11 - The Depot at Cody Creek (Dobson, NC)

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Okay, welcome back everyone to the Biscuits and Gravy podcast. I'm Michelle, I'm your host and my kids are with me today. So if you hear a little bit of noise in the background that is why they're in the other room watching Pirates of the Caribbean or something like that. I've already asked them to turn it down one time because they got a little loud. But we are just having a lazy

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My husband is out of town for work this weekend and it's rainy and cold and so we are just kind of taking it easy which is really odd for us. We farm full time so we always have something to do and you know the farm doesn't stop when we decide to have a lazy weekend. So we have

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done our chores for the day and we're just kind of taking it easy. So it's it's been nice. It's been nice although my oldest said this morning I'm not gonna be a couch potato today. But here we are watching another movie. She's also baking right now too so you might hear some of that going on in the kitchen. So today this episode is going to be about

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restaurant that I went to when I was staying in Mount Airy. So if you didn't listen to my Mount Airy episode about heart and soul, bed and breakfast, you can go back and listen to that. But while I was in Mount Airy, I drove about 15 or 20 minutes to Dobson, North Carolina.

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and which I had never heard of before. But this was a restaurant that had been recommended to me from some followers on Instagram or Facebook, I can't remember where exactly. But it had gotten several suggestions for this. I had gotten several suggestions for this one restaurant. And so, you know, like I've told you before, when I get multiple suggestions for the same restaurant, then I feel like I need to kind of pay attention to that.

02:11
So that is why I decided to visit the Depot at Cody Creek is what it's called. I visited on a Sunday evening at 530 is when I went. It is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. So if you're planning a trip, just keep that in mind. It's open until 8 o'clock so it's not open super late. Let me give you a little bit of background that I...

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found out as I was doing some research on the depot. So the depot is what the restaurant is called on this property. It was built in 2000 and it is a well it's a restaurant obviously but it's also an event center. So they have the restaurant they have cabins you can rent they have a clubhouse

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It's actually a really really beautiful property. It would be perfect for some sort of event like a wedding or something big like that. The restaurant describes itself as a southern homestyle menu featuring pot roast, meatloaf, fried chicken, cornbread, array of vegetables, and house-made

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When I first pulled up to the depot, I noticed just immediately how beautiful the property was as I've already described to you. There's a long driveway, paved drive. You go through a covered bridge down to the property. The property is kind of like in this little valley, I guess.

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I noticed all of the other buildings that I had already described to you, the wedding chapel, the gazebo, and as it was starting to get dark, especially when I came out of the restaurant when it was getting dark, I noticed they had lights around in the gazebo and different places so you can still walk around and see the place. But there were lots of people just kind of...

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milling about like either before or after they ate and just taking pictures of the wedding chapel and just the property in general. It was very pretty and I will be sharing pictures as I do with each episode. If you will check out our website biscuitsandgravypodcast.com you will see this episode and you will see the pictures that go along with it. So our our website is sort of like a

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like a blog that goes along with our podcast. And so each episode you can actually listen to and look at pictures on the website. So that's kind of good, because I love pictures. I love to be able to describe things to you guys in this form, but I'm very visual. So I love being able to share my pictures with you guys as well on there.

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So I will say that when I walked into the restaurant, I was a little confused. It is a beautiful restaurant. It's all like wood. It just looks like a big lodge. It's got stone columns and things. But I was a little confused when I walked in. There's a big waterfall right there when you walk in and it was pretty loud actually. And there was a hostess that was there at a podium.

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And so I kind of walked up to her like Thinking she was gonna seat me or ask how many like I didn't know if there was a wait or anything like that I did not make reservations or anything And she acted like she didn't need anything from me and I was just kind of like what do I do? You know and she told me to go on in to the restaurant and I honestly didn't know This was a large building and so you walk in

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Like I said, there's the hostess and the waterfall and then it looked like there was seating to the right As part of the restaurant and there was like a hallway to the left So she kind of like nodded to the left down this hallway so I walked down the hallway and I didn't know if someone was there to seat me or what but I just kind of walked by and there was There was another room with with seating and there was a bar

