POWERGRAMS

PG_Jan_March_2020

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44 "It looks a little older than it is," Lisa Sanders says of the place she has worked at 13 years. "It looks a little like a hunting lodge you would go to a long time ago." On this weekend, the entire facility is filled by conferencegoers. Sometimes CreekSide is reserved for a large wedding. Auburn football games also pack the house, as do golf tournaments and summer and spring weekends. Across the highway stands Oskar's Cafe, voted as serving the best seafood in the Lake Martin area. This restaurant, where the table lights hang in upside-down galvanized minnow buckets, has been a fixture here since 1993. Across the Blue Creek Bridge, just past Lakeside Marina and Singleton Marine, is Niffer's Place, long known for its Trivia Night, live music, burgers and brews. More recent additions to the Dadeville food scene include Fusion, recently voted the best restaurant in the Lake Martin area, and Copper's Grill, which overlooks the 18th green at StillWaters Golf Club, inside the sprawling, upscale StillWaters development. Just outside that community's gates are the new Table 34 and Lake Martin Pizza, both drawing rave online reviews for their distinct food offerings. ZAZU'S VERANDAH "Make sure you look at your toes when you get in Lake Martin," a Realtor told Mitzy and Rick Hidding, who were puzzled by the command. "Our water is clear …" The Hiddings had lived in Atlanta their whole lives, expecting to retire on popular Blue Ridge Lake along the Tennessee border. Delta Airlines pilot friends told them they should take a look-see around Dadeville. Rick had researched every lake between Knoxville and central Alabama before the Hiddings picked a house at StillWaters in 2016, were full-time residents by 2018 and had "retired" by 2019. "The people of Lake Martin and Dadeville are so friendly," says Mitzy, an industrial engineer. "We came here not knowing a soul." The couple had hardly finished unpacking when they founded Everything's Art! The nonprofit group of artists and patrons has worked with Raining Dogs Gallery to host an art show for local students, awarded cash prizes and art supplies and brought art classes into Dadeville and Tallapoosa County schools. It organized the lighting of the community Christmas tree and set up booths at local events. Then the Hiddings bought the old Oliver Hardware building on Dadeville Square, renovated it and opened a meeting place, event space and headquarters for Everything's Art! On one side of the 4,800-square-foot space, they stripped and painted the original heart pine flooring. Mitzy spent six days pulling down old plaster to leave the bare brick walls. They painted the ceiling haint blue. Industrial air conditioning was replaced by energy- efficient space cooling and heat. Plumbing and wiring was updated as the couple built three bathrooms, a catering room, offices and storage space. "She's hammering the boards, I'm cutting them," says Rick, a graphic designer. "We envision a wide range of classes, everything from pottery to painting to how to take better pictures with your iPhone. We want art classes for children and adults, too." Zazu's Verandah, named for Mitzy's favorite Australian parrot, will seat about 75 people for a sit-down dinner. The other side of the long-vacant 1914 building will become an independent coffeehouse. Both will presumably be a second home to the Hiddings' 125-pound bull mastiff Stella, who roams the halls rubbing against guests with a toy racoon in her mouth. "There was no place on the square to gather, no place to sit down and have a cup of coffee," says Rick, who in his spare time continues to operate The Cloth Bag Co. he started three decades ago in Georgia. "People told me, 'You think you can get somebody to pay you for a bag when grocery stores give them away?'" Rick says with a wry grin. His company sells more than 70,000 annually worldwide, starting at $5.75 each and diametrically different than the plastic or paper bags found in most grocery stores. Rick has a four-color press and conveyer belt dryer in a building at their house where he prints color designs on the plain cotton, machine-washable bags that hold 40 pounds. "Eight states and a lot of cities have bans on plastic bags," he says. "I'm getting more and more orders." 26 26 Stella, a 125-pound bull mastiff, is a friendly greeter for Mitzy and Rick Hidding at Zazu's Verandah.

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