Great Southern Kitchens.... LaPrade's

We weren't rich growing up, my parents had to work hard for us to have what we had and daddy had a second job selling real estate between the school year. We were a middle class family plain and simple.

We didn't travel a lot, other than to visit family and friends in Florida and South Georgia, but when you grow up in "God's Country" you don't really have to travel far to find everything you could want.

For a small town Clayton, Ga had some fairly well known restaurants, some of which can easily be described as Great Southern Kitchens. One such restaurant was LaPrade's.

LaPrade's was only open from Memorial Day until Labor Day, it sat high atop a hill on the banks of Lake Burton. Nestled between huge azalea bushes and rhododendron, LaPrades was a family style restaurant that attracted the Lake Burton well to do and the locals of the area each time the doors opened. Served all you can eat and at a reasonable price, LaPrade's was perfect for our middle class tastes.

We often found ourselves at LaPrade's for lunch after Church on Sundays. Ma-ma and Gramps would meet us there as Lake Burton was 1/2 way between my parents house and their house.

LaPrade's served two seating's for lunch and two for supper, one hour each, and the menu was basically the same ever day. People from all over would gather on the sweeping front porch of the lodge prior to going in for their meal time. The porch provided a gorgeous view of the lake and the boats speeding by with water skiers or fishermen.

When I was a child, daddy never let my brothers or I play carnival games, he said they were a waste of money, but when we went to LaPrades he would let us play the electric bowling machine and we would have family tournaments on those lanes with the miniature balls and pins.

Once the bell was rung and guests were admitted into the dining room diners would file in and find a seat at one of the 4 long tables lined with benches. Each table was probably 50' long and you never knew who you may be sitting by during the dining experience. The President of major corporations would be seated next to farmers and so on down the tables as approximately 200 people enjoyed each seating.

The food was served family style, huge platters of fried chicken, country ham, pork chops, fresh green beans, squash and fried okra along with corn, mashed potatoes, slaw and biscuits and gravy. Home made chocolate cake was always served for dessert. Everything was fresh from the garden, no frozen foods here, just good ole country dining at its best.

Servers ran a constant marathon back and forth to the kitchen bringing out platter after platter of deep fried, dripping in butter, stick to your ribs country cooking. Feeding time lasted for 60 minutes, so to get all you could eat during those sessions the eating was constant, but the conversation of the guests never wained and the families gathered together around this massive table became one.

Once the meal time was over, we would file out just as we came in, although stuffed to the gills and ready for a nice long nap, after a feast prepared with pride.

LaPrade's closed down in the late 80's as fast food and chain restaurants invaded God's Country, during the last year it was open my family made one last visit to our old stomping ground.

On that last visit my sister-in-law was very pregnant with my niece. After dinner we all took a walk down the hill, to the lakefront and back up the mountain, we did this in hopes that the exercise would encourage my niece to make her entry into the world, I don't think that walk made any difference in her arrival date, but it made one last memory for my family and I at LaPrades, a Great Southern Kitchen.