A first-time visitor at a Kansas City barbecue counter hasn’t even found the menu board before someone behind the register calls out to them, expecting an answer back. Their pause gives them away every time. These are the Missouri chain orders that give away an out-of-stater. 1. Imo’s Pizza Imo’s Pizza cuts every pie into…
In 2021, Texas Monthly sent a team of editors to 411 barbecue joints across the state over eight weeks before ranking the fifty best. Distance never factored into the score. These are the Texas barbecue joints worth a two-hour drive. 1. Snow’s BBQ Snow’s BBQ in Lexington opens for one shift a week, and the…
A driver merges off I-44 in Joplin, crosses the old Route 66 alignment, and sits down at Cracker Barrel for breakfast without glancing at a menu. They already know what they’re ordering. These are the Cracker Barrel breakfast habits that separate Missourian regulars from everyone else. 1. Joining the Waitlist From the Car Cracker Barrel…
Well-known Mississippi foods and drinks come with an origin story attached. But many of those stories turn out to be wrong. These are the Mississippi food and drink origin stories that aren’t what most people think. 1. Coca-Cola’s First Bottle Coca-Cola built its whole reputation on Atlanta, so many people assume the drink’s famous glass…
California runs more restaurants than any other state, 88,649 of them by the National Restaurant Association’s count. Almost none of them go national. These are the restaurant chains Californians assume exist all over the country. 1. Original Tommy’s Original Tommy’s has fed Los Angeles since 1946, when Tom Koulax opened a walk-up stand at Beverly…
Fred DeLuca was seventeen when a family friend handed him $1,000 and told him to open a sandwich shop in Bridgeport. That shop sold 312 sandwiches on its first day and became Subway three years later. Connecticut has older claims than that one. These are the foods that were invented in Connecticut. 1. Hamburger The…
A Philadelphia soup supposedly kept George Washington’s starving army alive through the Valley Forge winter of 1777. But historians have something to say about that. These are the Pennsylvania foods and drinks with origins Pennsylvanians get completely wrong. 1. Root Beer Charles Hires gets the credit for inventing root beer in Pennsylvania, a claim his…
German-Russian Mennonites carried a bread roll stuffed with beef and cabbage into central Kansas when they settled Marion, Harvey, and McPherson counties starting in 1874. It gets called a taco at the state fair every year. It’s nothing like what the average American expects a taco to taste like. These are the Kansas foods that…
Rhode Island made coffee milk its official state drink in 1993. The syrup bottle still sits on grocery shelves the way ketchup does everywhere else. Plenty of people outside New England have never poured a glass. These are the Rhode Island foods and drinks the rest of the country has never heard of. 1. New…
Some restaurant names sound as familiar to Tennesseans as McDonald’s or Taco Bell. Mention them a few states away, though, and the conversation can come to an awkward stop. These are the restaurant chains Tennesseans assume everyone has heard of. 1. Logan’s Roadhouse Logan’s Roadhouse grew out of Nashville, built by a Nashville restaurant veteran…
