Jerry's Restaurant & Lounge is a mainstay in Grafton with its homestyle food. They have a parking lot out front, a pick-up window and plenty of indoor dining.



Their menu features items like fried appetizers, salads, soups, sandwiches, hoagiess, burgers, pasta and other plated entrees.



When I was visiting, it was a busy day in town, and they were only serving a limited menu. That nixed most of the entrees and many of the sandwiches. 



I placed an order to pick up and drove up to the curbside window. I went with their meatball and cheese hoagie. While you can opt to add in peppers and onions, I went with just the classic mozzarella topping. 



The sandwich was OK. The meatballs I think needed some more seasoning, as did the sauce. It wasn't bad; it just could use a bit more love. It's probably a good middle-of-the-road sandwich for folks who don't want it too sweet or too spicy or too acidic. I just want more. 



Grade: C

Grafton has the nation's longest running, continuous Memorial Day parade in the nation. This year marked the 154th annual parade, and I made a day trip up to check it out. While there, I had to get my grub on.



Olde Town Donuts, which operates out of Jerry's Restaurant, serves up standard and specialty donuts -- and they were open on Memorial Day. AND BONUS - they had both a tent set up outside and the drive-thru open. Win-win.



So, I put in an order for a half-dozen via Facebook messenger and made my way (very slowly) across town (maybe employing questionable traffic choices to get around parade traffic).



I went with strawberry, maple, s'mores, pb&j, cherry cheesecake and lemon pie. It could have been the combination of the spirit of the community event or these donuts being the first thing I ate all day - but these were really tasty. The donut itself tasted fresh with cinnamon and sugar. The toppings were plentiful - and reminded me of the mini donuts you might find from Peace, Love & Little Donuts. But, these are full sized with all the indulgent varieties. Which would you pick?



Grade: A

Espresso Yourself Coffee House in Grafton has been on my to-try list for quite some time.

But it was only recently that I was able to make it there.

This coffee shop has all sorts of drinks - hot or cold, as well as snacks like cookies, pastries and more.

While here, I ordered a simple latte with caramel.


So tasty!

At the end of summer, I made my way to Tygart Lake State Park to ride the Princess Cruise on the lake.


It was so fun!


And, I learned a lot about the area.


And, when it as over, I went to The Lodge for a bite to eat.


I started with a house salad with French dressing. It was filled with carrots, red onion, cucumbers and tomatoes.


And then for my main meal, I had fried crab cakes and mashed potatoes. Talk about comfort food. I've never seen crab cakes balled up like this before, but they sure were tasty.


Have you been?

Listen, ice cream wasn't part of the plan. I already had hotdogs and some deep-fried cheese balls, but when an ice cream place is just a few steps away ... who am I to deny fate?

Dairy King sells hotdogs, pork bbq, pepperoni rolls, nachos and a chicken salad sandwich in addition to all the delicious ice cream: cones, shakes, sundaes and "snowflakes." Snowflakes, which are like blizzards, can come in banana split, banana wafer, blackberry cobbler, Butterfinger, cookie dough, Heath, M&M, Oreo, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Reese's Pieces, Snickers and strawberry shortcake.

I ordered a small Reese's Peanut Butter Cup snowflake. A whole cup of vanilla ice cream blended with chocolate and peanut butter? Just yes. You already know this is bangin'.

And we visited the International Mother's Day Shrine, while we were there!



Grade: A

My quest to finish trying all the drive ins in West Virginia has ramped up ever since the Charleston Gazette-Mail started their drive-in series. What I would give to be doing that assignment! Trying all the drive ins left in the state has been a bucket list thing of mine, and I have about six done and five more to go.



Biggie's, located in Grafton, is the only drive in remaining in the northern part of West Virginia. We made the quick drive out from Morgantown and pulled into a spot. We waited for a few minutes, but nobody came out - so I'm not sure if they still do curbside service or not. My stomach wasn't willing to find out. We went inside and looked over the menu of options.





They have burgers, hot dogs, fish sandwiches, chicken salad, ham sandwiches, BLTs, chicken sandwiches plus tons of sides like coleslaw, applesauce, deep-fried mushrooms (mm), broccoli and cheese, hot cheese balls, corn nuggets, onion rings and more.