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and I didn't see anybody. I kind of like walked into the the doorway and I didn't see anyone there like paying attention or looking at me or anything to like let me know what to do. And there was an older gentleman that was sitting in the hallway on a bench with a radio and I assume he worked there. Maybe he was an owner. I'm not really sure but he kind of looked at me and um

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guess he saw the confusion and he asked me if it was just me and and I said yes and he said okay well then there's there's some room in there for you and he pointed me to a table for two. he didn't get up or anything he just kind of like it's in there. so it was a little confusing it was kind of like you could tell that they were used to regulars that have been there before. I mean I assume that it you know there's a lot of

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first timers that come in there that might be a little confused. But anyways, I don't... I am one of these people that like I like to know. You know? Like I like to know where I'm going. If I'm going somewhere I've never been before, I like to know what the setup is like. Like if I'm going on a trip with somebody, I like to know what the accommodations are like. I like to know what the beds look like.

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how the rooms are set up and you know all that kind of stuff. Like I'm just one of those, I'm a planner. I like to just kind of get my bearings before I'm headed somewhere. That's not to say I can't adjust, but I don't like feeling like I'm floundering. You know what I mean? So I felt a little bit like I was floundering when I got there. And I was by myself. So that probably adds to a little bit of that feeling of floundering when I go.

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myself somewhere. You know I'm pretty confident and I like being by myself but I you know there is kind of this element of like I need some help. I need someone to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing right now because I don't know. I've never been here before. So okay so let's get to the food. So I had the steak chicken and shrimp stir-fry.

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and hush puppies and sweet potato casserole. The meat was very tender. It was a teriyaki flavor. I felt like the sauce was a little too heavy, but it was good. The hush puppies were rings, so they looked like onion rings. And they were a little dry, but they were okay.

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Jumbo shrimp, grilled onions and peppers were with my stir-fry. So it was really good. I enjoyed it. As soon as I got my food, they started calling parties to sit down. So I think I just missed the busiest time for the restaurant probably. The waitress was really busy taking care of bigger tables. Didn't come to check after bringing the food.

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didn't refill my water or anything like that. So, you know, I'm a sucker for good service. Don't feel like the service was great, but I am also not a waitress. So I understand probably there is a big difference in the tip that I would receive if I was a waitress for a large table, taking care of a large table more so than a single person.

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But I always like to see that in a restaurant if someone... I mean she did not look overly busy to me but like I said I'm not in her shoes so I can't really say. But that was a little strange to go to a restaurant like that that had such a high rating and recommendation to me and I did not feel

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the employees were taking care of customers as good as they should. It was a beautifully designed restaurant. The sweet potato casserole was very good. That was probably actually better than the meal itself. And you know, I don't really love sweets, but it was very good. And like I said, the atmosphere, the...

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just the aesthetics of the place, all the little buildings in the gazebo and the chapel and everything, made for a really nice experience if you wanted to go and just kind of hang out. And it wasn't just that you were going for the food, but just going to walk around and experience the atmosphere. I thought that it was a nice place for that. So overall, I think the Depot at Cody Creek,

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in Dobson, North Carolina was a good choice. I think if I was in the area again probably not by myself, but if I was with my family or if Adam was with me then we would probably go and try it again just to see if the experience was any different just to see if the you know the weight staff was any more helpful and

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and how the food was another time. But yeah, so I'm not gonna give it a star rating. I have thought about doing that. I have thought about doing reviews where I give a star rating on here. And maybe I will do that eventually. But I would say pretty good. It was not excellent and it was not bad. So.

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Hopefully that will help you in your decision. If you were ever in the area of Mount Airy, Dobson, then maybe you will want to try the Depot at Cody Creek and see for yourself. And if you do, I would love to hear from you. So that's all for this episode. This was a fairly short one. These restaurants where it's just one restaurant that I'm featuring, are gonna be a little bit shorter, which is fine.

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but I am going to do an episode next time on hoe cake. So I don't know if any of you Southerners are familiar with hoe cake or not, but that is something that I grew up with. So I'm going to do that on the next episode. So I hope you will come back. I hope you will head to our website and our Instagram.

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so you can see some of the pictures from today's episode, the depot, and that you will stick with us and come back for our next episode. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.