Blue Plate Special: Our Best Restaurant Serves Up Kentucky Home Cooking in Smithfield
Sometimes the best restaurant finds begin with a road trip.
We were spending a Sunday afternoon exploring US Route 42 through northern Kentucky when dinner time started creeping up on us. Our search for somewhere interesting to eat led us a little off US 42 to Smithfield, Kentucky, and Our Best Restaurant.
There was just one small problem.
The fried chicken fryer was broken.
For a restaurant known for its fried chicken, that seemed like potentially bad timing. As it turned out, it didn’t matter at all.
A Busy Sunday Afternoon
We arrived at Our Best around 3:30 p.m. — that strange time of day when you’re not really expecting a restaurant to be busy.
The parking lot was fairly full.
So was the restaurant.
That immediately caught our attention. If this many people were eating dinner at 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon, perhaps we’d stumbled onto something good.
Our server, Courtney, later told us something even more interesting: many of their customers aren’t local. People travel to eat at Our Best, and at busy times the wait for a table can reach an hour.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait an hour. We were seated and started studying the menu — minus, of course, the fried chicken.
Our Best Since 1990
Our Best Restaurant was started in 1990 by Kay and Kenneth Way.
We learned that the restaurant’s unusual name came from Our Best flour, which seems particularly appropriate for a place built around old-fashioned, from-scratch country cooking.
There’s also a bit of local milling history tied to the restaurant and its building. The Smithfield Roller Mill once stood across from the building that now houses Our Best. At the time, the restaurant building was used for storage associated with the mill.
Today, instead of storing goods for the mill, the building is serving up the kind of food that feels right at home in this setting.
The restaurant itself feels the part. This isn’t someplace trying to manufacture a trendy version of country cooking. It feels like the sort of restaurant where you expect to find meat, potatoes, vegetables, cornbread and cobbler.
Which is pretty much exactly what happened.
The Great Fried Chicken Fryer Crisis
Before we arrived, we’d already seen on Our Best’s Facebook page that there would be no fried chicken that day because the fryer was down.
Disappointing? Maybe.
A problem? Not really.
There were plenty of other choices on the menu.
We also eventually solved the mystery of how a restaurant with a broken fryer could still serve us fried food. Sort of. We learned that Our Best uses a pressure fryer for its fried chicken and pork chops. That was apparently the equipment that wasn’t cooperating that day, while the rest of the kitchen remained very much in business.
And judging from what we ate, the rest of the kitchen was doing just fine.
Pat’s Choice: Pork Tenderloin
Pat ordered the breaded pork tenderloin with gravy, accompanied by mashed potatoes and fried apples.
His verdict?
“The very definition of home-style cooking from scratch.”
That’s about as concise as Pat gets when he really likes something.
He described the tenderloin as possibly the most tender tenderloin he’d ever eaten. It was seasoned to perfection, but not so heavily that it covered up the flavor of the meat. The natural juices added to the flavor, and adding gravy essentially turned the whole thing into something resembling a country-fried tenderloin.
One taste of the mashed potatoes and fried apples and you know they’re homemade.
And then there was the cornbread.
It wasn’t the traditional square or wedge of cornbread we were expecting. Instead, the little pieces looked almost like silver-dollar pancakes.
Pat’s final rating:
Six out of five stars.
Apparently Blue Plate Special mathematics works differently. 😂
Jennifer’s Choice: Cod and Fried Green Tomatoes
I chose the cod with fried green tomatoes and fried apples.
The cod was breaded and fried to perfection.
I’m normally partial to fried green tomatoes with more of a batter coating, while these were breaded, but they were still done very well. And I completely agreed with Pat about those fried apples.
They were delicious.
I also deliberately didn’t overdo dinner because I had already noticed another part of the menu.
Dessert.
About That Cobbler…
Pat initially said he was going to pass on dessert.
I was not.
I had saved room specifically because I wanted to try the blackberry cobbler with ice cream.
Despite being full from his “country-fried tenderloin,” like the dessert warrior he is, Pat was able to muscle through the peach cobbler à la mode. 🤣
So much for passing on dessert.
The cobblers were a fitting ending to a meal that really did feel like old-fashioned home-style cooking.
Worth Getting Off the Highway
Our Best wasn’t somewhere we’d been planning to visit when we left home that morning. We were simply out exploring US 42 and looking for someplace interesting to have an early dinner.
Those spontaneous finds are a big part of why we enjoy getting off the interstates and traveling America’s older highways.
Courtney’s comment that many of Our Best’s customers aren’t local made sense after our meal. This isn’t simply a
neighborhood restaurant that happens to serve good food. It’s the kind of place people are willing to drive to.
We certainly would.
The famous fried chicken will have to wait for another visit. But considering how much we enjoyed everything without ordering the restaurant’s signature dish, that’s not exactly a hardship.
Besides, Pat has already rendered the official Road Trip Memories verdict.
Six out of five stars.
Welcome to the Blue Plate Special, Our Best. 🍽️🚙
🍽️ The Check, Please
Our Best Restaurant
📍 5728 Smithfield Road, Smithfield, Kentucky
📞 502-845-7682
🌐 Website / Facebook
🕐 Hours: Check current hours before visiting
What they serve: Southern and country-style home cooking
Known for: Fried chicken, pork chops, country sides and homemade desserts
Price range: $–$$
Our visit: August 2026