Suzanne Emily O'Connor
There are good restaurants. And there are restaurants so good they’re worth the drive. But how good does a restaurant have to be, to be worth stopping for?
This particular genre of food, which we’ll dub “Road Eats,” comes in many forms: Mom and Pop dives, grease-stained gas stations, fine dining establishments. There are few actual qualifications for a proper Road Trip Eat, only that it be integrated into some larger adventure, and that it rise to the occasion as part of the memory you’ll take home.
We reached out to some of our most reliable foodie correspondents to share some worthy roadside institutions. Take notes—some of these are worth planning a trip around.
The Bright Star
Bessemer, Alabama
Some folks can drive fourteen hours in one day. Not me. I can go about six hundred miles, but I’ll go the extra hour if there’s a restaurant like The Bright Star at the end of the haul. Longevity is the underlying theme of The Bright Star. The restaurant began its life in 1907 as a twenty-five-seat café owned and operated by Tom Bonduris, a Greek immigrant from Peleta. Business was good and Bonduris had to relocate three times before The Bright Star found its permanent home in Bessemer’s downtown on 19th Street, where it has remained since 1914. Bonduris partnered with Bill and Pete Koikos (also of Peleta) in 1923 and Koikos descendants have owned and managed it since 1966. The 330-seat dining area is adorned with Crimson Tide memorabilia, but don’t hold that against it because the space is something out of Boardwalk Empire … 1930s-era murals, banquettes, tiled floors, ceiling fans, and marbled and mirrored walls. But it’s the food at The Bright Star that has earned its landmark status. The specialty is Greek-style snapper and steaks … try the snapper throats, but be sure to get a cup of their seafood gumbo … it’s good, honest! thebrightstar.com.
—Sam Irwin
Danny’s Fried Chicken
Franklin, Louisiana
When I was a child, to get to my grandma’s house, we would drive Highway 182 through downtown Franklin, where we’d often stop at Danny’s Fried Chicken to pick up a box of crispy goodness to share—it would always make her smile. My grandma is long gone but Danny’s is still there, with its iconic sign of a boy with a bowl haircut chomping on a piece of chicken.
My cousin and I recently stopped in for lunch. Entering the dining room, with its vintage colonial-themed wallpaper and 70’s-era stained-glass chicken light fixtures, we were transported back in time. Behind the counter, husband and wife Dean and Janet Broussard were busy frying hand-battered chicken while a young woman took our order.
The menu features all things fried with typical side offerings like coleslaw, red beans, and fried okra. You will find rice dressing also humbly offered as a “side,” but it deserves main dish attention, boasting a perfect rice-to-meat ratio so as to be a meal unto itself.
Dean, whose family has owned and operated this franchise for forty-nine years, explained that the dressing is made with a never-to-be-shared recipe from an old lady in Ville Platte. I asked him if he could tell me a little about the secret to its goodness. He kindly responded, “Gizzards,” then turned back to his fry basket. My cousin frowned, and I finished her serving with a smile. Danny's Fried Chicken on Facebook.
—Catherine Schoeffler Comeaux
Billy’s Boudin & Cracklins
Krotz Springs, Louisiana
Once a year, I drive from Colorado to Louisiana. Road trips are a distinct pleasure of mine (read more in this story: "Just Get in the Car" ) but by the time hour eighteen rolls around, my body is enraged with Red Bull and I’m dodging junk falling off peoples’ trailers on I-49, wondering why I keep doing this to myself. My weary eyes squint, scanning the horizon for the blessed Opelousas exit. Opelousas will take me to U.S. 190, and eventually to Krotz Springs, where I find my salvation.
Billy’s Boudin & Cracklins is the jewel of my drive. I buy more boudin than I need—you can earn a mountain of goodwill from your friends by giving away ten bucks of Billy’s boudin. It’s hard not to overdo it back in the car, though, gorging on a whole link at a time. When my dad last rode down from Colorado with me, he cut each link in half with his pocket knife, which we shared with saltines, like reasonable people who pace themselves.
Boudin is not, however, a perfect road trip food. It comes in its own distinctly unreliable wrapper, for one. It leaves your hands greased with enough pork fat to problematically lubricate the steering wheel, and with enough spice to burn your travel-worn eyes each time you rub them. There’s a certain quality to eating boudin while driving that makes you feel like a cheetah tearing at a fresh kill while running away from the scene. But never mind that; road boudin serves other purposes.
