City Cafe and Bakery in Fayetteville is no stranger to lending a helping hand. When Hurricane Katrina struck, displacing thousands of people and destroying homes and cities, the local eatery opened their doors for a Sunday buffet. The event raised close to $7,000. Customers came out in droves to sample the Cajun tinged cuisine and the food vendors donated the food for the buffet, while the servers volunteered their time and donated their tips.

Special to The Citizen

Opening and owning a restaurant is a difficult business. There is some statistic out there that says that most restaurants fail within the first six months they are open. Hollywood romances fare better than a lot of restaurants, especially if they aren’t franchises and are labors of love of the people who owned them.

There was probably a time, somewhere in the late 20th century, where the prospect of burritos being made in front of you for lunch or dinner wasn’t all that appealing. Thank God for the future. Moe’s Southwest Grill, which isn’t just a burrito restaurant, prepares numerous dishes while you wait with a wide variety of fresh ingredients and a whole lot of style.

If you walk into Anthony’s Pizza and Pasta you will find a bakery to the left of the restaurant. Linda Alvarez bakes cakes made to order - if you can dream it Linda can create it. From action figures to airplanes to computer monitors and Barbie dolls, Linda has done it. 

Something Delightful Bakery Cafe has been open in Peachtree City for close to eight months and there is already quite a following. Word of mouth passing among friends, neighbors, co-workers and colleagues who have tasted some of the delicacies, has sent a lot of customers to Mary Jane Hollister. Her heavenly display case and the taste of the cupcakes, cheesecakes, cookies and coffee have kept them coming back.

By F.C. Foodie
Special to The Citizen

It seems like if you threw a rock in this county, you’d hit a Mexican restaurant. Of course, if you did throw a rock and hit a Mexican restaurant, you’d be arrested and likely charged with a hate crime, so please, no rock throwing.

It’s been four years since Big Daddy’s Oyster Bar opened its doors in Peachtree City and in those years the eatery has evolved into an establishment that prides itself on great food and a fun atmosphere for grown ups.

By JOYCE BEVERLY
jbeverly@thecitizen.com

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.” - The theme song to “Cheers”

By F.C. Foodie
Special to The Citizen

If you asked 100 people what their favorite food in the whole wide world is, one of the top answers on the Family Feud board would be pizza. It is a delicious treat that can be enjoyed for any meal of the day. The area is blessed with a number of great choices to grab a pie. Here are some of Foodie’s thoughts.

With nine locations in the metro Atlanta area, not including the one in Fayetteville by the dollar theater in Banks Station, WK Wings has won over people with their incredibly flavorful wings. The franchise is known for their high quality products and excellent customer service. The location in Fayetteville, operated by Harry Kinzey, prides itself on adhering to the principle of good food, fast. The restaurant has been open in Banks Station since last July and is seen by some as one of the area’s best kept secrets. Kinzey and many of the regulars at WK Wings feel that it is time the secret gets out.

By F.C. Foodie

In its heyday (the 1990s), Ginza was one of the top restaurants in the county. For a long time it was the county’s only Japanese steakhouse and sushi bar and it was very popular, both among the large Japanese population in the area and the gai-jin (did Foodie spell that and use that word correctly?). And then, somewhere along the way, the badness happened. There were new owners, the quality dipped, the restaurant closed and, for a long time, the building sat empty.

Jorg Schatte, owner and chef of Fayetteville’s City Café and Bakery, has been selected Atlanta’s “Chef of the Year” by the UCCA, The United Culinary Chef Association.

She has boundless energy, hand slicing bright yellow squash, chopping onions, and prepping all of the fresh ingredients for the days offerings. From scratch, she bakes cornbread and all of the desserts of the day, including a signature Tres Leches cake. Her name is Rosa.

This column has long been a space to trumpet the savory delicacies of Fayette County’s finest dining establishments, but even this gourmand has a (very) soft spot for dishes that aren’t served on the finest china or under glass. This month, I would like to examine the burger, both cooked at franchises of some of the more popular fast food eateries, and at some of the area’s sit down restaurants.

In this episode, Mike Hutcheson prepares Tortellini Romano, a great dish for college kids learning to cook on their own.

In this episode, Mike Hutcheson prepares Pagliafieno (Straw and Hay). To make this pasta dish, you'll need olive oil, garlic, mushroom, baby shrimp, crab meat, chopped clams, onion, Tabasco, diced tomatoes and fresh parmesan.

Mike Hutcheson, a former executive chef for Anheuser Busch and sous chef at La Costa, a resort and spa in California, is a host of his own local cooking show, “Dishing With Mike.” The show airs throughout the week on Newnan Utilities but some of his cooking tips will now air on www.thecitizen.com, under Citizen TV.

You would think that a restaurant tucked away in a small strip of shops near the old Fayette County High School would be more of a secret, a special place known only to regulars with a keen eye, but Baci is a favorite stop for Italian cuisine for many county residents.

