Ok, summer's just around the corner [or already here for the college
students out for the summer break]. With the summer months the prime
time for travelling... I'm taking a somewhat different slant in this
item, different from the traditional 'summer vacation' item.  

What I'd like for people to share are--where are some of your favorite
food stops while you've been out on some of your road trips? What was
so special about this [these] place[s]? And if you know it, please
include the location of this places as well as the name. If you don't
remember exactly where the place was, maybe at least the city or general
area/part of the state it was/is in?

140 responses total.

[

This is item 82 in agora, 54 in travel, and 123 in cooking.]

Any Cracker Barrel rest. will do you! :)

Youngs Jersey Dairy, just outside Yellow Springs Ohio. It was a poopular place
to visit while I was  student at Antioch. It brings back memories when ever
I'm in Southern (?) Ohio. (Yellow Springs is about 20 minutes South of
Springfield and 30 minutes West of Dayton).
It started life as a dairy farm. At some point they started selling home  made
ice cream and the like, then opened up a small restaurant. Now it's a good
sized restaurant, and they have a petting zoo.

Just about any old time truck stop. You get your $$$ worth when you
order food - and it's substantial stuff, too.

I'm a fan of Perkins' Pancake Houses.  We don't have any around here
(none in Michigan that I'm aware of), so I like to stop at them in
Rural Pennsylvania on trips to the East Coast.  There's one in
Dubois (pronounced Doo Boys) PA that I've been to a couple of
times.  It's right off Route 80.  (By the way, if you pronounce the
town's name as Dyu Bwa in front of a native, he/she will laugh at you.)

This item has been linked from Cooking 123/Travel 54/Agora 82
to Intro 30.  At the Ok: prompt, type one of these:

        "join agora" for discussion of general topics
        "join travel" for discussion of places and things to see
        "join cooking" for discussion of restaurants and other
                food thingies

I like all the great espresso houses around the base of
Mt. Ranier.

 This particular restaurant is not a chain...

  I cannot say enough about The New York Spaghetti Company in Cleveland.
They are located on Euclid, near 22nd, just down the block from Jacobs Field.
The sauce (which can be smelled from blocks around) is heavenly, The homemade
spaghetti is cooked to perfection, and priced moderatly. (I ate a complete
meal for $5). 
  Cleveland has a long reputation for being the Italian food capitol of the
planet.

Actually, if you like Chinese and happen to ind yourself in the 
southwestern corner of Wyoming ... there is the best Chinese restaurant
i have ever found right there! Literally, ppl line up outside for much
of the day.

        re # 3 Right on about Young's I always used to stop there when
I visited my friends who used to go to Antioch.

Tony's in Birch Run (right off the exit) is still a favorite of mine.  They
serve you HUGE quantities of food for decent prices.  Then, they dump a large
handful (or two) of hard candy in your purse, bag, hands, etc.
I also love Cracker Barrel, but the hour wait is kind of depressing.  The food
it worth it, though.

This response has been erased.

  I second both that Moosewood's a good restaurant, and that Valerie
hisses whenever she passes a Cracker Barrel...or even a billboard for
Cracker Barrel!  Moosewood is a vegetarian restaurant run as a
collective of people who rotate jobs.  Most people seem to know them
by the cookbooks that have been published based on their recipes.
 
  I liked a restaurant called Z's in Cleveland...it was in a very
upscale shopping mall.  Minimalist decor, nicely partitioned to
provide a pleasant atmosphee, and really wonderful food.  Guess
I would call it "modern American" cuisine (including a mish-mash
of foreign dishes).  As an Ann Arbor comparison, it's kind of like
Sweet Lorraines, but with much better (and more consistent) food,
service, and atmosphere.  Cleveland seemed like just an all-around
good restaurant town.

   in maricopa, california, is a little restaurant that has great food. i
can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it's the only one there aside
from the dairy queen. and speaking of dairy queen, i think they have just
about the best burgers of any chain.

Once again, I'll throw up El Azteco in Lansing.  Good Mexican food, really
a bit different and unique.  El Az has a restaurant in Lansing and one in E.
Lansing.  The one in E. Lansing isn't may favorite anymore, since it moved
out of the dark basement and lost some of its charm.  El Az is a restaurant
that MSU grads in other cities never quite find a replacement for.

bad choice of words :)

I also do not support Cracker Barrell. I don't know what states they are in,
but... stay the hell away from Applebee's (or as I call it, Applesleaze).
I have gotten sick from their food and so have my friends (at different
restaurants... there is about 4 Applesleaze's in Memphis alone). If you must
eat there, their salads are ok. 

O'Charley's restaurants are good. Salads are yummy there, and it's relatively
inexpensive. Some truck stops are ok too, there is one in Lima, Colorado (not
far from the Kansas state line) that is huge and seemed friendly... open 24
hrs of course. I have come to find that most truckers are good people to talk
to, particularly the ones who have been trucking for 20 years.

Check for the "Happiness is a crock of beans" sign on the Colo/Kansas state
line too. cracked me th hell up!

