Date night at the coliseum
Join Sara Hebert and Chris Jay as they go on dates and share their local restaurant choices and activities.
Whether you call it soul food, Southern cooking or country cooking, nothing beats a good “meat and three”-style plate lunch, as far as I’m concerned.
Sara and I love several local soul food joints – including places like Sherry’s Diner, C&C Café and Taylor’s Restaurant – but we’re always on the look-out for a new place to satisfy our endless hunger for fried catfish, collard greens and cornbread. We stumbled upon a great new spot during a recent lunch date. Allen’s Grill, a small diner serving daily plate lunch specials, recently opened on the first floor of the Motor Hotel at 729 Jordan St. in Highland.
Owner Theudas Allen takes pride in the restaurant’s handmade sides, which include a fantastic broccoli and cheese casserole (his mother’s recipe), hand-cut collard greens and sweet, buttery yams. The restaurant serves breakfast and lunch only, Monday through Friday. The set menu includes burgers, club sandwiches and fried seafood platters, but the real reason to visit is for the daily plate lunches, which include fried chicken on Mondays and pork chops on Tuesdays. Plate lunch specials cost $8 and include two sides, a bread and a beverage.
Homemade soups are also prepared daily, including a pretty fantastic chicken noodle soup.
The restaurant’s atmosphere is simple and casual, and the parking lot adjacent to the Motor Hotel has seen better days, but the food is fantastic. If you’re planning to give the restaurant a shot some time soon, consider stopping by on a Friday, when Allen’s Grill celebrates the arrival of the weekend by offering patrons a free slice of chocolate cake with their meal. I’m sure that the cake is a way to attract new customers, but they’ll keep offering it to you even after you’ve become a regular. Trust me, I know from experience.
–Chris Jay
Chris and I both love watching basketball – he’s a fan of the Dallas Mavericks, and I root for the Denver Nuggets. So, we were thrilled when we first heard that Shreveport-Bossier City was getting a professional basketball team, the Mavericks. Still, we missed several weeks of the season before taking in our first Mavs game. Mavs home games are played at Hirsch Coliseum. Ticket prices are very reasonable – $12 for adults and $6 for children ages 6 to 12. Children ages 5 and younger are admitted free.
Right off of the bat (or the dribble, as the case may be), it’s worth immediately pointing out that, as I write this article, the Shreveport-Bossier City Mavericks have never been defeated. They play fast-paced, aggressive basketball and typically defeat opponents by 20-40 points. While the team is clearly still working to establish a local fan base – there are plenty of empty seats available at the Hirsch during Mavs games – the number of fans in the stands appears to grow at every home game.
The ABA – the league in which the Mavericks play – ranked the team No. 1 in the 2013-14 season’s power rankings, and will bring the league’s national finals competition to Shreveport-Bossier City April 10-15.
Considering our home team has never been defeated, sports fans should make plans to attend what will likely be another winning performance at the finals. This time out, the competition could end with more than another victory – it could end with a championship trophy coming home to Shreveport-Bossier City.
If that’s not enough motivation to check out a Mavs game, consider stopping by the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau’s downtown visitor center at 629 Spring St., where game schedules and coupons for reduced-admission tickets ($10 off courtside seats) are available.
Go Mavs!
–Sara Hebert
