Cappy's Apex LOCATION:

604 West Market Street, Johnson City

There's more leather inside Johnson City's Apex now. Probably a little more lace, too. In the parking lot, Harleys are edging out Honda Civics. At the bar, the percentage of beer bottles with lime-wedge wicks is higher. Chicken wing specials have arrived. The aging windows in front now allow daylight. And there's talk of a second story to cap one of the oldest restaurants in the Tri-Cities. When a "for sale" sign was tacked onto the building at Terry's Apex a few years back, customers feared the hamburger steak and grilled shrimp special was doomed. They predicted the demise of Bristol-made hot tamales doused in chili and cheese sauce. But Terry Miller proved as choosy about potential buyers as he was about cheeseburgers.

"I had three or four offers, but I didn't like what they were going to do to the place," says Terry, a former race car driver who ran the Apex for 15 years. Enter Lynn "Cappy" Ervin, from Erwin. As a builder, he saw possibilities, but just as important to Terry, Cappy had a history. He had eaten at the Apex as a little boy. In the 1970s, when Sammy Collins owned Sammy's Apex, it was a stopover for railroad men, many of them from Unicoi County. Cappy's father, the late Gene Ervin, was a conductor for the Clinchfield Railroad.

"He was a real good customer, in here every day," says Terry. Knowing the restaurant would be overseen by someone who respected its past, Terry turned the keys over to Cappy on April 1 of this year. Terry's a customer now, and he tells me he appreciates the improvements. "It had to have a good facelift to stay up with the times. It's moving more toward a bar and grill, and it takes both, nowadays. If I was going to sell to anybody at all, it was going to be Cappy. I wanted the tradition to stay on."

Along with the restoration of the original windows, Cappy applied a stucco façade and built a patio. On Wednesdays, he's outside barbecuing pork, like he used to do as a teenager at the Elks Club in Erwin. He smokes four fresh hams a week, using hickory chips soaked in beer. The meat is pulled and moistened with Cappy's friend Gary Osborne's North Carolina vinegar andpepper sauce.

"We used to dig a pit, sit up all night, and barbecue for church groups," remembers Cappy. While adding house-cooked barbecue and a new cheeseburger quesadilla, Cappy has left Terry's original menu intact. Breakfast begins at 7 a.m., and daily plate-lunch specials include a roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes on Monday; country fried steak on Tuesday; meatloaf on Wednesday; pork chops on Thursday; and flounder or catfish on Friday. Five new televisions line the walls. Over 40 different beers are served. And Cappy's will soon begin opening on Sundays.

"We've tripled sales already," Cappy reports. "I've built million-dollar homes, but people will remember me as the owner of the Apex." Cappy Ervin has walked a fine line, between retooling a business and respecting its heritage. Terry Miller's presence on the other side of the counter, finishing off a breakfast biscuit, is an unassuming act of approval, a sign that the new owner got it right.

--------GoTriCities--------

Food writer Fred Sauceman, author of the book "The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South - from Bright Hope to Frog Level," is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University.

E-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it