Vandy/Candyland
Slightly sad news from Nashville, by postcard from Nashvillian Stephanie, whom I’ve known for 20 years now: “Vandyland will be closing in June, the buildings torn down, so we went & had breakfast while we still could. The have good gravy. Good home fries. Good coffee, too.”
Vandyland was once Candyland, located in a strip center on West End Ave. not far from campus, a successor of an original Candyland soda shop dating from the 1920s in downtown Nashville, I read. Sometime in the 1980s, the strip-center Candyland became Vandyland for some reason, but it was the fine same hole-in-the-wall soda shop I visited occasionally. I don’t remember the home fries or gravy (or coffee, since I don’t drink coffee), but I do remember the simple sandwiches and chocolate drinks.
Not sure when I first visited Candyland, but do know I was there on May 5, 1982: “Lunch, the last before I got on the bus, was at Candyland, with Rich and Steve,” I wrote. “Enjoyed the ham & cheese and chocolate frost, and the babble of the lunch crowd, to which we added our babblings.” I was leaving that day for a month on the road—about 7000 miles all by bus eventually, in a continental loop from Nashville to Washington, DC, to Boston to Logan, Utah, to Los Angeles to El Paso to San Antonio to Atlanta and back to Nashville. Whew. Guess I had more energy when I was 20, but who doesn’t?
Exactly a year later, to the day and to the hour, the three of us went back to Candyland for lunch. I don’t think we planned it that way, but we did realize it as we were waiting for our food (probably I brought it up, since my memory tends to be chronologically organized). I made note of this fact in my diary of the time, but not, unfortunately, what I ate that visit, though I bet it involved Vandyland’s amazing chocolate moonshine. I wasn’t going anywhere that day, but we were in the golden moment between finishing school and the actual graduation ceremony, which would be a week and a day later.
Had a lot of leisurely lunches that week at the likes of Vandyland: Mack’s Country Kitchen (at Popular Prices!), the Elliston Place Soda Shop, the Pancake Pantry, Rotier’s and further away Sylvan Park and the Loveless Motel & Cafe. Good town for cheap eats, Nashville, or at least it used to be.
posted by Dees Stribling @ 11:13 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
The cheap eats is getting harder to come by, as the day spas proliferate. Maybe Vandyland will sell us their milkshake blender. We can flee to the hills with it.
Candyland (Vandyland) certainly holds a place in my own personal cheap-eats hall of fame. I distictly remember the little old Greek man who took our orders, the way he said "Oliveandchiz sandwich" all run together. (This sandwich, mind you, was sliced green olives, american cheese, mayo on white bread. Its elegance was in its simplicity.) And, of course, there was the frosted chocolate. Dees, you may remember we also went there just before another seminal event in my life. But then, we were younger and more resilient. - Dan
The demise is bad news. (at first I thought you meant the University was closing, because I forgot the name change, and I always called it "Candyland" even thereafter). I frequented that place for years, even after leaving the off-campus residence at 3006 Vanderbilt Place. My favorite Candyland food was tomato -stuffed- with chicken-salad, served by Miz
Presley(white hair in bun,white or light pink uniform). I saw her at a downtown Nashville bus stop in 1987 and I had to identify myself to her because she didn't recognize me in my lawyer uniform. MT
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