Fast Food and Driving Vacations
 

They're bad for you and usually terrible excuses for restaurants. But it is summer and most Americans take at least one long road trip somewhere. Thus, most of us are forced to eat at fast food joints. Which slop house franchise is best and which is worst? Any specific bad fast food joints? My favorite two fast food places are Long John Silver's and Popeye's (though a disturbing amount of Popeye's are ditching onion rings). My worst favorites are McDonald's and Hardees. As for worst specific fast food restaurant, I'd have to give it to the McDonald's in Emporia, Virginia. Grudging service, lousy food.

I like Wendy's salads.

I'm a sucker for Popeye's, but a current fast-food fave is In-'n'-Out, here in California. Fantastic juicy burgers (although the fries can be hit-and-miss, depending on the place), worth the drive. Since my road trips now consist of exclusively southern California jaunts (otherwise I'll fly), I never have a problem finding one.

Also great is a fish taco and Baja goodies chain called Rubio's, as well as La Salsa and Baja Fresh, two other Mexican food joints that leave Taco Bell in the dust in every way. In a pinch, Del Taco is fine too-- nowhere near as good as these others, but sometimes you need fries with your burrito!

Hardee's is owned by CKE Corp, the people behind Carl's Jr. here in the Southwest. Are Hardee's commercials as nauseating as the Carl's Jr. ones ("Don't bother me-- I'm eating", with scenes of people smackingly choking down burgers, sauce dripping noisily everywhere)? That, and Carl Karcher's reprehensible employment practices, keep me away from that chain.

I agree that Mickey D's is nasty, but I do get a "McDonald's Fries" jones now and then, and I need my fix...!

Chick-fil-A is the best.

We use Subway a lot when we travel. On a veggie sandwich the caloric intake is around 350 which is great!!! And that Long John Silver is full of fat HuwMorgan! We also stop at supermarkets for frest fruit and if they have it, sushie.

"Quarter Cheese Plate on two. Scattered, smothererd and covered. Hold the garden"

"Waffle on two, double eggs, scattered and smothered with wheat"

Keith

For breakfast, I prefer Waffle House. You don't see many of these north of the Potomac River. I can recommend the Waffle House just off Route 95 between Dale City and Woodridge. Great hash browns!

Oh God I watched a waitress cut her blue painted fingernails behind the counter at the last Waffle House I ate at, she had a date after work! The DQ's are what we hunt for because there are none in our town.

Gotta hand it to Subway -- good, fresh food that can be good for you if you know what to order. Call it corny, but I actually did the "Jared Diet" and lost about 20 pounds, plus I managed to get my triglyceride levels to drop from around 350 (imminent diabetes, much wailing and gnashing of teeth), to about 115 (have some ice cream to celebrate) by chowing down daily on their seafood and crab sandwiches on wheat bread.

Gotta love that Subway... although as I learned on a recent trip to Arkansas, uniform quality is not guaranteed. The Subway on Four Seasons Blvd. in Hendersonville, NC, where I work, is consistently excellent, and I eat lunch there every day I work, and usually on my off days too. However, the Subways I dined at while on vacation sucked, especially the one in Cabot, AR, where the seafood and crab mix tasted freshly caught -- so fresh, in fact, that there was grit that could have only been sand in it.

They aren't big enough yet to be on every other off ramp, but I do love Quizno's. Giving Subway a real run for their money -- already see an improvement in Subway's breads. But I have a real problem everytime I see the Subway guy pull a chicken filet up out of a water bath. Yuck. Quizno's smoked turkey with guac, yeh!

Spouse loves Cracker Barrel. I go along for peace in the car, but always nibble a few of the fries.

Yuck--that sand would have me concerned! But I'll third the Subway anyway. (Boat food, cd) I don't think ours has the seafood and crab though??? Sometimes these trends take a while to reach backwater Florida.

Hasn't Jarred made a fortune on his weight loss though, and the best part is...he either has to maintain the loss now, or lose the fame and fortune.

A big second vote to Quizno's. Great food, but hard to find if you're interstate traveling. Wonder if they put out a map of locations, like Cracker Barrel?

I don't eat fast food any more. It usually makes me fart against the vinyl seats of my car. Then I have to roll the windows down or get a lot of complaints from the passengers about the smell.

I'll agree that Quizno's subs are SO much better than Subway! I wish there were more locations, too.

Jack In The Box has these new Ultimate Salads that are really good. There's an Asian, Chef, and my favorite, the Southwest.

I like Inn 'N Out Burger. The one drawback is that the burgers are real greaassssy, but very tasty. The lettuce and tomato are fresh and they peel their own potatos for the french fries. Carl's Jr. is also very good. 8-)

I'm not "most" of us. We don't eat fast food on vacation. We can go 4 weeks and not eat out once.

We cook our own meals in our RV and have done so for the last 27 years.

Even if you don't have an RV you don't have to eat out at every meal & fast food would be my last resort!

Utahtea

We have a conversion van and when we travel we pack a cooler with cheese, fruit, baby carrots, sandwiches, soft drinks/water etc. and stop at a roadside rest or find a picnic area.

We usually do the cooler-picnic routine for lunch, but if we fast-food it for dinner, we'll do subway or quiznos.

However, my faves right now:
Mickey's Crispy Chicken Caesar Salad and Burger Barf's...ummm....King's Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies! They're almost better than mine! Yum yum! ;)

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind breaking wind in the car. Actually, I kind of like it. It's the complaining that comes immediately afterwards that tends to become tiresome.

And don't think you're above it all, Ellen Griswald, Buckeye, and Utah Tea, with your baby carrots and mesculum greens. I see you in your upholstered captain's chair in your plush RVs, secretly breaking wind to your heart's content as you nibble on your fennel slaw! You fool no one!

