Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House

First off I would like to say that you do need reservations for this restaurant, The restaurant only serves 2 meals a day, the first at 11:00 and the second at 1:00.  On some days they may offer a 3:00 meal but its more rare from what we understood.  The cost per person is $20.00 plus tax and you are done, unless you want to tip the servers that is.  

This is a neat experience, along the touristy side and a must if you are in the area.  You arrive early and wait in the halls until the dinner bell rings, once it is rang they call you to where you need to go and your hostess takes you to your room.  You sit with a bunch of other people and pass the food to the left.  It is a neat experience and definitely a boarding house/family style dinner.  The hostess sits at the head of the table and tells you about the history of the place and how it ties into the Jack Daniel's Distillery which is only a couple of blocks away.  

The food is great here, its boarding house style and you get a choice of two meats and many vegetables.  You pass around the bowls containing the food and get what you want.  On our visit we had meatloaf, fried chicken, corn bread, Jack Daniel's apples, beans, squash casserole, fried okra and "fried corn".  Every last bit of it was delicious.  I am not a meatloaf fan but I ate two servings.  This is southern comfort food and its finest.  For dessert they served us a fudge pie with Jack Daniel's whipped cream on top.  Very delicious.  

We visited at 11:00 before the tour of the distillery and were not disappointed.  You do need to arrive early because you have to pay before you eat then get your card and find out where you need to meet your hostess once the dinner bell is rang.  Overall this is a fun and interesting little restaurant to eat at, it's definitely one of a kind and I highly recommend you to add it to your visit to Lynchburg.

We made reservations when we planned the tour of the Jack Daniels Distillery and it was a great part of the visit.  

You are assigned to a table with other visitors and one person who is your host(ess).  That person is a local.  In our case it was a retired teacher.  The food is served family style from a large lazy susan in the middle of the table.  We were also lucky to have a local celebrating her 90th birthday.  Our hostess gave us background on the boarding house over lunch.  

The food was the real down home stuff.  The fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread, etc. etc. was just like my Mamaw used to make.  The sweet tea tasted like the real brewed deal.  

I bought a cookbook for myself and one for my mother-in-law.  The owner signed them both with personal inscriptions.  It made a great Christmas gift.  

Anytime I am even remotely in the neighborhood, I will be sure to stop again.  Have fun!

We ate here before taking a tour of Jack Daniels.  The house is adorable.  They had a cute little gift shop that we browsed through while waiting for the dinner bell.

The house had different dining rooms and when the dinner bell rang we headed to the dining room that we were assigned to (which we found out when we checked in).  

Each dining room had a hostess who ate with us and also gave us the history facts.  All the food was served family style on a lazy susan in the middle of the table.  Fried chicken and meatloaf were the main entrees.  The meatloaf was probably the best I've ever had. It was moist and the sauce had a good flavor, not too sweet either.  The fried chicken was equally good - the seasoning was flavorful and it wasn't too greasy either.  The fried okra really stuck out for me. It was battered just right and had a nice crisp to it.  The hashbrown casserole was just so-so, the mac and cheese was fair, and the collard greens were good, but not fabulous.  They had this sweet pepper relish that tasted really good on top of the black-eyed peas.  The whiskey apples were amazing. They make them there and they were the right sweetness, and you could also taste the whiskey.  I'm not a whiskey fan, so I would have liked the apples even without the whiskey.

They served a chocolate chess pie with a whiskey whip cream on top.  This is probably the best chess pie I've had.  Good texture and the chocolate wasn't overpowering. The pie tasted well with the whiskey whip cream, which had a more subtle whiskey flavor compared to the whiskey apples.

If you're visiting Jack Daniels, you should come eat here!