Last summer, my friend Annie drove cross-country to move back to Louisiana from Oregon. I led the caravan from her pit-stop in Colorado. Her move home was twice as long as my drive; a long-awaited homecoming following a period of stress. We pulled into Billy’s right as the sun was setting in Krotz Springs. When you’ve been away for awhile, as Annie had—and you really start to miss Louisiana—the taste of boudin at sunset on U.S. 190 is an almost overwhelming welcome home. billysboudin.com.
—Christie Matherne
Lea’s Lunchroom
Lecompte, Louisiana
“I don’t want to have lunch in Natchitoches.”
“Well, fine, stay in the car,” I almost said, but it turns out that there’s an even better option if you’re crossing Louisiana on the bias. Just a bit south of Alexandria in the little town of Lecompte, barely far enough off I-49 to count as a detour, the almost-century-old Lea’s Lunchroom served me one of the best sandwiches of my lunch-eating career.
Ham is the queen of meats, as we all know, and the real genius of Lea’s is presenting two varieties of ham on a single sandwich (ground and sliced). You can also get a meat-and-three: each day there are two choices of meat, and one of them is always ham. In addition to the multiplicity of ham formats, Lea’s offers a glorious chorus line of nine pies daily: choose among coconut meringue, lemon meringue, chocolate meringue, banana meringue, apple, peach, cherry, bumbleberry, and pecan. The pies, based on family recipes which founder Lea Johnson’s wife Georgia brought into the business as a sweet and flaky dowry, have come close to overshadowing their meaty menu-mate: in 2001, Lecompte was named the Pie Capital of Louisiana.
I haven’t made it back to Lea’s since that first trip in the fall of 2019, but every time a drive Shreveport-ward is mentioned, I remember that perfect roadside bite. In 2008, a grandson opened a satellite location in Monroe—sweeting any itinerary including Vicksburg, Poverty Point, or the general northeast corner of the state. leaslunchroom.com.
—Chris Turner-Neal
Glenda’s Creole Kitchen
Breaux Bridge, Louisiana
I live in New Orleans, but when I head west for anything at all I always sketch in time for a detour to Glenda’s Creole Kitchen in Breaux Bridge as much for the gracious hospitality as for the amazing grub.
The magic Glenda Broussard and the women in her family pull from Glenda’s towering collection of Magnalite pots has kept her Breaux Bridge parking lot jammed for breakfast and lunch for twenty-two years. A line of cars snakes around the building, waiting to get up to the bustling takeout window.
Inside the small space, five or so communal tables are covered in brightly-patterned oilcloth. First place trophies from the Gumbo Cook-off and the Sweet Dough Pie Festival are displayed behind the counter. Guests are obliged to stand in line for the daily specials that are set up in steam trays. Broussard is big on stuffing and smothering, so the day might bring stuffed turkey wings, smothered pork chops, smothered okra with shrimp and crabmeat, stuffed fried chicken, stuffed brisket, turkey roll, smothered ribs, or something like that. At the end of the short, cafeteria-style line you will be offered a slice of either white or honey wheat bread and your choice will be plucked straight from a plastic sleeve. You will be given a plastic cup and you serve your own beverage. If you splurge on a slice of cake or a small sweet, your meal might set you back $12 and will easily feed three people. If you go for a half portion and skip the dessert, you’ll get one piece of meat with two sides. This will cost you $7. This will be money well spent. This is blue-collar food, prepared with love and skill. Find Glenda's Creole Kitchen on Facebook.
—Jyl Benson
The White House
Warrior, Alabama
I had a presidential factbook in the 1990s—before the phrase was so fraught—and it won me over with the trivia that George Bush was the first president to publicly refuse broccoli.
It’s a fact I’ve witnessed myself, at a lunch spot in Warrior, Alabama. Here H.W. merely sniffs at a steam tray of cheddar-smothered broccoli, abstains from the chicken fried steak, and remains unmoved by the silky mashed potatoes that became my toddler’s second skin. He’s not alone: across the political aisle and sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, forty-five presidents say “No thanks,” to the down-home cuisine populating the buffet line each day at The White House Restaurant. Confined to their portraits, they watch the crowds come and go.
We found The White House (red brick, actually) on the way home from a week in Nashville. I wanted somewhere hip in downtown Birmingham, my husband Andy wanted something healthy and quick. Like most compromises, our carb-laden cafeteria trays in the northern nowhere of Alabama checked none of these boxes. But they posed a strong case for re-election. Find The White House on Facebook.
—Lucie Monk Carter
