Driving to Effingham for an ‘effing’ great show

Let’s get it out of the way. Effingham IL has accepted and embraced the ‘effing’ slang associated with the city’s name. It’s on billboards and advertising. Gyms, shops, breweries, bars, and even an attorney use the term. So why not have a little fun with it.

We’ve visited Effingham numerous times. It’s just about 2 1/2 hours from home so is always a good stop for coffee when traveling on I-57. And it’s also where I bought my AMC Marlin. We had never actually made Effingham a destination. Until last week. We planned to see a concert. More on that in a bit.

We rolled into town around 5:00 PM and decided to go to the Firefly Grill. We had gotten there early enough to beat the reservation crowd. The grill is a really nice restaurant. We had good service and food was good as well. However, that being said, I feel there should be full-disclosure about a couple of things.

At the bottom of the menu, there was a sentence that caught our eye. It stated that there would be a 5% surcharge on all items due to inflation. It also said you could refuse to pay that fee. We did not refuse. Also Mary ordered a Southern Comfort neat (no ice). When the check came there was an additional charge of $3.00 for “neat”. Once again we didn’t dispute the charge but made a mental note.

That said, just be aware that if you do go to the Grill, there might be some surprise extra fees. If you are ok with that, you can expect to enjoy a nice meal.

The Effingham Performance Center was just a one minute drive. We had tickets to see Home Free. Home Free is an a-capella group that could be described as the country version of Pentatonix. In case you’ve never heard Pentatonix, check them out.

I can not talk about a-capella music without recalling this scene from The Andy Griffith Show.

To be honest, I’d never heard of Home Free until about 6 months ago. I sometimes will scroll through YouTube and watch videos. YouTube reaction video channels show people who are watching a movie or listening to music, generally for the first time, and then reacting to seeing or hearing it. It sounds boring but it can be rather fun watching people’s responses. Maybe they’ve never heard of the Doobie Brothers or they think Field of Dreams is a sports movie.

Somehow, Home Free came up as a reaction video and I was hooked. These dudes could sing. And with due diligence, I discovered they’ve been around for quite a few years. Ok, so we’re late to the game. Once I created a Spotify playlist, I started getting the concert schedule. That’s how we ended up in Effingham.

This is the song that got my attention. If you listen to it, keep in mind that all the noises you hear are from the guys-no instruments! Even the “no-monica”.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a big country fan but I do appreciate good music. And these guys are good.

The show started on time and they sang two 40-minute sets including a 10 minute solo by the beat boxer, Adam Rupp. I tried recording his solo with all the samples and looping of his sound effects but it didn’t turn out. This video is a little better. It’s 6 minutes long but it’s worth a listen if you have the time.

This is a link to their YouTube channel. Some of my favorites are Ring of Fire, American Pie, Champagne Taste, Listen to the Music and, wait for it, Butts Medley.

The next morning, we needed to find coffee. We’ve tried to find other coffee shops in Effingham before and there might be some that we are missing, but we couldn’t find any new shops. They do have a couple of drive-ups like Human Bean and Fox Holler but no other non-chain shops so we fell back to our old stand-by, Joe Sippers. We’ve written about Joe’s good food and coffee a number of times. This time, we only needed coffee. We had another stop planned further north.

An hour and a half later, we were parked in front of Lucky Moon Pies in Mahomet, IL. The bakery and restaurant is owned by Emily and Fred Kroner. They’ve been in business since 2017 but this was the first time we’d stopped. And it was well worth it.

Mary and I made one mistake, though. We walked into Lucky Moon Pies hungry. A rookie mistake. We ordered the quiche and while it was being prepared we picked out some cookies, some Oreo bites and a couple of slices of banana creme pie for later.

We enjoyed our quiche while catching up with Fred (he’s an old high school friend). I highly recommend Lucky Moon Pies. Check their site for business hours and plan to stop if you are traveling on I-74.

Oh, the banana creme pie was decadent!