  Stephanie Stuckey, an old friend of mine from college, would have a good
perspective on this subject.  Stephanie's grandfather founded and her family
runs the Stuckey's restaurant chain.  If you've driven along the highways 
up and down the east coast, you probably have been to a Stuckey's at one 
time in your life.  They are known for pecan logs, claxton fruitcakes and 
roadhouse food.  However, its based in Georgia, so they may not even have 
a Stuckey's in michigan.

RE #18 Kerouac, I remember seeing a Stuckey's on Jackson Road in the
Dexter-Chelsea area of Washtenaw County, just west of Ann Arbor.

Stuckey's seems to have died out in Michigan.  At Grexstock last year, there
was an abandoned Stuckey's right at the freeway exit.  On a recent trip to
St. Louis, I did see one.  It contained a Subway!

There is a Stuckey's  TN...

One of the benefits of being a member of the Ann Arbor bicycle touring
society, and going on a lot of Sunday rides, is that you get to eat at a bunch
of restaurants in small towns around here.

One of my favorites is the Grapevine in Dundee.  Another good place is Don's
in Tecumseh.

  I think there's a Stuckey's in or near Holland, Michigan.

I have never eaten at a Stuckey's, and would likely not want to if they carry
those Claxton Fruit Cakes. My dad would get like a case of them for Christmas
from people, and I swear they could double for doorstops! They were like
bricks! We always threw them out... we'd feel bad about wasting food, but we
couldn't even give them away.

This response has been erased.

If you drive through Northfield, MN... keep driving..
actually there is one good restaurant here, "Basil's Pizza" a nice
family owned place, but, heck who'se going to be driving by here any time
soon?
(Re 0, please keep the "college student's out on Summer vacation comments down
to a minimum, some of us are on trimesters!)

I have several road food horror stories.
There was sara, the waitress at a little truck stop Otter and i stopped at
after a resort series of shows. Sara had all the charm of Leona Helmsley and
the girlish figure and singing voice of Roseanne.

Then there's the 'Trichinosis Platter' in a Kalamazoo truck stop.

My favorite is going to an italian restaurant after a show and having the
house magician (a waiter who tried to earn extra tips by doing semi-passable
card effects) hear we were there, and immediately came out to 'impress otter,
myself, two dear friends and my parents.

He must have seen "Baghdad Cafe"

Since when I travel, I almost always do so alone, I never much veer off from
McDonalds on the freeway.

However, if you happen to be traveling to Chicago, I can most assuredly 
advise that the best place to rest stop is exit 60, in Paw Paw.  All major
fast foods, all major gas stations, and it's actually *clean*.

 Then there is the House of Pizza, on the corner of 20th and Lapeer in Port
Huron. Good food at low prices.

I forgot about that scandal with Cracker Barrel.  Eep!  Valerie, I'm a fellow
hisser, but I always hiss at the NMU ads in Traverse City theaters.  ;-)

I always make a point to stop at Crakcer Barrel...anywhere along I-75....
It isn't all that special anymore though...We jsut had one put in our hometown
of Monroe...right on I-75

re #28...Stuckey's is famous for their pecan rolls, not their pies.  And
of course the Claxton fruitcakes, made by the Claxton fruitcake company
in Claxton, Georgia.  Both are a matter of taste though.

Its been interesting to read about neat places to stop - all over the
country. But, how about some suggestions for places to stop for dinner
between Ann Arbor and St. Ignace, MI? My family has been stopping at
Big Boys, but their menu has gotten really bad (IMO). I'd still like
"pretty fast food", but sit-down service. Suggestions?

I had to look up St. Ignace on a map...just past the bridge in the U.P.,
evidently.  Sorry, no recommendations...I'd make that trip non-stop!  :-)
My main gas station food for road trips is fig newtons and a resealable
bottled beverage.  Newtons don't make your fingers greasy and don't make
many crumbs, and a resealable bottle eliminates problems of spillage.

Fast, good food?  Are you nuts?  ;)

BTW, I'd recommend going thru Lansing for that trip.  It's about 15-20 miles
longer, but the traffic is about 10% of that found on I-75.  And the truck
stops probably have better food, at least within the truck stop reality.

RE #34 Ajax, the resealable bottle also keeps the bees out of the bottle,
especially on long trips and spending large amount of times outdoors.

If you travel the same route often, go off the freeway, check out a
different unnamed resturant each time.  Batting average works out fairly
well and you can accumulate a list of good places (to share with the rest
of us).

The truck stop in Georgiana, Ala (near I-65) had the best road food I've 
ever had. The half order of shrimp my wife ate had 15 or 18 shrimp on it, 
the salads were as big as the old Hudson's Maurice salads, and my catfish 
dinner had 2 five pound catfish (well, maybe not that big, but they were 
big) and a bunch of fries. Enough change from a ten dollar bill to leave 
a big tip!

Don's in Tecumseh.  Would that be, or what used to be, Don's Beef Buffet?
very good.

Also, in Adrian, The Brass Lantern.  Very good restaurant.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss