Okay, Mellow Mushroom finally has some competition in the pizza department. (They're still #1 for calzones though.)

We've been doing lots of drive-by's past the Garlic Jim's pizza place lately -- because we've been so eager for Franklin's newest pizza joint to open their doors. That day was officially March 4, 2008.

We went for the first time last night (March 14th).

Garlic Jim's pizza ROCKS!!! Here's why...

As stated earlier, in this list of Franklin's best restaurants, our longtime favorite pizza place in Franklin has been the Mellow Mushroom.

But we decided to take the advice of some of the people from that first article who had recommended Mineo's pizza & wings. So we went there for the first time last night.

I'm just being honest when I say... NO WAY is theirs the best.

What we got:

• a medium white pizza


• a small calzone (with mushrooms, onions, pepperoni, sausage & extra cheese)


• a small order of hot wings

Silvia N. contacted us for some ideas regarding places to take her young son for his birthday.

"I want to take him to a place where he'll have FUN. Would you help me please?"

Here are some fun places to consider...

Looking for somewhere to dine in Franklin, Tennessee?

Following are the best restaurants with the tastiest menus in town -- in our opinion.

(...includes the Cool Springs area.)

Last weekend, our little Party on the Porch came to an abrupt halt around 9:30 p.m. when we got a late night hankerin' for some hot, tasty pizza... so we took the party inside.

We'd been sipping on cold adult beverages for most of the night, so we wanted more of a thin-crust light & crisp pizza, rather than your typical dinner-sized oh so filling thick-crust pizza.

Mike recalled -- from his days of living in Nashville -- that Sir Pizza might have just what we were craving.

Unfortunately, they didn't deliver.

Listen to Light's Real Men of Genius "Mr. Chinese Food Delivery Guy":

We moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2001 from Pensacola, Florida. We rented a big house on the Williamson/Davidson county line that was actually in the town of Brentwood. Lived there for a year until we finished building our new house.

Our new home is located in Franklin, Tennessee.

It was built by Ryan Homes in "record time" (only 72 days!), and we've been really happy with all aspects of our first home together. It's the "Harpeth" plan (... I know when I was looking at new houses, it always helped to know which floor plan I was looking at.)

Photos of our Home Building Process

Attention Nashville residents (and especially Mark & Erin -- the only pseudo-professional restaurant reviewers we know), you'll be delighted to learn that our favorite all-u-can-eat Chinese restaurant (yes, the one that serves cockroaches on occasion) has officially closed its doors.

Bummer for us. Good news for you and yours who have steered clear of this "fine dining establishment", choosing foods of the pizza-pie formulation over oriental-seasoned crusty crustations.

Listen to Bud Light's Real American Heroes "Mr. Fortune Cookie Fortune Writer":