An Afternoon in Mentone
An Afternoon in Mentone
Tomato pie, a church built around a boulder, and one very good waterfall make a case for an afternoon on Lookout Mountain.
Mentone, Alabama, does not ask much of you.
Perched atop Lookout Mountain, this little mountain town is best approached without much of an itinerary. Give it an afternoon, leave some room to wander, and there is not much reason to hurry.
Start with the Pie
The Wildflower Café has been part of Mentone since 2007, tucked into a wonderfully eclectic space filled with art, flowers, mismatched details, and the accumulated personality of a place that has never tried very hard to look polished. Its famous tomato pie has become enough of a signature that, for plenty of people, it is reason enough to make the drive.
Savory tomatoes, cheese, and a warm crust make it exactly the sort of lunch that feels right in a mountain town, but it was the touch of balsamic that set this tomato pie apart, adding a little sweetness and tang to all that richness. But Wildflower is as much about the setting as what comes out of the kitchen.
And then there is Moon. The Wildflower’s owner seems as much a part of the place as the tomato pie itself. While we were there, she moved from table to table, talking with customers, clearing plates, and checking in with the easy familiarity of someone who makes the restaurant feel more like a gathering place.
That warmth is part of what makes Wildflower feel less like a restaurant you stopped at and more like a place you happened into.
This is not a place designed for eating quickly and getting back on the road.
So we didn’t.
The Church with a Rock in It
A short drive away is one of the strangest and most touching little buildings on Lookout Mountain.
The Sallie Howard Memorial Chapel was built in the 1930s by Milford Howard in memory of his first wife, Sallie. Rather than removing the enormous boulder occupying the site, the chapel was constructed around it. The rock quite literally becomes part of the building, rising behind the pulpit and extending through the rear of the small stone church.
It is one of those places photographs explain and still somehow fail to explain.
The chapel was dedicated in 1937 and remains an active church today. Standing inside, though, the dates and details seem secondary. What stays with you is the scale of the rock against the simplicity of the room and the fact that someone looked at an immovable piece of mountain and decided the church should accommodate it, rather than the other way around.
That feels very Mentone.
Follow the Water
From there, the natural ending to our Mentone afternoon was DeSoto Falls at DeSoto State Park.
The falls are formed by the Little River as it drops over the edge of Lookout Mountain. The area also carries a bit of unexpected industrial history. A dam at the falls once helped generate electricity for communities on the mountain. Today, the setting has returned largely to recreation, with the river and falls providing the attraction.
And then, we headed down the mountain and continued to Summerville, Georgia, where a very different kind of Southern curiosity was waiting: Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden. (More on that later.)
But Mentone had already made a pretty convincing case for itself.
No packed itinerary. No race from one attraction to another. Just tomato pie, a tiny church wrapped around a giant rock, and falling water.
There are Southern towns that deserve a weekend. Mentone makes a pretty good argument for what you can do with an afternoon.
Join In
Show us what you see, who you know, and what matters.
