual and fun - kind of a Mediterranean-Mexican look to it. There’s seating both inside and out and really the time of day determines where the best seating is. During the day, unless you just like watching the traffic on Peachtree, there’s really no compelling reason to sit outside. At night however, that same traffic and business feeds on the energy of the city and makes the terrace more desirable.

My favorite meal is the barbeque chicken wrap, curly fries, and an extra side of feta dressing to put on the wrap and dip the fries in. The price is relatively steep for something that comes close to fast food, but it is ten times better than any wrap you can get at the mall.

It’s a casual atmosphere for a fun night out or a quiet afternoon studying. It’s better than its neighbor Huey’s, which I believe gets trafficked more. There’s parking in the back, which makes it convenient for a restaurant in the city.

If you’re going to see the Coca-Cola Film Festival, that’s what this theatre was made for, you’re a lot less limited. If you just want to see the beauty of the theatre, you can take a tour that is given during the day for $10. They are given on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 10:00am and on Saturdays at 10:00am and 11:00am.

The Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival tends to play recent and classic family-friendly movies. This is a popular local activity. The Fox Theatre does host its Broadway series both throughout the year and during the summer (where most of my acoustical antagonism comes from). You can either buy tickets at the box office or from Ticketmaster (Publix Supermarkets sometimes offer discounts on Wednesday shows). In addition, the Atlanta Ballet performs there, including their always-popular version of The Nutcracker [404-873-5811]. Other events that happen at the Fox Theatre include concerts and an International Series featuring performing artists from around the globe.

As for parking…there is parking right next to the theatre, which is a good and bad thing. If you’re all dressed up in high heels, you probably do not want to trek around Atlanta. In addition, if it’s a night performance and you’re by yourself, I would also not advise walking all over Atlanta. The down side is that its $12 which after paying for your $60 or $80 tickets (and the $10 for drinks at the concession stand), it might make you think twice. There are parking lots along the nearby streets where you park and then pay in the little boxes, usually running between $1 and $5. Of course, those parking lots are not guarded and again I stress if you’re by yourself, Atlanta is not the city to take risks in. If you decide to park in the lot next to the theatre, get there early because it fills up fast.

Let me ‘splain [Ricky Ricardoism]. Sweet tea is the result of boiling water and making hot tea and then adding the sugar to the boiling solution. The result is that the sugar gets absorbed into the mixture and becomes a part of the solution. Then the ice is added after the water and the tea and the sugar have all moved in together. When you add sugar to tea that already has ice in it, the absorption rate in the solution is a lot lower so that most of the sugar will remain separate from the water for the duration of the trip [if you’ve ever had that lovely experience of getting to the bottom of the drink and having the remaining gook at the bottom, that’s the same thing]. Therefore you really can’t get the full effect of sweetening unless you start with boiling water.

The difference culturally is that up here in Massachusetts, if I go to a restaurant and order an iced tea, they bring me an unsweetened ice tea. And that is pretty standard in most of the Northeast. In Georgia, if I order and iced tea and don’t specify, I get a sweet tea. If I order a sweet tea, I get a sweet tea. And if I order an unsweetened tea, I get an unsweetened tea—except when they can’t hear me through the little box at the drive through and then I end up with a sweet tea anyway.

I hope this gives y’all [you all] a new understanding and respect for iced tea and helps you when you head out to restaurants in the South.