By F.C. Foodie
Special to The Citizen

For years, Senoia was a nice sleepy, historic town in eastern Coweta County. Visitors would come and admire the historic homes and promptly leave and go have dinner in Peachtree City or Newnan.

The Peachtree City Tennis Center has been a unique local destination since it opened. Over the years it has seen world-class tennis players like Maria Sharapova take to the courts and has also been a top notch place to host local functions. In the past few years, there has also been a restaurant on the premises. The Courtside Cafe has quickly won quite the following with a delightful menu and welcoming atmosphere.

Steve Zombik, the head chef and co-owner of Sun Dried Tomato, never thought he would own, or want to own, a restaurant. Zombik had been an executive chef at hotels in New Hampshire, Boston, and Jamaica before moving to Peachtree City and serving as the executive chef at the Wyndham. His plan had been to keep moving up to bigger and bigger hotels but the desire to set down some roots proved stronger. After some time as the owner of Hangar 74, Zombik and his wife, Cindy, created Sun Dried Tomato and the rest, as they say is history.

By F.C. Foodie
Dining Critic

The students are out of school and the temperatures are starting to soar into the 90s. Although summer doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, many residents have already stopped firing up the oven for several-course meals, so here’s a few options to beat the heat until the cool winds of autumn usher in fall cooking season.

Young Chefs Academy announces its newest location in Peachtree City, Georgia opening June 23. A cooking school designed especially for kids, Young Chefs Academy offers weekly classes, summer camps, birthday parties, field trips and unique merchandise. This is the 12th Young Chefs Academy in the Atlanta area to help budding chefs learn the basics of cooking, while participating in the preparation of real recipes.

What better prize for a disastrous chef than a party at The Dinner A'Fare in Peachtree City? Cooking Queen Maggie and her court of five trusty girlfriends spent a fun afternoon of meal making under the tutelage of Dan and Jana Tillman, owners of The Dinner A'Fare. They were greeted with some wonderful treats from the April menu of Baja Paella, Finger Lick’n Chicken with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce and Cherry Pineapple Cobbler Cake and a how-to of the fun that was about to begin. Queen Maggie and her court were then set free to put together the meals of their choices from scratch to take home and freeze and then easily cook and serve at their own homes.

The Citizen newspapers and The Dinner A’Fare in Peachtree City co-hosted a cooking disaster contest last month, asking our readers to send us their scariest cooking or entertaining horror stories for a chance to be crowned “Queen of The Kitchen.”

Maggie Worth of Fayetteville was our Grand Prize winner with a cooking story filled with hen insides, potatoes in blenders and some sort of unidentified liquidous goo for pie filling. (See her winning entry in the following section).

Horror Story

Picture it: It's 1992 and I'm 19, living in my college apartment and preparing to celebrate my one-month wedding anniversary. I've finished my last class and my husband is working at the college bookstore. It's 5:30 and I have two and a half hours to prepare a romantic meal. I've been planning for days. I've consulted via phone with my out-of-state mother, a former professional chef, to develop an exciting menu for the evening. I've carefully listed all my ingredients and driven 30 miles to the nearest grocery store since the mini-mart in our small college town doesn't run to Cornish hens. I've splurged $50 of our wedding gift money on ingredients, fresh flowers and sparkling cider (the clerk knows me, knows I'm under age and won't let me buy wine.)

2nd place winner
Carrie Gray of Sharpsburg

It should have come as no surprise to me that cooking would not be one of my strong suits. I come from a long line of women who have had “cooking challenges.” My grandmother married very young in 1930 and during one of her first attempts at baking bread decided she was in too much of a hurry to wait for it to rise. Instead of using the one package of yeast that the recipe called for, she used three. After the bread had risen above the largest bowl she had, she tried to let it rise in her dishpan. That, too, was too small and the only thing she saw left to do was rid herself of the beast. She buried it in an out-of-the-way corner of the farmyard. She would rather be buried herself than have to own up to the horrible failure of her baking attempt. Of course, that was the day that my grandfather decided to take a stroll in that very section of yard. The hot, July afternoon had risen the bread even more causing it to bubble up from the ground. He came running into the house convinced that some subterranean monster was erupting from its abyss.

Amy Riesberg of Fayetteville

My story is not so much a horror story, but a stress story! I have 4 little boys, ages 1,2,5 and 9. Every night dinner is an adventure for us! If we go out to eat, we feel like a traveling circus and if we stay home, I am almost too tired after preparing dinner to even eat! Our meals are very simple and usually include macaroni or peanut butter. I would love to have the opportunity to actually cook a delicious dinner-or 12 dinners-with no little helpers and no stress! My husband would love to have a variety of dinners instead of the same old dinners!

You’ve heard it before: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That’s why at The Original Pancake House, if they’re open, they’re serving up breakfast in delicious and hearty portions. But don’t let the restaurant’s name fool you, there are more than pancakes rounding out this extensive menu.

By F.C. Foodie
Dining Critic

With weather forecasters predicting temperatures in the 70s later this week, many residents’ thoughts are turning towards warmer days.