First-timers typically pass by the fifty-year-old TJ's Café and think, That can't be a restaurant -- it's a double-wide trailer. But when's the last time you scored a complete dinner for less than six singles? TJ's started as a tiny hot dog stand in 1952. These days, the dinner specials rarely cost more than $5.25, and they include a potato, a tossed salad and a dinner roll. A fried-chicken dinner starts out with an iceberg-lettuce salad in one of those Georgia pecan bowls that Stuckey's used to sell, followed by a plump, crispy breast next to a mountain of mashed potatoes covered with peppery cream gravy. Smoke? All the better! Glass ashtrays decorate every one of the blue Formica tables, for those who prefer a nice drag of nicotine after a comforting supper of lasagna, Italian steak or roast pork sided with a big scoop of neon-red candied apples.
