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We discovered Tattles Bar & Grill in Preston, ID by sheer chance. A couple of years ago when we took the kids to Jackson, WY we decided to drive through Preston on the way to see which Napoleon Dynamite filming locations we might be able to check out. We stopped for gas when we first arrived and I asked the cashier if there was anywhere we could get a good sitdown breakfast. She said, “Well, I dunno. I guess there’s Tattles.” Huh? She told me where to find it and that it was just about the only cafe in town, so we figured we’d give it a shot. We drove about a 1/2 mile west of the main drag and found Tattles Bar & Grill situated in an old house surrounded by a gravel parking lot across the street from a farm implement supplier. We were a bit skeptical. Erica ordered pancakes and I was pleased to see their menu featured a “Garbage Omelet,” which is a tradition in my family and consists of just about every vegetable and meat you can think of tossed in an omelet. I ordered that and a scone. Erica asked the waitress if she could get a scone too, and the waitress gave her a weird look and said “I think one will be enough.” She was sure right about that. They brough Erica a stack of three pancakes the size of dinner plates, and my scone was about 9 inches long, almost 6 inches wide and about and inch and a half thick. One was enough. We’ve been back to Tattles three times now. We even went so far as to plan a day trip to the Cache Valley of northern Utah just so we’d be within spitting distance of Tattles for breakfast.

Tattles on Google Maps:

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Whenever we travel (and sometimes when we don’t), we try to find little local spots to eat or visit. It’s become sort of a tradition since Erica and I got married. If we can avoid national chains when we eat on the road we come home happy. So I figured it’d make kind of a fun category on here to post pictures and a little text about some of the spots we’ve visited. The real meaning of the phrase “by the way” has been mostly forgotten in our modern usage, but it used to mean “along the way,” or “as we travelled.” So with that in mind, here is the first in my “By The Way” series:

By the Way: Mr. D’z Route 66 Diner, Kingman, AZ

In January of 2004 we drove to Phoenix, Arizona to visit my brother Jordan, his wife Amanda and their brand new son, Samuel. At my sister’s suggestion, we drove down through Las Vegas, across Hoover Dam and then roughly southeast to Phoenix. We hit Kingman at about lunchtime and got off the highway to look for a spot to eat. The first thing we noticed was the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Engine number 3759, sitting in a little roadside park:

Half a block away sits Mr. D’z Route 66 Diner:

It looked like exactly the sort of spot we might stop for a meal, and the train next door sealed the deal (I’m as crazy about climbing on a steam engine as my kids are). We went in and sat down amid the fairly standard Elvis and Marilyn themed decor of this sort of place. We ordered hamburgers for us, chicken strip meals for the kids and rootbeer all around. Little did we know that Mr. D’z Route 66 Rootbeer is famous in the area. It was pretty good stuff… obviously freshly homebrewed and with a wonderful vanilla-caramel sort of flavor mixed in. We bought two six packs to take with us. The food was great but the rootbeer really left us impressed. We still talk about that stuff just about every time we drink rootbeer.

Mr. D’z is located on Andy Devine Ave (Historic Route 66) in Kingman, AZ. Here’s a Google Earth view giving lat and long and showing the position of the train in relation to the diner:

If you ever have the occasion to drive from Vegas to Phoenix, or to the Grand Canyon, Mr. D’z is well worth a stop.