10 Restaurant Chains South Carolinians Visit for One Menu Item and One Menu Item Only
The neon sign outside a Krispy Kreme off I-26 flips to a glowing red “Hot Now” at 7 a.m., and cars start pulling in before the light even finishes blinking on.
Nobody in that line just wants coffee.
They want the Original Glazed doughnut coming hot off the glazer.
These are the restaurant chains South Carolinians drive to for one menu item, and one menu item only.
1. Waffle House
Waffle House keeps a full breakfast menu running around the clock.
The hash browns are still the order that decides the whole trip.
Waffle House put the words “Scattered, Smothered & Covered” on its menu in February 1984.
Waffle House cooks scatter the potatoes loose on the grill, smother them in onions, and finish them covered under melted cheese before the plate ever leaves the line.
Regulars build a small reputation out of how many extra words they tack onto that one order.
Waffle House’s Hash Brown Code, in Full
Waffle House’s hash browns are the one menu item on this whole list with a code all its own, and six more toppings sit past the familiar scattered, smothered, and covered.
Chunked adds grilled ham.
Diced adds grilled tomatoes.
Peppered adds jalapeños.
Capped adds grilled mushrooms.
Topped means Waffle House’s own chili.
Country means sausage gravy.
Ordering it “all the way” stacks every one of those toppings onto a single plate.
2. Bojangles
Bojangles’ Bo-Berry Biscuit packs sweetened dried blueberries into a made-from-scratch buttermilk biscuit and finishes it with icing.
Bojangles built its first-ever Bo-Berry Week around the devotion to it, plus spin-offs like the Sausage Bo-Berry Biscuit and Bo-Berry Cookies.
The fried chicken never got a week of its own.
The chicken sits right there on the same menu, mostly passed over by the regulars in that line.
3. Wendy’s
Wendy’s opened its first location in Columbus, Ohio, in 1969 with the Frosty already on the menu.
That thick dessert needs a spoon instead of a straw.
South Carolina regulars use it to replace an entire meal, not add to one, skipping the burger and fries for a cup and a spoon.
Wendy’s didn’t even trademark the name “Frosty” until 2013, more than 40 years after the dessert built that following.
The company then sued a dairy chain for selling a nearly identical “Frosties” treat in matching red and yellow packaging.
Diners who skip the counter for a cup with a spoon are the reason that lawsuit happened at all.
4. Sonic Drive-In
Pull up to a Sonic Drive-In stall in South Carolina, and the carhop already knows what “the usual” means for half the cars in the lot.
Ocean Water mixes blue coconut syrup into Sprite.
Sonic trademarked the name back in 1996.
It’s coconut, not seawater.
Ocean Water eventually replaced root beer as Sonic’s signature drink, a menu mainstay it simply outlasted.
A South Carolina drive-in stop still starts with the same order: Large, extra ice, Ocean Water.
5. Krispy Kreme
Krispy Kreme’s Hot Light is the whole reason some South Carolinians keep the chain’s app installed, just for the push notification.
That alert means the Original Glazed is coming off the line hot.
Krispy Kreme switches the sign on during set windows, typically 7 to 9 a.m. and again in the early evening, and hands out a free Original Glazed to anyone who walks in while it’s lit.
It costs nothing.
South Carolina locations empty their glazer lines fast once that light turns on, and the rest of the case just waits.
Psst! How much do you know about South Carolina’s food history? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
South Carolina Food IQ
Answer these questions on South Carolina’s food history and state symbols. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Sweet tea is South Carolina’s official “hospitality beverage.” What drink did lawmakers separately name the state’s official beverage?
6. Groucho's Deli
Groucho's Deli has run sandwiches out of Columbia since Harold "Groucho" Miller opened the first shop in 1941, and the order barely changed since.
That order is the (STP) Dipper, the chain's original signature sub, built to be dunked in the deli's own Formula '45' Sauce. Groucho's own menu calls it its "#1 Fan Favorite."
You dunk nothing else.
The chain has grown to more than 30 locations across South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina, still run by the Miller family that opened the first one.
Salads and sides fill out the rest of the board, but the STP Dipper is the reason for the trip.
7. Lizard's Thicket
Lizard's Thicket fries its chicken with the skin already off, a step the Williams family has followed since Bob and Anna Williams opened the first Columbia location in 1977.
That's the plate that outsells the rest of the meat-and-three menu.
Many kitchens skip that step.
Owner Robert "Bobby" Williams calls it "our number one" meat, across the board, the family's own read on which item wins every time.
Regulars order the same plate on every visit, the staff say, without fail.
8. Popeyes
Popeyes launched a new Chicken Sandwich in August 2019, and South Carolina locations sold out of it within two weeks.
Popeyes announced the sellout on social media: "Y'all. We love that you love The Sandwich. Unfortunately we're sold out (for now)."
A company spokesperson said demand for the $3.99 sandwich blew past forecasts built to last through the end of September.
Gone before Labor Day.
Diners weren't lining up for the biscuits or the red beans and rice.
They wanted the Chicken Sandwich, and stores ran out of chicken before they ran out of customers.
9. Cook Out
Cook Out's own website carries two headline sections up top: Trays and Shakes.
The milkshake gets its own listing there, not a footnote inside a combo.
More than 40 flavors fill that shake list, mixed to order: Peanut butter into Oreo, watermelon into mint, whatever a South Carolina drive-thru window will take.
A spoon works better than a straw.
Local and national outlets cover the seasonal flavors on their own each time one returns, the watermelon shake pulling headlines the tray never gets.
10. Checkers
Checkers prints the words "Famous Seasoned Fries" right on every bag, box, and frozen grocery sleeve it sells.
That's the actual product name, not a nickname regulars gave it.
Checkers now sells the fries on their own at grocery shelves like Walmart and Kroger, a full retail product with no burger anywhere in the bag.
A South Carolina order at the drive-thru window still comes down to the same two words before anything else lands in the bag: Extra seasoning.
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