Salty Mule Offers a Taste of the Beach in Downtown Canton
Step inside the Salty Mule Restaurant, and you immediately feel like you are transported to a beachside town instead of a local eatery in downtown Canton.
The Salty Mule is a joint venture between friends Scott Melton and William “Bubba” Latimer. Their goal when they opened the restaurant was to bring a taste of the beach to the mountains.
Another said, “We shared some delicious, reasonably priced raw oysters. Perfect, with good cocktail sauce and bold horseradish. Just what we wanted. Also tried some conch fritters that were excellent. Crispy, but not overdone, liked the sauce also. Some of the best we have ever had.”
The Salty Mule is located at 169 South Church Street in a reclaimed building that originally housed a grocery store, part of the Colonial Stores chain. Colonial Stores was a popular grocery store brand that dotted small towns in the South from the 1950s to the early 1970s. The company, headquartered in Atlanta, owned 500 stores at its peak in the 1960s.
The restaurant is a fun gathering place for everyone to enjoy fresh seafood and other dishes. New shipments of seafood arrive daily, and the menu also offers non-seafood options for those looking to enjoy the restaurant but who are not fans of seafood. The bar features drinks from local breweries as well as big brands.
A key feature of the restaurant is its unique design touches, such as the eye-catching bar, which is reminiscent of a silo. The silo bar came from a Kentucky farm, and the front of the bar came from a movie set. A man in Ball Ground built the rest of the bar, and another Ball Ground resident made the cocktail tables and tabletops. The barn door decoration came from an old farm in Tennessee that was going to be torn down.
The Salty Mule does not take reservations and is open Tuesday–Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. For more information, visit TheSaltyMule.com.