Oconee County, GA Politics

Maybe you will be coming back from the soccer fields of Oconee Veterans Park or Herman C. Michael like I will be with my family, but if you can eat out tomorrow night at one of our county's nine area eateries, the Oconee Area Resource Council and Family Connections will receive 10% of your tab. So eat up Monday at Oconee County restaurants such as Barberitos, Chick-Fil-A, Dickey's BBQ, Fox's Pizza, Jersey Mike's Subs, Mirko's, Scoops, Taco Stand or Zaxby's to contribute to the worthy cause while eating out with your family Monday, September 28, 2009

Sad day in Oconee County restaurant history. For the longest time the local newpspaper seemed to want to push the door closed on them a bit prematurely, but I am ashamed to admit I only ate there a half dozen times over the years. Please give your fondest Maison Blue memories in the comments section if you would be so kind. It will help my friend Amanda cope at the very least. From: amandahobe@bellsouth.net Date: June 2, 2009 7:28:48 PM EDT To: soxfanrpw@gmail.com (Rob Wilson), absaff@yahoo.com (Trina Saffold), bgilmore@heywardallen.net (Bill Gilmore), natfretwell@yahoo.com (Natalie Fretwell), DSJKEB@aol.com (Kim Birkett), tberding@yahoo.com (Terry Berding), beverlybeltran@hotmail.com (Bev Beltran), danjmatt@bellsouth.net (Dan) Subject: FW: Thank You from Maison Bleu Restaurant Heartbroken is the only thing I can say -------------- Forwarded Message: -------------- From: alana miller < alana@maison-bleu.com > To: amandahobe@bellsouth.net Subject: Thank You from Mais...

Nothing revolutionary or revelation-ary to report about either, but this is how I spent my Saturday. Bought a coconut pie for $8 behind Eagle Tavern after getting a 12 pack of eggs from chickens from Bostwick fir $2.75 that even came with a green eggs. I bought some lemonade as well. The Farmers Market has moved to the back of Eagle Tavern and that gives it more of a market feel and less of a jumble sale feeling. It will also give the new sod in the front more of a chance to grow and thrive. Later that day we walked up to Town Center and had dinner at Barberiteos. The big screen HDTV was good, The service adequate. The audience sparse, The food was pedestrian, but what would you expect? I hope the restaurant continues to succeed. I need to eat more at Maison Bleu.

These people came from Walton County and found First Friday by happenstance after a previously pleasurable dinning experience at Mirko's Pasta. They came in to Sweet ReTreats while a waitress brought in a nice dinner to the owner's daughter from neighboring Mirko's while we dined on a pair of hot dogs and a scoop.

The Oconee Enterprise website sent out an email Friday announcing the closing of the Shishka-bobby's restaurant in downtown Watkinsville in the Town Center development in a story well written by Blake Giles. While I do not take pleasure the economic hardship of others, this restaurant never had "it" and was doomed from the start, It was Barberitos not on a stick, and it did not garner much of a following. Weeks recent problems with the suggestion of the school board wanting a raise probably did not help keep his restaurant open any longer, as commenters in the Athens Banner-Herald's onlineathens.com had his restaurant right in the crosshairs. I hope Weeks new theme is more family focused and a place where you want to come back to again and again. I do not pretend to have the perfect solution for this restaurant lacks or needs. The intangible of finding "it" is as difficult to describe as it is impossible to capture: the perfect flow, great tastes, memorabl...

Every new restaurant takes some time get its patterns established. Any time you come in a new place before it has figured out how to do the little things, while still figuring out how to do the big things, you run the risk of being on the shorter end of the learning curve. Such was our experience this evening at the new Town Center restaurant in Watkinsville called Shishkabobby's, or "Barberitos on a stick" as I like to call it. The set up and the cilantro seem the same at least. David Weeks, the beleaguered chairman-elect of the Oconee County Board of Education and ill-advised pimp for State Senator Bill Cowsert's re-election advertising, has his hands full with his media onslaught, and I do not imagine we will be seeing Dr. Thomas Dohrmann eating in there any time soon. Simple improvements would include wiping down the tables more regularly and not when people are eating next to them. Have some examples of the finished product for people to see. Are we getting a sk...

Fear mongering is a popular spectator sport in Oconee County. The county government is not going to start forcing people to buy beer at $1.00 a bottle with a plate of chips at various restaurants outside of the municipalities. The misinformation flying around about this argument is amazing as usual, but I must give the various components of the opposition to allowing people to order beer and wine with a meal credit for effective tactics in attempting to delay the inevitable. I was not living in Oconee County when beer was first made available in convenience stores in the mid 1980s I believe. I did drive out to Oconee County to some solitary cinder block shack somewhere off the old 441 back when I was a degenerate undergraduate earlier than that to buy beer on Sunday for the then outrageous amount of $10.00 for a 12-pack. People are going to drink no matter what you do. People will tailgate and dine at restaurants in various eating establishments, and if they want a beer or wine with th...

