Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2014 - 44

don't realize they have to be reserved ahead of time.
Old Pilot Hill has regained its place as the hub
of the community, thanks to this enterprising couple from Florida.
"It's really rewarding when customers come in
and are elated with the fact that their childhood
memories are rejuvenated," says Denise. "You can
always tell the people who come in the door who
have been here before. They pause, and you can see
they're looking for anything familiar from when
they were a child. A lady came in here recently and
said the last time she was in here was 85 years ago.
She told me where everything was when she was a
six-year-old child. To have people come in and
share childhood memories like this is ver y
rewarding."
Old Pilot Hill General Store
826 Snapp Bridge Road
Limestone, Tennessee
423-202-0289

The Northgate Soda Shop
The only South Carolina selection in George
Motz's top 150 American burger joints is the
Northgate Soda Shop in Greenville. Originally a
drugstore with prepackaged sandwiches, Northgate,
when it came under the ownership of Jim DeYoung
in 1965, helped define a South Carolina tradition:
hamburgers smeared with pimento cheese.
Northgate's pimento cheese is scratch-made,
with sharp cheddar, Greenville's own Duke's mayonnaise, and pimentos. Once the hamburger is
halfway cooked, it's flipped and topped with the
pimento cheese.
"It's different, unique, not something you can
order at McDonald's, Burger King or any of the
chains," says Northgate's manager Brenda Vaughan,
a native South Carolinian and a graduate of
Wofford College. "We leave the pimento cheese on
there long enough to start the melting process, but
it still has enough firmness to hold itself together
on the sandwich. We don't pulverize the cheese into
a spread. It's still chunky cheddar, shredded cheddar, and holds that form."
Jo i n i n g t h e P i m e n t o C h e e s e b u r g e r o n
Northgate's menu is the Cincinnati Steak Sandwich
- sliced deli bologna, fried and topped with chili
and cheese. It's patterned after another South
44 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

FRED SAUCEMAN

Old Pilot Hill's ribs are so good they've even
caused confrontations, when neophyte
customers don't realize they have to be
reserved ahead of time.

Pimento cheese blankets a Northgate cheeseburger.

Carolina specialty, a hamburger covered in chili.
Actress Catherine Christophillis owns the
Northgate now. On Thursdays, the "theater crowd"
comes in. The Chris Evans Burger got its name
because one of the actors kept ordering a bacon
cheeseburger with a fried egg on top.
Steve Green from Travelers Rest stocks the
Northgate in fried pies. Cheriee Esteve bakes
12-layer chocolate cakes and Kentucky pound cakes
for sale at the counter.
During the 41 years he owned the place, Jim
DeYoung accumulated an amazing collection of
church and funeral home fans, which he left in
place when he sold the business. And not only
church and funeral home fans but also ones promoting Lutheran Homes, the Furman Paladins,
Miss Greenville, the musical group Southern
Culture on the Skids, the South Carolina
Gamecocks, Clemson University and the University
of Georgia Bulldogs.
Vaughan points out two curious photographs
behind the counter. The shot of James Brown shaking hands with the Pope, she says, is an "unusual
pairing. They don't sound like they go together in
the same sentence."
The other photograph she shows us is almost as
strange. The late South Carolina Senator Strom
Thurmond sits on a lifeguard chair surrounded by
women in bathing suits.
Situated next to the Northgate Laundry &
Cleaners and easy to overlook, the soda shop
opened in 1947 and still serves fountain drinks
typical of that era, plus some new versions. Cherry
syrup and soda water make a Cherry Smash. With
a Pimento Cheeseburger, Vaughan recommends an
Orangeade, made with the freshly squeezed juices
of oranges, lemons and limes.
"The fountain has several dispensers," she says.
"We have chocolate, cherry, strawberry and vanilla
syrups, and we can add them to any drink. We make

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