Appetites for Good Food and Nostalgia Satisfied at Red's Schoolhouse Restaurant

When you are hungry after working or playing all day out of town, one of the main things you want to know is, "Where can we find a good restaurant?" If you're asking the locals at the neighborhood store, they may have a host of friendly answers for you about the restaurants they enjoy eating at, or the restaurants they've heard others talk about.

One such restaurant that locals in south Montgomery County, Alabama recommend is Red's Schoolhouse Restaurant. Citizens of Ramer, Lapine, Pine Level, Grady, Dublin, and other nearby towns in nearby counties will almost always tell you about Red's. They will give you directions to the eating establishment housed inside a wooden building that really did serve as a one-room school for blacks from 1913-1950.

Depending on where you're traveling from, finding Red's can be a challenge. The surest way to get there from U.S. Highway 231 north or south is to travel west on Alabama Highway 94. You will find the red building trimmed in white with the big sign out front at the intersection of Highway 94 and Gardner Road.

Hopefully, locals will inform you on the days Red's is closed. On Mondays and Tuesdays, the family that owns Red's gives themselves and their employees the days off to recoup, regroup, and prepare for another week of fixing traditional southern fare and serving up warm southern hospitality to every customer at every meal.

One evening I finished my assignment and decided to give Red's a try on my way home. It was a little before five in the evening when I arrived. Once inside the spacious dining room, I thought I had gone back to school. All around me were reminders of my early days and years of learning. The blackboard was full of chalk entries of - not arithmetic problems or sight words - the menu and the specials of the day. Portraits of 47 presidents lined the walls. The tables were old and worn looking desks, like the ones we sat at in second grade and read books about Dick and Jane. The chairs were ladder-back pupil chairs you won't find in any classroom today.

The setting made me think about my first grade days learning how to spell cat and dog, but the blended aromas of favorite southern entrees, fresh vegetables and side dishes, reminded me of why I was there. As I stood near the door absorbing my surroundings, the restaurant's manager - Martha Brown, welcomed me, and the server asked if I'd be staying for dinner. They invited me to sit wherever I wanted. Once seated, my server put a place mat in front of me and asked what I was drinking. The place mat was an old aerial map someone had drawn of four towns - Ramer, Lapine, Pine Level and Dublin. Near the center of the map was Red's. Based on this old map, towns in south Montgomery were bustling in their day. Today, most of the businesses in the drawing don't exist, but Red's is still there.

Red's One Room Schoolhouse first opened in 1985. Its owner, Red Deese purchased the old school building, added a kitchen and started serving food. Eventually he added another dining area to the right of the original schoolroom. Whether or not he knew the surrounding towns would shrink or grow seemed irrelevant. Red's Schoolhouse Restaurant would be there. People who ate there would make sure by telling others about the dining experience. Every visitor would be glad they veered off the usual busy path to find the little school at what is now a sleepy intersection.

Not long ago, Deese turned ownership of the restaurant over to his daughter Debbie, who makes homemade pies every morning for customers and stores them in the old pie safe. On Friday nights, she grills steaks and salmon for customers.

The evening's fixins included: batter fried chicken and chicken livers, baby lima beans, okra, old fashioned macaroni and cheese, turnips, chicken and rice casserole, corn cakes, green beans and spaghetti. There were homemade pecan pies as well as chocolate and coconut cream pies in the pie safe.

The menu, which was themed perfectly with slate boards, yellow pencils and chalk, included "wangs," fried green tomatoes, and fried pickles. Customers could dine in and take out by the pound, quart or gallon.

After I'd eaten a satisfying sampling of all my personal favorites - crunchy fried chicken and livers, seasoned buttery lima beans, macaroni that had been bathed in strong cheeses, egg and butter, fresh from the garden turnips with okra pods mixed in, and some lusciously greasy corn cakes - Ms. Brown told me to try the chicken and rice casserole. The dish was piping hot, and when a spoonful hit my tongue, my mouth had another round of prolonged enjoyment.

I'd had Red's Apple and Cheese Casserole before. That is a dish not easily forgotten, if for no other reason than the bewilderment of how anyone could put apples and cheese together and make something so mouth wateringly delicious. I requested my server bring me a bowl. Ms. Brown told me she could bring me a bowl of Pineapple and Cheese Casserole.

It's better than apples and cheese," she said.

"Nothing could be better than apples and cheese," I argued.

Well, I relented, and my server brought a bowl of Pineapple and Cheese Casserole to my table. The buttery smell wafted up to my nose and seduced my palette. The combination of sweet exotic pineapples mixed with pure butter, cheese, and whatever else, made me recant my argument. Ms. Brown was right: it was better than apples and cheese.

While I dined, family members came in for a bite to eat. I met and chatted a moment with the original owner, Red Deese. The atmosphere was family-oriented. There were no big plasma televisions for folks to watch, just good old-fashioned friendliness with as much conversation as anyone would want.

If you travel to the capital of Alabama in Montgomery, get out and take a ride some 45 miles south to Red's Schoolhouse Restaurant for lunch or dinner. The restaurant lies just a few miles from Meriwether Trail as it cuts through central Alabama. There's a lot of rich history in the area, and the folks at Red's Schoolhouse Restaurant would love for you to sit down and eat a delicious meal with them so they can tell you about it.