It won't be voted on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners until April Fool's Day, but the latest revisions of the proposed pouring license might work a little better for the county businesses

If you wish to have your Board of Commissioners members listen to your views about beer and wine in restaurants this evening, please go to this meeting this evening and do speak up about whether you think that Oconee County restaurants can handle beer and wine with meals like they have in the county seat of Watkinsville already.

Got to tour the new Taco Stand with big glass doors in Butler's Crossing and it looks like a smaller version of any of the four Taco Stands in Athens or Atlanta. Square feet wise, it most closely resembles the Milledge Avenue Taco Stand but with the glass doors it should be more spacious and less crowded. The Oconee County Taco Stand will not open by Valentine''s Day but should be open sometime in March probably once they get the tile laid and painting. The principal of the Oconee Middle School across the street reportedly wants to open a BBQ restaurant right next door and an unidentified restaurant owner wants to bail out of the rapidly deteriorating and nearby Jamestown Shopping Center and move over there. Found out a pair of restaurants closed in that nearby Colony Square Shopping Center, a Zero's Subs and a Meals in a Minute place closed in the last month. There is a newer restaurant there called Rachel's Southern Meals that has great sausage biscuits and goo...

Regardless of how the Oconee County Board of Commissioners chooses to deal or not deal with beer and wine pouring in restaurants outside the municipality of Watkinsville, we will finally have a real Taco Stand at Butler's Crossing in early 2008. A lease was finally signed recently. The Taco Stand is as beloved an Athens institution as any restaurant. This location will be packed with basketball and soccer families coming to and from various events at North Oconee, Oconee County, Athens Academy, Westminster and Prince Avenue Christian schools. Good luck to co-owner Mark Marchant and the new Oconee County location of the Taco Stand opening maybe in mid-January 2008. Should be ready by Super Bowl Sunday - my 45th birthday - February 3 if all goes well with the build out (here's to hoping there are no problems or punch lists persisting past Christmas). Here is an excellent example of adaptive reuse that everyone can get behind. Glad to see that another choice for finer fast food...

The Watkinsville City Council passed the beer and wine pouring licenses for the five outstanding restaurants inside the city limits and all of them are maybe three blocks apart on Main Street. The newest kid on the block is called Mirko's Pasta at 2 S. Main Street and this restaurant could give DePalma's a run for their money as far as fresh pasta and good service. They took over the spot where a Quizno's once was a few weeks back in the Town Center development at 2 South Main Street, Suite 101. The owner is named Mirko Digiacomantonio but a gentleman named Stefano appeared before the city council pleading for new employees only half jokingly. They have been very busy and packed since opening a week ago Friday. Kenneth Gautreau resubmitted his license application for the Cajun restaurant which bears his name. Anne Miller-Anderson did the same for Maison Bleu. Both lost loved ones who ran their respective restaurants in the last calendar year. Marta Dean appeared for Jos...

The recent Oconee County Board of Commissioners vote to approve the Barnett Shoals Estates development on Barnett Shoals Road does not bode well for that tranquil corner of the county. This is an area where development has essentially escaped until recent attempts to cram a development on an area where Indians once gathered some 4,000 years ago. The BOC voted to ignore a private architect report on the possible potential historic significance and instead exponentially increase traffic in the area. A group of residents from Clarke, Oconee and Oglethorpe counties have come together to try and battle the development were successful in getting the Planning Commission to recommend denial, but the Board of Commissioners voted to approve with Chairman Melvin Davis making the tie-breaking vote . Commissioners Luke and Horton voted against it, Margaret Hale and Don Norris voted for it. I should have lobbied Hale and her husband harder at Uncle Floyd's car show last First Friday in Watkinsv...

I would bet a large percentage of the 500 people who signed the petition opposed to restaurants serving beer and wine in Oconee County have already eaten at one of the four restaurants in Watkinsville where it is already legal. Does this make them hypocrites? No, it would just make them patrons of Girasoles, Maison Bleu, Floyd's Grill or Gautreux's restaurants. The petition signers do not want the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to even consider whether or not restaurants may serve beer and wine to their customers. This is downright unconstitutional in terms of government responding to constituents business requests and suppressing popular support with a few hundred whiners not wanting wine and brew served to restaurant patrons in Oconee County, Georgia. This close minded effort recalls the opposite direction movement of the "Let Us Vote" stickered crowd when the County Commissioners would not consider a referendum for alcohol several years ago. This essentially...