A Southern "Cookout"

As I mentioned in my post on Monday, and yesterday, my wife and I recently made a drive down to Radford, Virginia to visit with our niece and to watch her play softball with her university team. It was a great trip, though much too short. The last time we had been down there was in Autumn of 2025 and we rode along with @mrsbozz's sister and brother in law. This time was a bit different as I did all of the driving myself.

It's actually not a horrible drive from Columbus down to Radford clocking in at about five hours exactly. The roads are pretty fun, once you get down deeper in West Virginia and closer to Virginia they get pretty windy and hilly. There is a stretch through West Virginia that takes you along the Kanawha River through a long valley with mountains on either side and it is quite picturesque, but also kind of depressing at the same time.

I say depressing only because there is a lot of industry, but also a lot of ramshackle houses along the banks of the river. You have these pocket communities that pop up wherever they can, and you can't help but wonder how long it might be before the Kanawha floods and washes it all away.

One of the things that I really love about traveling is trying new food or new places to eat, and this trip scratched that itch on a couple of levels. For a while now my brother in law and our niece have been telling us about this interesting southern chain called Cookout. It's basically a fast food place, but they focus on cheap fast food. The idea is that you can get a tray meal, with a main dish and then two sides.

What makes Cookout a bit unique is that your two sides don't have to be the traditional items you would normally expect. For example, you can get a full quesadilla for one of your sides. I was talking to a guy the other day and he said his regular meal is a double burger with double chicken nuggets as his sides. Then, if you really want for only $1.50 more you can upgrade your drink to a shake and they have like 64 different shake flavors.

Since we don't like to over indulge too much, @mrsbozz and I decided to share a tray meal. We got a grilled chicken sandwich along with hush puppies and onion rings. The onion rings weren't really anything special, but the hush puppies were pretty phenomenal. We both agreed that the chicken sandwich was quite good, though I probably could have eaten a whole one no problem. It was quite small. I think next time I will definitely try one of their burgers.

Our niece and I stopped back at Cookout later that night to get a couple of shakes. She got a Oreo peanut butter cup shake and I got the blueberry cheesecake shake. They were both fantastic. I can see why this place is so popular. I think the total cost for our tray meal was less than $10. Which is hard to do these days even at a fast food joint!

The next day for lunch we decided to try another southern chain called Bojangles. They specialize in fried chicken and biscuits and I have to admit, the food was pretty dang good. The biscuits were warm and buttery and just what you would expect from down south. I got the cajun filet meal which I didn't take a photo of, and @mrsbozz got the Bobites which are basically just chicken nuggets.

We also got a side order of their BoBerry biscuits. It's basically just buttermilk biscuits with blueberries in them and a bit of icing on the top. I didn't really taste the icing, but the blueberries were front and center. They were pretty amazing and I am already dreaming of getting back down there and getting some more one day.

It was a fantastic trip down to Radford and if you follow my sports account @bozz.sports, you know that it was a good weekend for the softball team as well. They successfully swept their opponent, and actually after my post today, you will learn they are currently on a five game winning streak! It was definitely hard to leave our niece, but I know we will be back down to visit her again.