Top Ten Reasons to Visit Gate City

Years ago, a top-selling item in local stores was T-shirts with the message "Where the ** Is Gate City, Virginia?" This article is really aimed at people who know the answer to this question. If you don't know the answer, visit the town web page: www.city-data.com/city/Gate-City-Virginia.html.

1. One reason why people haven’t been visiting Gate City, for the past thirty years or so, is that we no longer have a motel. The one we had in the 1970s is still standing, but it’s been standing empty for a long time. Many doors and windows have fallen out of frames. This has not discouraged people from staying with friends or relatives here, but it has caused many travellers to have to choose a hotel or motel in another town. Is this a negative reason? No, it is a positive reason. Someone out there left Gate City due to the lack of well-paid jobs, and is now ready to come back and invest in his, her, or their own business here. You know who you are. We have a board of supervisors who hired a strategic planning committee, last summer, to tell them that we all need to encourage somebody to open a place that would offer lodging to tourists. That committee did not know who you are. I don’t know who you are...but you need to take over the old motel. 

2. We do, however, have restaurants. For a town where most people either eat at home, or buy snacks in convenience or grocery stores, we are quite well supplied with restaurants.To name five: 

(a) In a recent article about Bristol and the surrounding area, I mentioned the Pal’s chain, with the wacky pastel-colored buildings and the 20-foot-high waiter on the roof of the original building. Pal’s serves 1950s diner-style food, with an emphasis on hot dogs, hamburgers, and milkshakes. Local people like their chili—on hot dogs, on otherwise empty hot-dog buns, and also, more unusually, on hamburgers.