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Cuisine + Cocktails

31 Comments

  1. Jim Kitchens
    August 18, 2022 @ 11:02 pm

    I enjoyed your article. I knew many of the people mentioned including some who worked in my sister-in-laws restaurant, The Sonhouse, Athens first vegetarian restaurant (ca 1971- about 73).
    Having previously been a news photographerI have many pictures from Athens c 1967 – 1990s. You mentioned the Bald Pump. I have party pictures from one of the great July 4th parties, including the “mud” people. I’ll try and get some on my Facebook page in the next day or two. It will not include the Mud People, but many others including some of my band mates from The Meathogs.

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  2. Destination Eat Drink - Kate Pierson - Radio Misfits DEVELOPMENT SERVER
    March 9, 2022 @ 4:14 pm

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  3. Vicki Miller
    February 10, 2022 @ 10:47 pm

    If anyone has the recipe for the breakfast custard, please share.

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    • Julie
      January 14, 2023 @ 12:17 pm

      Morning custard. I would give an arm for it.

      Reply

  4. Destination Eat Drink - Kate Pierson - Radio Misfits
    February 9, 2021 @ 3:48 pm

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  5. Nathan Dayan
    October 5, 2020 @ 10:29 am

    Les was my cousin and unfortunately he has passed away. He played down in NOLA at the neutral ground a fair amount.

    Reply

  6. Eamonn
    September 17, 2020 @ 12:00 pm

    Very cool. I just found your Record in a Charity Shop here in Ireland and looked you guys up. I’ll give it a listen later with a few beers

    Reply

  7. Nielsen
    April 18, 2020 @ 1:25 am

    I lived out at Bald Pump plantation in 1975 with other art students and a woman named PAM who I believe was the original owner of the Eldorado. It was such a good place to eat and hang out. I also remember Alice’s Restaurant….which had a complete table with place settings, only it was upside down, anchored to the ceiling!

    Reply

    • Trisha
      June 18, 2022 @ 7:36 pm

      Ball Pump Plantation on Belmont Rd.
      We used to live at the Hog Farm down Belmont Rd during the late ‘70’s.

      Reply

  8. Dl Swain
    April 17, 2020 @ 11:25 am

    Disco waitroids. Tomato, cheese and sprout sandwiches on WW bread. Morning custard. The scene was definitely alive at the Eldo.

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  9. Kim Cook
    March 8, 2019 @ 9:07 am

    Great article! Thanks so much. Back in the early 80’s, I think the Eldorado became the Bluebird Cafe after it moved. I loved the Bluebird’s morning custard and huevos rancheros! My favorite waiter was Corbit. That place had a terrific vibe and I miss it dearly!

    Reply

  10. Bill King
    May 6, 2018 @ 11:07 am

    I interviewed the B-52’s at the Eldorado way back when. Good times.

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  11. curt mayer
    February 8, 2018 @ 5:44 pm

    Who owned the el dorado?

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  12. The B-52s and a tour of their old Athens, GA haunts (1989) - Online Info Portal
    February 8, 2018 @ 3:43 pm

    […] began at the now-defunct Bluebird Cafe, formerly named the Eldorado, a vegetarian eatery where Fred Schneider used to wait […]

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  13. The B-52s and a tour of their old Athens, GA haunts (1989) - Big4All.Org
    February 8, 2018 @ 3:02 pm

    […] began at the now-defunct Bluebird Cafe, formerly named the Eldorado, a vegetarian eatery where Fred Schneider used to wait […]

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  14. Adria Stembridge
    October 30, 2017 @ 7:31 pm

    My family moved to Athens around 1971. A few years after getting settled in my dad bought farm land out in Winder, where he planned to build a house. Before any of that happened, we bought a Ford 8N and a disc harrow, and began planting okra. I was just old enough to be able to help plant seed with our small garden tractor. I picked some okra but my older brothers had the brunt of the hard work. Every weekend we picked many bushels of prickly okra, and loaded the wooden containers into dad’s old Ford pickup.

    We drove to Athens and sold our okra to grocery stores and restaurants. I distinctly recall parking in downtown, and walking a half bushel of okra into the Eldorado kitchen via a side door. I was too little to remember names or really “meet” anyone, but I can say that I helped grow the okra that so many enjoyed at Eldorado.

