South Park Restaurant in Clarksville: A Classic Country Diner.

This unassuming spot on the south side of Interstate 40 offers its lunch specials pre-cast with a selection of side items and dessert to boot.

Originally opened in 1964, this diner has served decades as a waystation for truckers and motorists looking for a dependable bite to eat. Though the gas station that was once connected to it is gone, South Park Restaurant remains a Clarksville staple, serving up breakfast, lunch and pie to hungry eaters that darken the door.

Upon entrance, one is greeted with a massive stack cabinet of pies and cakes, more than a dozen varieties in differing stages of slicing, some unsliced, some with just a slice left, with everything from apple and cherry to chocolate meringue and 

There are tables and booths and a long lunch counter with round stools. There are waitresses all decked in the same black T-shirts proclaiming the restaurants name, who offer you coffee and a smile. And there's a menu representative of the later half of the 20th century roadside diner in all its glory.

South Park Restaurant prides itself on an excellent breakfast, where pancakes are featured in stacks and short stacks of four or two, alongside plenty of choices of meat - not just the traditional bacon and sausage, but ham, pork chops, T-Bone steak, chicken fried steak and hamburger steak. Tri-fold omelets come filled with a choice of meats or veggies, or you can go for a Philly Cheese Steak omelet. Like most diners, breakfast is offered any time.

There are a selection of burgers and sandwiches, including a classic Hot Beef with Gravy. And you'll find a Tuna or Chicken Prince offered - a tomato stuffed with tuna or chicken salad served on a bed of lettuce - and cottage cheese and peaches, dishes more common to the 1960s than to the 2020s.

Lunch specials are where South Park Restaurant really shines. Rather than just a meat and a veg, diners are presented with the option between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. of a pre-planned smorgasbord of a platter. 

You choose your meat (which on the most recent visit included chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, chicken and dressing, beef liver and onions, fish, chopped sirloin, smothered stuffed pork chops and chicken strips) and receive your main with the sides of the day - all of them. So your plate comes to you with a smattering of mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, and a roll and garden salad, and everyone gets banana pudding for dessert - before your main cake or pie dessert, of course.

The restaurant opens at six every morning and stays open through dinner to 9 p;m. (11 p.m. on Fridays), which means you have plenty opportunity to drop in on your way to hitter or yon on Interstate 40 when you're in the Clarksville area.

South Park Restaurant

1304 S Rogers St, Clarksville

(479) 754-8249