Mossy Creek burger lands on national stage
Where no local burger has gone before, the “Chubby Melt” went this week: straight to the tip of David Letterman’s tongue.
The late night host didn’t actually taste the Mossy Creek Café burger — served with grilled onions and mushrooms between two grilled cheese sandwiches in the Fishersville restaurant — but his delight about the absurd slab of beef is boosting the burger’s sales, co-owner Benny Higgs said Friday.
“It’s funny ... back in the spring we took it off [the menu]. We just didn’t sell a lot of them,” Higgs said, noting they still serve it upon request. “We probably sold six or eight this week.”
During an interview Monday night with Food Network “bad boy” star Guy Fieri, host Letterman asked about some of the guest’s discoveries during road trips to produce his book, “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip … with Recipes!”
Talk circled to the rumored burger between two grilled cheese sandwiches, which neither star could pin down. After a commercial, Letterman got it:
“It might be the “Chubby Melt” at the Mossy Creek Café in Fishersville, Virginia,” he told viewers. “Check it out.”
“My aunt in Mississippi was asleep in her bed with the TV on and wakes up to David Letterman mentioning Mossy Creek Café,” Higgs said.
Fieri called the sandwich a “double angioplasty on a plate.”
Higgs admits it’s “like eating a brick.”
“I haven’t had too many bricks, but I can concur that’s probably what it would be like,” Fieri told The News Virginian by phone from a New York City hotel room Friday.
“A juicy brick,” he said.
Fieri said in his travels to more than 40 states in search of diner food he has seen variations but has not tried the “Chubby Melt.”
“If you’re lucky enough to have one in your neighborhood, then amen,” he said. “It’s about Americana. It’s about representing the mom-and-pop establishments.”
Fieri brings his new Rock ‘n Roll culinary show to Norfolk later this month, where he wants to show that eating is about more than nourishment.
“Food being cooked, smelled: eat this, throw that,” he explained. “It’s everything that goes around it.”
In that spirit, the show includes a DJ, a Virginia chef, a flair bartender and other “crazies” to bring high energy to cooking. The tour also totes along a 25-gallon margarita machine.
Reader Reactions
where is the edit function?
—mayo
—orange marmalade
The purpose of not a home dining is one: a dining experience; two, fastfood; and three—is there a three?
If these localities would concnetrate more on “the food” and not the beer or alcohol sales then maybe the food experience would change.
Most “good” restaurans are soley owned, if you don’ think business and politices mix—then don’t open a business—fool.
If you take a pork loin and roll it in organ maralade, then doss it with mixed spices for pork, to bake: you will know what something simple like that can taste like. 
If you are on a calorie diet: take low fat may and low fat sour cream: mix 1:1 proporiton, its a nice creamy base for anything. If you add honey, then its a simple base for bagels and such. Adding curry to it without honey, creates a low fat/low cal cream for chicken, chestnuts or what have you.
Simplicity, succulent, and sensational.
“If there is dialogue then is there ‘complaining?,‘ now if I were Obama, with my monologue, then that would be reason to complain.“
To Hmmm, I have been told that you learn something new everyday. I didn’t know that you had to own a restaurant to know if food is good or not. How would you know how Stevenlconner’s food would taste if you have only eaten s*** on a stick.
stevenlconnor - exactly what does obama have to do with this article? i don’t see his name, or any politician’s name, or anything having to do with politics in this article. this is why i can’t stand political extremeists (on both sides). i constantly hear/read people pulling politics into the most non-political conversations. i’m sorry that your restaurant experience was sub-par, but i highly doubt it was the president’s fault.
I ate at Mossy Creek twice in one night. My first and last time. The Spaghetti was horrible and I was told I would have to hurry so the band could set-up. What a bummer of a night. Other people that I have spoken to about the restaurant have all had negative remarks about the food. It is a place to go to to drink, not eat.
stevenlconner, where is your restaurant? I can’t wait to eat the food you serve. Probably sh** on a stick. Do you do anything but complain?
I hope it’s better than that yucky portabello salad they had years ago: and did they ever fix that flourscent lighting and drop ceiling motif? God, I felt like calling out “lunch room monitor instead of the the “wait person” when I was there: but Obama said change was good, so maybe he is right—everyone “is” changing!
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