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  15. Roy Bell
    October 2, 2016 @ 9:06 pm

    Great article, thanks for bringing back all the memories to. We remodeled and built so many of the hangouts down town back then …. The Last Resort, Tyron’s OC, Sparky’s, on and on. Plus I met my wife in 1977 while she was in college here. The article bright it all back to me thanks a million.

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  16. Peggy Gugino
    September 10, 2016 @ 10:38 pm

    This was our very favorite place to eat and hang out in Athens!!! Thank you for sharing your memories!
    I remember one visit when there had been a swarm of termites! We sadly had to wait and come back another thing day!

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  17. Lee Beasley
    July 15, 2016 @ 3:19 pm

    Thanks for sharing, Bob!

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  18. Lee Beasley
    July 15, 2016 @ 3:18 pm

    My future wife, Sharon Barrington, who was a student in the art department, and I, hanging around town after graduating from the J School, loved to eat there in the middle 70s. She remembers the egg salad sandwich on the great whole bread with sprouts, and we both loved the black beans on brown rice topped with fresh tomatoes and sour cream.

    Gary Crider was a housemate at 153 1/2 Milledge Terrace in Athens’s Five Points .

    neighborhood, as was Zeke Addison, who provided the concert speakers for the first B-52’s performance at Julia’s and Gray’s house on Milledge.

    Thanks for shar

    Reply

  19. john singleton
    July 15, 2016 @ 1:02 pm

    Wow! Love getting squashed by the Nostalgia Train:) Miss Athens immensely.

    Reply

  20. Alice Sampson
    July 14, 2016 @ 6:42 pm

    Great article, Bob! Thank you for reminding us of the great times!

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    • Lola montgomery
      July 15, 2016 @ 12:35 pm

      Only objection is that this article is too short…. I kept thinking, yes! And what about…..

      And greetings to all you stalwarts

      Reply

    • Joanne Bergstrom
      January 18, 2023 @ 1:03 pm

      Hi Alice! Joanne Waterman (Bergstrom) Here. Wishing you and Joel the best!

      Reply

  21. John (Pat) Huie
    July 14, 2016 @ 6:33 pm

    Wow, that really fills in some history for me. I helped start and then managed the Eldo…and then, completely burned out, left town about 1978. I never really knew what happened after that. The care and originality lavished on the daily menus tells a lot.

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  22. Gary Evans
    July 14, 2016 @ 3:08 pm

    Bobby Hay! Those were the days my old companion. When my wife Jenny and I first moved to Athens in 1977 we went to the Eldorado one time and Fred from the B-52s was our waiter. I was studying journalism and dabbling with the Squalls — or perhaps vice versa — but I do remember it was in that room that I sang the IRA with you guys — an utterly politically incorrect tribute to Bobby Sands, the Irish revolutionary who died while on a hunger strike during his incarceration. It’s really hard to capture, and certainly to overstate, the arising energy of Athens in those days, as art and music reached critical mass. Hershel Walker didn’t hurt either.

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  23. lisa mende
    July 14, 2016 @ 12:57 pm

    when I would come to visit my brother , Nathan, we would stagger to the Eldo, early morning sleepless. Skinny dipping at The Ball Pump, Eldo, and the amazing energy and people of Athens were what decided me to leave L.A. in the dust and have a better life.

    Reply

  24. Caroline Aiken
    July 14, 2016 @ 10:55 am

    A MILLION!

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  25. Caroline Aiken
    July 14, 2016 @ 10:54 am

    Wow! Look at those beautiful menus! Brings back a milliin memories, thank you!!! El Dorado was my go to place in Athens for food, communityx aolice, and surprise 🙂

    Reply

  26. Ron Arrington
    July 14, 2016 @ 10:48 am

    Yes and their bread baker was a fellow named Les Jampole, (sic) who lived in a Tee Pee on the Oconee river … I think he was a musician as well … Played Acoustic Guitar with Cracked Wheat? … Cracked Wheat was a bluegrass band around that time .,. I often wondered what happened to good ole’ Les …

    Reply

    • Alice Sampson
      July 14, 2016 @ 6:44 pm

      Unfortunately, Ron, he passed away ten years or so ago. He was a great guy.

      Reply

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