Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do…

…though nearly every trip ends with return drives through states we’ve visited plenty of times. And yet, our neighboring states rarely run out of new misadventures, often involving foods and their manufacturing processes.

We’ve braked for beans before, including the Jelly Belly factory tour on our 2006 drive through Wisconsin and that time we saw real cacao beans in the South Bend Chocolate Company‘s delightfully fragrant backrooms in 2016. Sometimes beans are serious business and sometimes they’re comedy gold, depending on the context. Down in Tennessee we found a bit of both in the affable visitor center of another bean empire.

After a gas stop we left Greeneville and headed sixty miles southwest, parallel to the north face of the Great Smoky Mountains toward Pigeon Forge but not all the way there yet. The town of Chestnut Hill is home to Bush’s Beans, proud purveyors of baked beans and other products for over a century. Mostly I’m aware of their baked beans. If our local stores carry their other canned products, I wouldn’t know. Anne does all our grocery shopping to prevent me from having a coronary over today’s food prices. Unfortunately I still have to buy my own coffee, which now costs more than some fine wines, but I’d be having more coronaries without her dedicated efforts to shelter me from current-events-induced psychological harm.

TOTAL ROAD TRIP MILEAGE AS OF BUSH’S: 1,253.7. (I totally forgot to check the odometer in Greeneville, until we pulled up in Bush’s parking lot.)

The company originated with one Andrew Jackson Bush, who opened his first general store in 1897, then later bought a cannery that let him expand into the big bean biz. The storefront that he moved his operations into in 1911 now serves as their visitor center, which welcomes anyone who wants to drop in and learn more about That Beautiful Bean Company™, their preferred trademarked slogan. Bush family members have served in various capacities ever since, and not just as executives. Since 1993 A.J.’s great-grandson Jay Bush has starred in Bush’s TV ads, in which he often announced, “Roll that Beautiful Bean Footage!” before the director segued to close-ups of beans.

His TVQ rating took off a couple years later when they gave him a costar — a talking dog named Duke with a bad habit of scheming to sell the Bush’s Secret Family Recipe for their baked beans. If Duke is ever fired for his corporate espionage shenanigans, he has zero chance of getting hired by Colonel Sanders in next-door Kentucky to guard his herbs and/or spices.

They might be big in the southeast U.S., but before our visit Anne and I had never heard of this “iconic duo”, as they’re referred to in one exhibit. We buy the occasional can o’ beans, but their TV ads don’t seem to reach our Indianapolis market, unless they only air during programs we don’t watch, such as daytime talk shows or on CBS. Our ignorance notwithstanding, they’re real and they’re cute.

The visitor center doubles as a museum with legume-forward exhibits about Bush’s history, products, ad campaigns, and company pride. Among the displays not pictured here are a large sign with their six-point mission statement and a science-museum-style demo of a water reclamation project that was out of order at the time.

But wait! There’s more! Also in the visitor center is Bush’s Family Cafe, a full-service restaurant with numerous bean-based dishes. We were well past lunchtime and starving, so why not.

As an unexpected appetizer, our server prefaced the meal with free-sample cups of their no-sugar-added baked beans. And yes, there was dessert.

But wait! There’s still more! Superfans can also peruse the Bush’s gift shop for souvenirs to bring Bush’s into other rooms of their homes besides the pantry.

In conclusion: beans, won’t you? Thank you.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete road trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts, or over on BlueSky if you want to track my faint signs of life between entries. Thanks for reading!]