I scratched two more items off my bucket list on Saturday when I sampled some of the famous pecan pralines at Priester’s Pecans in Fort Deposit and ate lunch at the Bates House of Turkey restaurant in Greenville.
On the way back from a quick trip to Montgomery on Saturday, my wife and I stopped at Priester’s Pecans, which is located at the intersection of Interstate Highway 65 and U.S. Highway 185 in Fort Deposit. For those of you unfamiliar with Priester’s Pecans, it is Alabama’s largest gourmet handmade candy company and has been around since 1935. They’re open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
I’ve heard about Priester’s all my life, and I’ve driven past the large building, which faces the interstate, countless times, but I’d never visited the place until Saturday. I put Priester’s Pecans on my bucket list earlier this year when I read that their pecan fruitcake and pralines had been placed on the “100 Dishes to Eat In Alabama Before You Die” list by the Alabama Tourism Department. On Saturday, my wife and I sampled our fair share of the tasty pralines that they make available in the building’s “food area,” and those samples alone were well worth the stop.
I scouted around for a few minutes, but I never found any samples of their famous pecan fruitcake. It’s possible that this is a season item and wasn’t available on Saturday. On the other hand, I never asked any of the employees about it, so it's possible that I just overlooked the fruitcake.
After our stop at Priester’s, my wife and I continued down the interstate and got off at Exit 130, the northernmost Greenville exit, to eat at another place I’ve always wanted to visit, the Bates House of Turkey restaurant. This is another restaurant that I’ve driven past countless times, but for whatever reason, I’d never stopped in for a meal.
Founded in 1923, the Bates House of Turkey restaurant specializes in all foods turkey, including roast turkey dinners, open face turkey sandwiches, turkey salad plates, turkey chili taco salads, eight different types of traditional turkey sandwiches (including “The Gobbler”) as well as homemade casseroles and soups.
I put Bates House of Turkey on my bucket list a while back when I saw that their hickory-smoked turkey sandwich had also been placed on the state tourism department’s list of “100 Dishes to Eat In Alabama Before You Die.” That’s what my wife and I ordered on Saturday and to say that it was the finest turkey sandwich that I’ve ever eaten would not be an exaggeration. It was well worth the stop and best of all, it wasn’t that expensive. My wife and I ate an outstanding lunch for around $16.
In the end, I enjoyed not only eating at both of these fine establishments, but I also enjoyed scratching two more items off of my bucket list. How many of you have ever eaten at Priester’s Pecans and the Bates House of Turkey restaurant? What do you think about them? What items do you order when you go there? Let us know in the comments section below.
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