I ordered two hotdogs (I feel like that's a very drive-in thing to do) with "everything," which included chili, mustard and onions. I also got slaw for an additional charge. And I ordered a side of small cheddar cheese balls. Deep-fried cheese, how can you pass that up?

My hotdogs were pretty good! The sauce was a little different - chunks in a very thin sauce so it wasn't the same overall consistency. But the slaw was delicious, and the bun was steamed. The cheese balls were delicious. Hot, cheesy, crunchy - what more do you need in life?

Biggie's does take Visa and Mastercard. They are open 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. seven days a week.

Grade: A

I have never been "to" Grafton until recently. Maybe I've been "through" Grafton, but it was never intentional. In fact, I wasn't even sure how to get there.

For those taking note - if you keep driving back behind the "other" Walmart (instead of getting on the highway), you run right into it.

I happened to be coming home from Princeton when a friend, who will be moving out of the state very soon, asked me to meet up for dinner. Dinner in Grafton sounded as though it could pose a threat of difficulty. According to a few friends, though, Gourmet Express is a hidden gem.

Hidden is right - it's not exactly easy to spot this restaurant. It's essentially a two-story house at 1216 W Main Street in Grafton. There is a small sign signaling passers-by, as well as a small parking lot for patrons. It's hidden in plain sight.

When we walked in, the first thing I noticed was a smell - a good one. It was like a sweet, soft smell. Like I just walked in a fresh meadow. It may also be because I had just walked inside from the humid temperatures, and I smelled like sweat.

As soon as you walk in, there's a counter. The woman behind asked us if we'd like the lower or the upper floor. We decided to just stick the ground floor - mostly because I didn't want to make the poor woman run up and down the stairs for us. Surprisingly, it was fairly busy. There were only a handful of places to sit, plus the counter, and about half were taken up.


Our table had a small flower, and the interior had a girly country feel. Our server brought us some menus and took our drink orders. You definitely get that down-home, southern hospitality feel here. She explained all of their specials right up front (which were also written on the chalkboard, which is nice, so you can refer to them afterward) and gave us some time to look over the menu.

I couldn't get over one of their specials, though, the "portabeller rockefeller" (see what they did there?). Its description was "spinach and cream cheese, shrimp and scallops, grilled potato cake for $14.99. It was probably the most expensive item on their menu - but eesh, it sounded so good! I know Rockefeller (like Oysters Rockefeller) is so '70s, but I wasn't around then to experience the greatness.

It also came with a salad - basic iceberg lettuce, cheddar cheese, couple tomatoes and croutons (I love croutons). I asked for French dressing - this was that orangey kind, as opposed to the Catalina red kind, but it was still OK nonetheless. I ate the good parts out of it and discarded the boring lettuce stock pieces.

Soon after, we were handed some fresh bread. I usually ignore the bread because it's just filler, but this was tasty! It was almost sweet. It wasn't plain, boring. It was fresh, flavorful, slightly sweet. Yum. And before I knew it, our main entrees were out.

A giant portabello cap stuffed with cream cheese and spinach was lightly baked with breadcrumbs on top. A couple small scallops and shrimp were sprinkled around the mushroom, and soaking in a thick, creamy cheese sauce. The scallops and shrimp were much better than I was expecting - who knew the seafood would be decent in Grafton, WV? No, it's clearly not straight from the ocean, but it's probably as close as any of us are going to get.

The mixture inside the mushroom was heavy on the cream cheese, less on the spinach. Rich and delicious. I used this as an opportunity to bring in a starchy, heavy base in my potato pancake. Seriously, positioning these two together is like a culinary heaven. If I had one or the other, I'd complain about the balance. They complement each other perfectly. The pancake was lightly fried, but thick and pillowy and delicious.

So each bite went: Small piece of seafood, chunk of mushroom, scoop of cheese mixture with a dollop of potato pancake. Yum! I sopped up any leftover sauce with my breadsticks and left that place one happy, carb-filled camper.

They had dessert - fresh-baked apple and sweet potato pies. But I was trying to watch my wallet. My total came out to be around $15. Worth. Every. Penny.

Grade: A