We’re coming up on summer road trips, family vacations and Bigfoot Search Party Weekends.* Travel, by its very definition, is to leave your home and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Deliberately! We wander into the unknown with only our GPS, a full tank of gas and an Expedia confirmation for an Airbnb in Gatlinburg we’ve only seen online. The pictures looked nice, but when we get there, we discover the photos were taken with an unusually wide angle lens. What appeared to be a California king bed is actually a “Parisian twin” (which fits two malnourished Calvin Klein models), and the tiny living room is furnished with wobbly toy furniture that screams, “We spared every expense!” In excess of the rental, you are charged a $200 cleaning fee, even though you were required to wash the dishes, mop the floors and bang-dust the rugs with a tennis racket before checking out.
Flat tires, car repairs, lost luggage and hotel mishaps are just a small list of what can go wrong while traveling, but the biggest potential pitfall for me has been finding decent food on the road.**
Freeway exit fast food is where most of us find nourishment when we travel. It’s quick. It’s cheap, and there are no surprises. The Happy Meal you got in Memphis last Wednesday is exactly the same one you’ll have in Chattanooga Friday night. It’s not fancy. We likely won’t be taking pictures of our fast food to share on Instagram, but fast food will do in a pinch, and since we’re on tight schedules, taking an extra half hour to drive to a well-reviewed family-run eatery farther into town isn’t always an option.
But I say, why not? Try it! Go the extra mile! Consider all you stand to gain by taking a little extra time to plan your meals rather than let your route plan them for you.
As a seasoned traveler with thousands of road meals under my belt, allow me to present some travel food tips. Using these tips myself, I can say it has reduced my bad dining experiences. I can also report that in more than 30 years, I have only been food poisoned twice, and neither time was at a restaurant.***
Are reviews reliable? I tend not to put a lot of value in online reviews of restaurants, especially when you see Taco Bell has a 4.8 rating with reviews containing the descriptions “authentic” and “the real deal.” I like Taco Bell as much as the next guy. My constitution requires a bimonthly Cordita Crunch Box, and I don’t care who knows it, but “authentic” is not a word I would choose. Besides, I would bet most reviews are posted by friendly acquaintances of the establishment. And if I owned a restaurant, I would totally get Aunt Carol to post a five-star review raving about the Frito pie. You would, too. Stop it. Yes, you would.
Follow your nose. This is so basic and elementary, it seems silly to mention it, but let’s get it out of the way: Trust your senses when trying out a new restaurant. If you don’t like the smell of the place, it’s not a love connection. Leave and go someplace else. When doing so, many prefer to give management the reason for their leaving. “How else can they improve?” they might say. I get that, but having been diagnosed as “conflict-evasive” by more than one therapist, I prefer the more passive approach of holding my cell phone to my ear when the hostess approaches and pretending to get an important call. I then step outside and race to my car like a spineless coward.
Seeing is believing. Are the floors and tables clean? Look for signs of well-trained staffers and owners who care about the place and want to keep it spiffy. Cooking is hard, waiting tables is hard, but keeping the place clean is easier, and chances are, if it’s a mess out front, the kitchen follows suit. And whatever happens in the kitchen always ends up right on your plate. Bon appétit.
Sit and watch first. When going off the beaten path in a strange city, go to your desired restaurant and sit in your car for a few moments to watch patrons come and go. Are they smiling? Do they look sick? You can tell a lot about a restaurant by who the regulars are and how they seem to be when they leave. It’s a practice I call “patronography,” the descriptive science of restaurant patrons, and I swear by its effectiveness. I am just passing my findings along like any good journalist.****
From beer to modernity. If the patrons are mostly male, in their 30s with skinny jeans and no socks and they look like personal trainers from the neck down and New England sea captains from the neck up, you are at a brewery. They’ll have a large IPA beer selection — from the heavy ones that put you to sleep to the lighter ones that also put you to sleep. Breweries are likely to have some tasty “craft” burgers — and good tots. If sea captains are eating there, you can bet there will be tots. Craft burgers are the same as other kinds of burgers but are usually smashed flatter and topped with Funyuns or Doritos crumbs.
Grease is the word. If you see a lot of folks in sports jerseys, caps with NASCAR logos and T-shirts with phrases like “Old Guys Rule” or something about being “Much Busier in Retirement,” get ready for a deep fried menu. If you like fried food, you are gonna love this place. Vegetarians, don’t dismay. The menu contains fried pickles AND fried okra. Your waitress is named Betty or Dallas or Candice or, sometimes, Blake.
It’s always 9 a.m. or 5 p.m. somewhere. If you see women of all ages – but mostly between the ages of 47 and 53 — and they seem deliriously happy because they are with each other and not with their husbands at Home Depot or the above-mentioned fried food place, you could theoretically be in two places, depending on the time of day. If it’s before 4 p.m., you’re at a coffee shop. If it’s after 5 p.m., you’re likely at a wine bar.
