I’ve been reviewing bars, and over time should release four reviews of bars of various kinds. Most of these call themselves sports bars, though size, inclination, breadth of selection of food and beverages vary enormously. Three of the bars are in Snellville. One is on Holcombe Bridge, and formally in Alpharetta.

Thinking on the places I’ve eaten, there is one bar I miss a great deal in Atlanta, and one dish I miss. There was a run down beach style bar on Jimmy Carter called the Checkered Parrot, in the same general area as Kokai Thai. The Checkered Parrot wasn’t trying to serve great food, I’m sure. They would just as soon have had people participate in one of their never ending karaoke nights. But they had the best nachos, really excellent, and as the source of their excellence was hardly a secret, I thought I’d mention it.

They use sauteed steak in their nachos. They would cut it into thin slices, and sautee the steak with mushrooms and onions. This is the meat base they would add on their chips. The cheese was a mix of white and yellow, probably pepper jack and cheddar, and then they would add slices of jalapeno. The end result was so superior to anything else anyone made at the time that I made it a habit to stop there 3-4 times a month. A half sized plate of their steak nachos was plenty.

These days the Checkered Parrot is gone, as is their steak nachos. Huw Thomas, of the Dunwoody Restaurant Group, once told me that the former owner of the Checkered Parrot sold out and bought the Fire of Brazil next to Barnes and Noble in the Perimeter area. I have no way of confirming whether that is true.

But I wait, wait for the day someone in this town does steak nachos right. It’s been done before, it could be done again.