On April 23, 2026, a father-and-son team named Eddy and Jackson Hilger opened the doors to a new pizza shop at 8890 Old Lee Highway. The first 250 customers walked out with a free large pizza and a limited-edition t-shirt. Two days later, everyone in line got a free scoop of ice cream. The day in between, 10 percent of every sale went to the Austin Hatcher Foundation, a Chattanooga nonprofit that supports families dealing with childhood cancer.
The business is Mr. T's Pizza & Ice Cream, and the Hilgers didn't build it from scratch. Mr. T's has been a St. Elmo institution since 1989, the kind of place with three decades of birthday parties and Friday-night orders behind it. Choosing Old Lee Highway for its second location wasn't a random pin drop. It says something about how Ooltewah actually eats, and where.
The Highway Corridor Keeps Getting Busier
Old Lee Highway is where a lot of Ooltewah's newest food businesses are landing, and the pattern isn't subtle once you notice it. Mr. T's sits there now. So does Joe Mama's, a diner-style concept from the team behind Marthie Ann's Tennessee Blue Plate, built around shakes, sandwiches and salads and aimed at families looking for a quick, comfortable stop. Neither business chose a walkable square or a mixed-use development. They chose a corridor built for people already driving somewhere, who see a sign, and pull in.
That's not a knock on the food. It's a read on the geography. This stretch of Ooltewah functions the way highway-adjacent retail has functioned in fast-growing suburbs for decades: high visibility, easy parking, quick turnover. It rewards businesses that want daily regulars stopping on the way home from work, not destination diners planning an evening around a reservation.
Local Goat has proven that model can still produce something with real staying power. Its Ooltewah location sits directly off I-75 at Exit 11, and it's been there long enough to build a following well beyond the highway crowd, with a second Local Goat location all the way out in Pigeon Forge. A restaurant built for pass-through traffic turned into one people plan trips around. That's the corridor at its best.
Cambridge Square Is the Model Other Neighborhoods Are Copying
While all of that has been happening on Old Lee Highway, something different has been happening a few miles away, and it's worth understanding because other communities are now pointing at it as the standard to beat.
Earlier this year, as Chattanooga officials debated what to do with the aging Northgate Mall in Hixson, residents kept bringing up one comparison: Cambridge Square in Ooltewah. City Councilman Jeff Davis, who represents the Hixson area, said residents had specifically cited Cambridge Square as an example of the kind of development they would like to see in Hixson. That's not a small compliment. It means Ooltewah already built, years ago, the walkable, mixed-use pattern that another Chattanooga suburb is now trying to legislate into existence through a multimillion-dollar tax deal and years of community planning sessions.
That distinction matters if you actually live here. Cambridge Square isn't a strip you drive to and park in front of. It's designed to be parked once and walked through, which changes the kind of business that thrives there and the kind of evening it produces. It's the difference between grabbing a slice on the way home and spending two hours somewhere on a Friday night without moving your car.
Two Patterns, One Neighborhood
Put those two stories next to each other and the shape of Ooltewah's food scene gets a lot clearer. This isn't one restaurant market growing evenly in every direction. It's two distinct patterns operating at the same time, serving two different kinds of trips.
The highway corridor along Old Lee Highway is where convenience wins. Mr. T's knows its customer: someone who wants a reliable pizza order without a production. Joe Mama's is betting on the same instinct with a diner format built around speed and familiarity. These are businesses designed to catch you mid-errand, and Ooltewah's growth along that stretch suggests there's plenty of that kind of traffic to catch.
Cambridge Square is where the neighborhood slows down. It's the version of Ooltewah other Chattanooga-area communities are studying, not because it's flashy, but because it already solved a problem Hixson is still trying to solve with a $10.3 million infrastructure project and years of public meetings. Ooltewah just built it.
If you live here, that split is useful information, not trivia. It means the answer to "where should we eat tonight" actually depends on what kind of night you're having. Quick dinner before a kid's practice, the highway has you covered, and now with an extra pizza option. Slower evening where you want to walk between dinner and dessert without getting back in the car, Cambridge Square is doing what other neighborhoods are still drawing up on paper.
What to Watch
Joe Mama's hasn't announced a firm opening date as of this writing, so if you're curious, the business has been posting updates on its own social channels rather than through a formal press timeline. Mr. T's is open now, seven days a week, with hours that stretch to 10 p.m. on weekends, which fits the corridor's after-work, after-practice rhythm.
None of this requires picking a side. The strength of Ooltewah right now is that it doesn't have to choose between highway convenience and a walkable evening out. Both exist here already, a few miles apart, each doing what it does well. That's rarer than it sounds. It's also exactly what a neighboring community is currently trying to build from scratch, sewer system and all.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this actually offers day to day, beyond the listings and the drive-through reviews, that's the kind of on-the-ground read Kyle Johnston Homes is built to give you. Let's Connect if you want a local's honest take on Ooltewah or any of the communities around Chattanooga.