The wine bar serves nuts, fruits, cheeses and flaxseed crackers on a long, wooden paddle. It’s called a charcuterie (French for “food of the mouse”), but the wooden paddle smacks of childhood punishment to me, so I always move my share to a cocktail napkin in order to fight the reminiscence of Principal Sherman’s mighty right arm. The staff are usually warm and professional, if not a bit aloof when you over-explain your body’s intolerance for tannin-heavy red wines, like that time you sang “Relax” for 25 minutes at your nephew’s wedding.
You’ll know you’re in a wine bar from all the paintings of wine, the paintings of wine in glasses, the paintings of wine in bottles, the paintings of wine being poured from bottles into glasses and the poorly painted mural on one wall of an Italian vineyard or the Olive Garden in Murfreesboro (it’s hard to tell). The paintings are in mellow, warm tones that pair well with the deep burgundy of the painted wine.
The coffee shop deals in caffeinated beverages, which the staff clearly consume in large, er, venti qualities. Intolerably perky baristas clamor behind the counter with wide, unblinking eyes. It’s 8:45 a.m., and you feel like you’re the guest on a strange, new morning show, and they’re going to ask you about Ariana Grande’s latest TikTok video. Before you’ve had coffee, all baristas sound like Ren and Stimpy.
You can tell a good coffee shop by its pastries, garnished with hibiscus petals and dusted with confectioners’ sugar. The coffee shop also has paintings: swirls of color around a smiling sun, a sun that’s obviously had its coffee. Women who have had their coffee are leaping or flying against a swirl of color around a smiling sun. Small tags beside the paintings all say $35. Every painting in every coffee shop is $35.
Strip mall surprise. You know the place: In between a Discount Tobacco and a Nails So Happy, the strip mall restaurant can be pretty good, or it can be a disaster, patronized only by busy real estate agents in late model Buicks who don’t have time to taste food when they eat it.
If it’s an Asian restaurant, look for at least one table of Asian people enjoying the food. The same goes for Mexican food or any other “ethnic” restaurant. “Native eaters” are a good sign. In the same way I would know a bad plate of pork chops and gravy (my mother’s best dish) when I tasted it, the native eater knows when it’s right. Follow the signs, and you’ll have a better dining experience. Some of my favorite meals have been in a restaurant where I was the only “gringo” there.
Be a good human. I go through life assuming everyone is just doing their best. It’s always a good place to start, even when it turns out I’m wrong.
This little restaurant you found on Yelp is fulfilling someone’s lifelong, romantic dream of serving their favorite family recipes to an appreciative customer base. They’re making a lot less money than they made at H&R Block, but they’re happier now, even with rising beef prices, E. coli scares, staffing troubles and a freezer that keeps breaking down. “It’s still better than sitting in a cubicle,” they mutter to themselves as they mop the floors alone at 12:45 a.m. because Angie called in sick and no one’s even seen Rick since his shift last Tuesday.
There’s a lot going on back in the kitchen and the manager’s office. Keep that in mind when your over-well eggs come back over-medium. It’s OK. It’s just eggs. Tip well and smile. Restaurants are hard. Besides, you’re the one who left home deliberately. Whatever happens now is kinda all on you.
*You go on your trips, I’ll go on mine. Our Bigfoot Search Party weekends were started by an old junior college roommate, Bobby (now working in finance, in that he walks people through the credit application at a LaVergne furniture store). Each summer, Bobby and I and a few other adventurous friends pack up his ’97 Range Rover with camping gear and surveillance equipment and go where an online chat group has reported recent sasquatch sightings. Our weekends have taken us to exotic places like Lewisville, Texas, and Buford, Wyoming. No sightings yet.
**I can hear my editor now: “This is our beloved Travel Guide issue! What are you doing? We need to be encouraging our readers to travel!” To which I say: “Travel is highly overrated! Some people leave their homes, never to be seen again! They get kidnapped by cults! They join weird farming societies! Don’t you think we need some point/counterpoint about this stuff?” Then he says: “Our readers don’t need point/counterpoint when it comes to travel. We just need to show them wonderful places to visit and give them travel tips that make their lives easier.” I then mutter something about how warning readers about weird farming societies is probably the best tip they’ll ever receive, but he doesn’t hear me. And then I realize this conversation is entirely going on in my head, and I’m actually looking out the window at birds. Let’s just move on.
***One time was at a family reunion. Not my family reunion, but a gathering I happened upon at a park in Smyrna. And by “happened upon,” I’m not insinuating I peruse local newspapers for family reunion listings and crash them for the free home cooking. I would never say that. Anyway, after watching some guys playing banjo, they assumed I was an in-law, married to Karen but now estranged (not sure how they arrived at that conclusion). Anyway, they directed me to the buffet table, whereupon I filled a large plate with macaroni casserole and a rather dubious amount of potato salad that had been sitting out since 7 that morning when Uncle Spurts came to hold the pavilion.
The other time involved dinner made by a former spouse, and that’s all I can legally say about that. The real point here — and the one you should take with you — is you just wasted time reading another meaningless footnote. You can’t trust the media.
****I “almost” minored in journalism, which means I told friends, “Yeah, I’m thinking the journalism minor would, you know, give some weight to the 19th-century American folklore degree.” It didn’t.
