Countryside Food Rides: The Country Bakery (Austin, KY)

Bike: KTM Super Duke R

Route: Google Maps

This is a great Food Ride. It's the kind of trip that is fun on a bike, but it's also fun to throw the family, the neighbors, and the appetites in the minivan and go for a nice Saturday morning drive (at least to Checkpoint F and back -- the rest is motorcycle fun). You can get to the good stuff a lot faster by taking 231 & 31-E from BG, but that sure is boring.

For me, the highlight of this trip is the aptly-named Country Bakery. But there are several other fun stops on these roads such as Ranger Bob's, Paradise Point Marketplace, The Berry Batch, & Kenny's Farmhouse Cheese.

Left.

Right!

Ranger Bob's is a fine place to buy a meal, but a poor place to buy gas. They don't have the good stuff.

Right back at ya, darling! But with slightly less enthusiasm...

I stopped at Paradise Point for a pre-pizza hot dog. Why? Because I can't not stop at Paradise Point for a hot dog.

From the hot dog cart outside the front door, Dr. John serves the best franks around. Plenty of toppings are available inside including several gourmet mustards, and they sell a lot more than just hot dogs. I think I could sit on this porch all day listening to music and snacking. I've heard the weekend breakfast is great, so perhaps we can do a long ride in the future where we start out with breakfast and come back for lunch.

Huh.

Speedo Number of the Day I.

Here's The Country Bakery. It would be easy to miss if they didn't have that there sign right next to the road.

It's a small place, even though they have doubled the size since we first started coming.

They have a few seats inside now, but just a few.

Is it wrong to visit a bakery for the pizza? Not if it's this good. As you might expect, they do make their own dough. The toppings are plentiful. This is the 8" Meat & Veggie Supreme.

VERDICT: This place is outstanding! As good as it gets. I come here for the pizza, but I'm not the only person in my neighborhood who's made the thirty mile drive to get the wife some donuts. The breads, pastries, donuts, pizza -- everything here is worth the drive. It's a fun and friendly place, and of course it smells great. On a previous visit, the girls behind the counter spontaneously burst into song. I thought I was in O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

It's only six or seven miles away from the Barren River Lake State Park entrance. If you're ever in that area and you don't drive the extra ten minutes to visit The Country Bakery, you are doing yourself a disservice. If you call 15 minutes before you arrive, your pizza will finish up just as you're walking in the door. It'll still be hot when you get it back to the beach. If they ever re-open the beach.

This is The Berry Patch. You can pick your own assorted vegetables and berries. They also sell wooden furniture and they have a neat gift shop, from what I recall. Kids dig it.

The area around the Kenny's Farmhouse Cheese farm is picture-perfect rolling KY farmland.

Kenny's Farmhouse Cheese has a shop at the farm where you can buy any of their products. The prices are cheaper than what you'll pay at retail stores. The best reason to visit is that you can sample almost everything they make.