Since we're taking driving into account, the usual Jalopnik diet of scotch, bacon, beer, and more bacon is a no-go. Here are the ten best places to grab food on the road, as chosen by Jalopnik readers.
Welcome back to Answers of the Day — our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!
Photo Credit: sfgamchick
10.) Weber's Famous Root Beer
Suggested By: Stapleface
Why it's awesome: I'd never heard of Weber's Famous Root Beer until today, but that doesn't really surprise me, since I know absolutely nothing about south Jersey, where you find these old-school drive-ins. I don't have to be a snobby asshole to like the food at little chains like Weber's over the fast food fare of interstate travel centers, but let me tell you, it helps.
Photo Credit: Benjamin Haas
9.) Smokey's Poutinery
Suggested By: SennaMP4
Why it's awesome: The next time I go up north to visit America's hat, the great nation of Canada, I'll be sure to try poutine, and Smokey's is where I'll do it. If you're not familiar with poutine, it's a French-Canadian secret weapon aimed at giving heart attacks to every English speaking tourist that ventures into their territory. Well, I'll be happy to indulge those wacky French-Canadians next time I'm there and I think Smokey's will provide.
Photo Credit: Jason Verwey
8.) Buc-ee's
Suggested By: Streets_Ahead
Why it's awesome: I've never eaten at Buc-ee's, so I can't tell you how good their sandwiches, tchotchkas, or bathrooms are, but that's only because their mascot looks like a psychotic squirrel trying to murder me with its mind-beams. I hear their jerky is great, and the bathrooms are super clean, so I think I'm ready to have my brains liquefied by the Buc-ee, the crazed mutant beaver of the interstate.
Photo Credit: Bill Herndon
7.) Cook-Out
Suggested By: Jethro5.0
Why it's awesome: North Carolina's Cook-Out promises burgers and bbq cooked "outdoors style," and I'm ready to try what the South has to offer in terms of local chains. Can you see that milkshakes menu? It's longer than a phone book, and I'm ready to go Pokemon gotta chatch ‘em all on it.
Photo Credit: Cook-Out
6.) Rudy's
Suggested By: ben.east
Why it's awesome: To get any barbeque near where I grew up, you had to drive out to a perpetually-closed biker bar outside of town and pray that they were open. Not that anyone ever wanted to go, because they all knew it would be closed anyway. Down in Texas, they have freakin' bbq chains, and when you're hard up and need some barbeque, you don't have to work some hell's angels voodoo in the middle of nowhere, you just have to head over to Rudy's, where delicious sauce and meats await. And did we mention they also sell the other kind of gas?
Photo Credit: Bob Brown
5.) Hruska's bakery in Ellinger, TX.
Suggested By: alan505
Why it's awesome: I don't know why so many Czechs and Slovaks ended up in Texas, but I'm glad they did, or else I wouldn't be able to get the hook up on some tasty filled pastry on my next marathon drive through the Southwest. Reader alan505 attests to the particular brilliance of the kolaches at Hruska's bakery in Ellinger, and I look forward to taking a break from what looks increasingly like a non-stop animal-consumption fest with some fruit-filled treats.
Photo Credit: colmmcsky
4.) Blake's Lotaburger
Suggested By: Lahjik
Why it's awesome: The pickings can be slim in roadside New Mexico, with fast food and questionable chili being the highway standards. At least that's what I thought until I heard about Blake's Lotaburger, which apparently comes with green chili, which I am all about. There's even a green chili cheeseburger trail in NM, which I think I will have to try out the next time I am in that great stretch of desert nothingness that makes up the extra space between the rest of the country and California.
Photo Credit: Kent Kanouse
3.) Whataburger
Suggested By: 87CE 95PV Type Я
Why it's awesome: There's a part of me that just wants to have grown up with that extreme Texas boredom that birthed all kinds of music and general weirdness and generally seems to have been fuelled by late night trips to Whataburger. Someday I'll make my homage there and taste their wares to see if it was just having nothing to do that makes the stranger side of Texas happen, or if it's just really tasty burgers that does the trick.
Photo Credit: kaoru
2.) Rossow's U-Tote-Em
Suggested By: ReggieDunlop
Why it's awesome: So you don't want to drive the eight weeks it takes to get across Texas to try one of those other roadside stops? Well, if you live in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, you don't have to venture south just to get a good meal. Rossow's U-Tote-Em has all of the calling cards of a classic American roadside eatery: it's got an incomprehensible name, it's been around since Lyndon B. Johnson was picking dogs up by their ears, and it serves cooked cows. What more could you want?
Photo Credit: potjie
1.) Cooking on your car engine
Suggested By: Gamecat235
Why it's awesome: What you're looking at right there are some hot dogs getting cooked by that car's manifold. We salute you, classic car cookers, for recognizing that the greatest place to eat when you're on the road is in your car. When it comes to getting food on the road, why not cut out the middleman and just have your car cook for you? Another shout out goes to reader SirNik84, who keeps his cans of chili and creamed corn right there on his turbo's exhaust turbine. A more awesome way to get your grub on a drive we do not know.
Photo Credit: nedra