Chipley’s Family Restaurant

Had the lunch buffet on Saturday around 1:15 pm. This was one of the worst meals I have ever had in my life. Eating the fried chicken was like eating rancid cooking oil, the spaghetti casserole was inedible. I should have stuck with a plate of lima beans. Also the service was pathetic.

Good greasy southern food and standard, good-​not-​great diner food. Service is friendly and usually fast and they’re very patient with children. The food has improved noticeably over the past few months, the place has been repainted, and joy of joys, it’s one of the few places in the area with news on a TV that ISN’T airing Fox.

I was in town for a wedding at Callaway Gardens and stopped in with some friends around noon on Sunday on our way out of town. We were all pretty hungover and looking forward to greasy brunch food, but Chipley’s stops serving breakfast at 11:00 am. I even asked if we could still get breakfast, just to be sure, and was told very definitively no. I soon understood the reason why — Chipley’s serves a lunch buffet with fried chicken, gravy, collards, cornbread, the works, and it gets really busy on early Sunday afternoons with the post-​church crowd.
I don’t eat meat, so I stayed away from the buffet (even the vegetables looked like they might have meat). There are plenty of veg breakfast options but almost no veg lunch options, which is why I asked if they could make an exception in the first place (I usually don’t do that). That narrowed my options down to a salad, baked potato, and fried green tomatoes (which are listed on the menu as being noted in some publication like Southern Living). I ordered the fried green tomatoes and I’m sorry to say they weren’t very good. Greasy but not much flavor otherwise, and they don’t come with any type of sauce or accompaniment (I borrowed some ranch dressing for mine). I ate two slices and didn’t finish the rest.
Now, I’m not one of those vegetarians who goes into a southern restaurant in a small town and then complains about how there are no vegetarian options. I probably wouldn’t go there again for lunch since there’s not much for me to eat, but my friends who got the fried chicken buffet really liked their food and I would definitely come here for breakfast if I were in town again.