Puckett's Restaurant — Restaurant in Chattanooga

Are you familiar with botflies?

What if you woke up one day and you looked down at your hip to see a small white hair sticking through your flesh. The hair is very thick. You try to tug on it but it seems like your very flesh reacts violently to the irritation. You ignore the discovery for the day and go about your daily task, trying to pretend that the pain you're feeling as your pants press against your waist isn't as bad as it truly is.

The next morning you find that the hair has grown even longer and thicker. The flesh now has a large round mount that hurts to the touch and feels warm - like an infection. You put a 4x4" gauze pad over the sore to keep it from being painful and you choose a pair of pants with an elastic waistline for today. The pain grows worse as you work. You take ibuprofen for the inflammation, it doesn't help. You try tylenol to reduce the feverish burning. It doesn't help. You struggle to sleep at night.

When you wake, you find the sore is significantly worse. The spot has raised to look like an orange or a grapefruit is under your flesh. You tell yourself that today you're going to the doctor, that this is some sort of cyst or an infected hair follicle, and try to keep your mind from wandering down the path of panic-worrying that this might be a tumor. You head to the bathroom to inspect the painful lump in the light. For some reason you feel compelled to squeeze the skin around the painful lump, hoping that it might burst and relief will rush into the flesh and pus rushes out. Your fantasy is interrupted when you feel the lump move. Subtle, but you felt it. There's no denying it. This mass under your meat moved. Your heart races. Sweat is now trickling down into your brows, threatening to join the tears welling in your eyes. You decide to attempt popping this nightmare again. The lump reacts violently. There's no denying it, something is in your flesh. You look up into the mirror to see something you've never hoped to view - raw fear on your own face. Your eyes are wide enough to see the whites around your dilated pupils. Your breath is a rapid pant. You don't even notice the pain in your jaw from clenching your teeth in pain and in fear. You look away, you look back down, and you stare at the wound that seems to have turned into a small pucker around the protruding hair. Rapid and sudden pain grips your body, your hip feels like it is being ripped apart, your bones feel like they're giving birth to yet more bone. Blood runs down your thigh and drips from your kneecap as the wound opens wider. White hair tinged with adipose tissue and blood emerges through the wound, only a few at first, followed by more. Small white hairs and longer thicker hairs. It looks like fur and whiskers. Then you see black lips framing teeth, young sharp teeth. As the puckered flesh peels back, the lips peel back as well to reveal gums lined with needle-like teeth that separate with panted breath. A pink nose emerges. Violently and with an alarming alacrity your flesh is ripped further by an emerging claw, a paw lined with tiny daggers that dig into your flesh. A face presses through, a small furry face with green slitted eyes and a tiny yelp of a meow. You reach down and pull the thing from your body. A small kitten, barely large enough to fit into your palm, covered in blood and plasma and grease from the fatty tissues of your skin, slips from your fingers and lands on the floor with a wet "thwap".

It gets up, dazed, and scurries to the corner of your bathroom and hisses in fear. Blood pools around your feet and you feel light headed. You sit on the edge of your bathtub and unspool a wad of toilet paper from the roll and pack your wound before twisting the towel into a makeshift bandage around your leg. You look at the frightened creature. It looks at you - a much larger frightened creature.

You're both confused, and you don't know it yet, but you've just met your newest best friend and companion for the years to come. Parasitikitties are rare but your bond will be unbreakable.

The...

Bonjour, Foodie Friends! Drew here, reporting from a recent sojourn to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I had the pleasure of experiencing the down-home flavors of Puckett's Restaurant. Now, you know I'm always eager to delve into a good, honest meal, and Puckett's certainly offered a taste of Southern hospitality. My initial mission, naturellement, was to investigate their much-talked-about mac and cheese, that quintessential American comfort dish elevated with the allure of smoky meats. And oh là là, the aroma alone was enough to make my heart flutter! A creamy cascade of macaroni and cheese, nestled beneath a generous blanket of both brisket and pulled pork. A veritable feast for the senses! The mac and cheese itself? Magnifique! Rich, velvety, with that delightful sharpness of good cheddar. It embraced the macaroni like old friends reunited. Now, the meats! The brisket, ah, the brisket! Clearly slow-cooked with patience and love, it was tender, smoky, and imbued with that deep, satisfying beefy flavor that brings a contented sigh to the lips. Truly a star of the show! The pulled pork, while possessing that lovely, shredded texture that speaks of hours over low heat, did present a slight… shall we say… enthusiasm for salt. It wasn't enough to cause alarm, but it did slightly overshadow the pork's natural sweetness. A gentle reminder to the chef: a whisper of salt can be more effective than a shout. And to accompany this hearty fare, a simple pleasure: a Diet Coke with lime. Crisp, refreshing, and precisely what was needed to cut through the richness. Parfait! But the culinary exploration didn't end there, non, non! Dessert beckoned in the form of their bread pudding. A Southern classic, bread pudding can be a truly comforting experience. Puckett's rendition was indeed good, a warm and moist embrace of cinnamon rolls with a pleasant sweetness. However, a rather unexpected guest arrived on the scene: a homemade cream cheese icing. It was, shall we say, a surprise. On some bites, the tangy counterpoint to the sweet pudding offered an intriguing little zing. But on others, it felt a tad… insistent, almost vying for attention rather than harmonizing with the comforting flavors of the pudding. A bold choice, to be sure, and one that might just divide the aficionados. While appreciating the adventurous spirit, might have preferred a more classic vanilla or bourbon sauce to allow the bread pudding's inherent charm to shine through unadulterated. So, my dear Foodie Friends, Puckett's Restaurant in Chattanooga offers a generally delightful and hearty experience. That brisket is a triumph! The mac and cheese a comforting classic. The pulled pork could benefit from a touch less salt, and the bread pudding with its cream cheese icing? Well, that's a culinary curveball that you'll have to experience for yourselves....

Ordered food with 5 other coworkers for pickup. My dish was brisket and was dry and hard like a pork chop. The sweet potato fries side dish was not sweet at all, and they were limp. I called the restaurant to ask to speak to a manager as I spent +$17 on this meal. I was told by whoever picked up the phone that I would have to call in 2 hours because it was the lunch rush. I restated that I would like to speak to a manger about my food order as I was displeased and the girl repeated that I would have to wait two hours. I went to the restaurant myself. One family was in line when I got there. I asked to speak to the manager at the podium and a young man asked what I needed. I proceeded to tell him I wanted to speak to a manager and he asked what was wrong. Now he never introduced himself or said he was the manager. But what he did do was make excuses as to why my food was the way was. Stated that the person who picked it up (my coworker) let the food sit on the counter for 45 minutes before she took it out. But then offered to replace the meal. I did get a replacement and explained that I wouldn't be so upset if I hadn't received the response I received on the phone when I initially called. I have been a manager as well and I do know what is means to have good customer service. I told my coworker what the "manger" said, I even recorded it. It urns out he lied entirely. We have time stamps of phone calls and text messages of what time the food was attempted to be picked up and told it wasn't ready against my phone call and time I arrived at the restaurant. Not ONLY did the girl who answered the phone have no training on proper customer service, but the manager(?) who didn't even introduce himself made excuses as to why this isn't the restaurants fault, then lied on the situation, and when I got back to work I didn't even get my new sweet potato fries. I work hard for my money just like everyone else so I care when I spend that much on lunch. But this place apparently has no regards to the customer satisfaction whatsoever. I will never eat there in the future and will let everyone I care about know what a terrible experience this was. P.S. The replacement brisket was...