Oh dear, Bombed again!

For those looking for Quizmo's location, we use a book called "The Next Exit" which tells what gas stations, hotels, and restaurants are at every exit on all the US interstates. It's a great tool! We usually study the exits ahead for what restaurants are coming up, then base where we stop on where our restaurant is rather than waiting until we're hungry and having to stop at the one restaurant at an exit. Doesn't work for the roads less traveled, though, which I often prefer to the interstate.

We like the Shoney's buffet places. You do have to leave your car but they are very fast, serve some reasonably wholesome things and have enough variety so that everyone will find something to eat and be back on the road in about 20-30 min. tops.

Togos has good sandwiches - I generally will choose them over Subway. Quiznos is good too. Usually on car trips we do the picnic lunch in a cooler thing too. I prefer it because you can stop anywhere and eat.

We end up getting very tired of fast food by the end of any trip, but w/ two kids, we eat it more than we should on any vacation. We usually try to find buffets at least once or twice to get something a bit different. If we are in a condo, I might cook about once a week on vacation. Cook more than that, and it's not a vacation anymore!!!

I keep trying Subway, and each time I'm amazed there's anyone else in there. Tried some sort of chicken sub--half the thing was gristle. Then I tried the turkey. Thanks, but I left jellied turkey roll back in elementary school. So I tried some other sort of chicken. Mmmm. Pressed chicken parts. Delightful.

I will go to Subway for the veggie sandwiches and, if I'm feeling daring, their turkey subs-- but yeah, their meat sandwiches tend to be pretty gruesome. Had a teriyaki chicken sub there that was essentially inedible.

Quizno's rules-- and Togo's is very good too. I stand by In-'n'-Out as a great roadside joint (oh, is anything better after a really hard workout than to go ruin it by scarfing down a Double Double with fries-- and a Diet Coke, since that ensures the burger's calories don't count?!).

rjw, if you want consistenly good french fries at in 'n out order "fries well-done". They taste better than the way the fries are generally prepared

I keep forgetting about that, Suzie! Thanks for the reminder.

Didn't a Fodorite post the "special" In-'n'-Out off-menu items a while back? Like how to order an Atkin's-friendly burger (no bread, served on lettuce leaves)? That's the sign of a true "local" in this area-- and those who know this info sit in smug superiority over a local yokel like me who doesn't know the code....

OK, but isn't the salient point whether one is stopping to eat, or eating while driving? I would like to hear everybody's suggestions for the latter...I love Quizno's, and Popeye's, and Taco Smell, but those things are just not doable with one hand, so I end up at McD's a lot. Say what you will, but their food is definitely packaged for eating on-the-go.

I'm a Subway fan too. Quiznos are good, but the ones I've been to have been skimpy on the fixin's and higher on the price than Subway.

I don't really like to eat while driving so the issue of food packaged to go isn't a factor in my choices. I prefer to get out of the car, walk around a bit, and relax while I eat.

With so many other distracted drivers on the road, let's not give people the idea that it's acceptable to eat while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, OK? I watched some idiot applying mascara while on the freeway this morning (happily, she at least drove below the speed limit, so everyone whizzed past her, honked and flipped her the finger-- just what the moron deserved!), and just think if she'd been trying to eat a McMuffin...!

To Bomber,

I fail to see why eating food that one prepares themselves vs eating fast food stops gas.

To Others,

Taking a cooler or having RV and fixing food doesn't mean you eat while driving. We enjoy stopping and eating. Having our food with us allows us to stop at scenic overlooks and eat places that most people just drive by. We aren't limited to road side rest. We have also stopped at many nice small city parks to eat or large scenic overlooks to name a few. I bet there aren't many people who can say that they had bacon, eggs, potatoes for breakfast up near the summit of the Beartooth Highway in Wyoming!! We can get out stretch, use our own clean facilties and even take a little nap if we want.

Utahtea

Traveling with kids you have to have pack healthy snacks/food along or put up with the whining. And no, we do not eat while driving.

RJ-I can top the idiot putting on mascara, I saw a guy one morning with the newspaper draped across his steering wheel.

Utahtea-Did you catch the special on HGTV on RV's? They had one Class A that had a price tag of almost $800,000. That's the one I want. PS. Love your website. ;-)

Ah ha, Utah Tea, so you admit as much! I had my suspicions!

Heck Brooklyn I bet even the Queen herself passes gas.

Hiya buckeyemom!!

Newspapers...? Yeah, I see that a lot. Also books; magazines; printouts from mapquest.com. Day and night, I might add.

Let us not forget the ubiquitous cell phone, held to LEFT ear, generally blocking views on that side of the face, preventing use of the turn signal, etc. Hands-free devices are about to be the law here in CA, and it's a good thing IMHO (even though Canadian studies say that it's the act of conversing on the phone, not the nature of the headset, that contributes to the accident).

Don't get me started on cell phones. LOL. One of my pet peeves is people in a store yakking away on them and not paying attention. The other day my daughter and I were at the playground and some woman was on her cell phone to her divorce attorney calling her soon to be ex every name in the book with her son 2 feet away. Every word she said was heard by all.

That whole cell phone thing cracks me up. People act like their conversations are private because they are talking to someone who is otherwise out of earshot. They don't realize that those of use nearby are completley within earshot. These people must also believe that the cell phone technology is only slightly better than 2 cans and a string because they speak so loudly. What's with that? We can hear you already!!!!!

Don't eat fast food. Hate Mickey Ds. b( We take a picnic with all the fixins and use it as an excuse to stop and appreciate the trip (or gives DH an opportunity to fish along the way). No driving and eating. DH NEVER does this. He never has food stains on his clothes! ;)

Bomber,

Yah, I admit that eating food can cause gas. So what's your point? How old are you....12?

Utahtea