Follow the squash casserole

The first stop on my reporting itinerary for Monday’s story about the fate of Aunt Fanny’s Cabin wasn’t the contested Smyrna, Georgia building which once housed the racist restaurant. It was Ted’s Montana Grill.

Ted’s Montana Grill, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, currently has locations in 16 U.S. states. But I rarely heard the chain mentioned until I started talking to people about Aunt Fanny’s, which shuttered in 1992.