Roadside Food

Published in the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink in America, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Roadside food developed in response to the fast-growing American market of hungry travelers. Unlike its culinary cousin known as fast food, Roadside food typically involves a measure of hands-on craftsmanship in its preparation and presentation, and though still rather fast, the cuisine requires a modicum of patience from the customer. Fast food, as the saying goes, “waits for you.”

America’s ability to produce almost anything on an assembly line served it well in the development and adoption of fast food as the unofficial national cuisine. The country’s vast expanse cultivated an obsession with travel, facilitated first by the railroads and then by the automobile. Eating habits would necessarily have to conform to this quicker pace of life, now precisely measured by mechanical clocks rather than the sun’s passage. Industrialization provided the necessary improvements in food transport, packaging, and storage that would become an absolute requirement for any successful food service operation.

America’s roadside food owes much of its existence to the efforts of Fred Harvey, an English-born restaurateur credited for establishing the first chain restaurant. His Harvey Houses greeted railroad passengers traveling America’s southwest. Harvey’s ability to serve hot meals fast in familiar and friendly surroundings made his concept a hit with the itinerant public who had to adhere to the strict railroad timetables. Harvey enhanced the experience by hiring young, attractive, and wholesome women as servers. The “Harvey Girls” became as much a trademark of the operation as any special on the menu.

As railroad dining became a popular component of rail travel, the design of the railcar kitchens in such cramped quarters would soon play a role on the roadsides as well. The railroads ability to efficiently cook hot meals for its passengers bode well for the hurried pace of passing motorists. The roadside diner car not only mimicked the style of its railroad counterpart, it shared much of its functional efficiency.

The spread and improvement of the national road network that began in the 1920s inspired thousands of enterprising individuals to set up some of the earliest roadside businesses designed specifically for the automobile trade. In the early years of this trend, spaces between major cities consisted primarily of farms. Resident farmers became some of the first to seize upon this opportunity to profit from hungry motorists. Already possessing the necessary raw materials – property, beef, pork, and dairy – farmers could easily diversify into this new business, adding a new source of revenue. These early attempts at serving food at the roadside adhered to local culinary traditions, adapted to the quicker pace of this new mobile market.

About the same time, the White Castle and White Tower restaurant chains opened their first outlets in midwestern cities. Their distinctive buildings clad in white porcelain enamel were designed to counter the negative image of roadside stands as unhealthy greasy spoons, an appellation that many places probably deserved. The chains also capitalized on the rapidly developing efficiency of the meat packing industry. Able to serve hamburgers at only five cents each, these chains and others promoted their purchase “by the bag.”

Though enormously popular in its own right, the ubiquitous hot dog resisted a national restaurant standard and therefore a national chain specializing in them. Easy to prepare and to eat, though ever mysterious in their ingredients, the hot dog has become an iconic American meal. While a hamburger has few varieties, hot dogs developed many regional identities, methods of preparation, and corresponding monikers, such as Coney’s, franks, wieners, hots, pups, and tube steaks.

Other popular roadside food alternatives vary in availability. In the Northeast, the proximity of the fishing industry means a broader availability of seafood, usually deep-fried, while fried chicken and barbecue stands greeted motorists in the South. Barbecue’s labor-intensive preparation makes it ill suited for chain restaurants but provides one of the most savory of roadside experiences. Barbecue comes in three general regional styles known as Southern, Kansas City, and Texas, distinguished by the use of rubs, sauces, and cooking methods. The Pig Stand in Texas, became one of the nation’s first drive-in restaurants in the 1920s.

By the 1930s, the symbiosis of architecture and advertising hit its stride. Operators built highly distinctive structures to lure passing motorists, often in the image of their signature product or their name. The Pig Stand looked like giant pigs, while an ice cream stand took the shape of a giant cone. Operators distracted travelers still more with bright neon signs to stand sentry for buildings often covered with the restaurant’s menu. The often-outlandish architectural gimmickry abounded as operators strove to outdo their competition.

Following the typical American economic business model, the roadside stand would spread quickly across the landscape in its early years. The low barrier of entry attracted anyone with cooking abilities willing to work hard. Those staking out the better locations and having savvier marketing and management abilities trumped the competition. Consolidation of the industry followed as people like Howard Johnson, perfected the family restaurant concept and its duplication. Other founders of the industry such as Colonel Harlan Sanders and Ray Krok famously followed. By the 1950s, the industry would set and maintain a standard for family-friendly dining: Clean, consistent, inexpensive, and homey.

In terms of dollars, the hamburger chain rules American roadside dining. McDonald’s became the world’s largest restaurant chain selling billions of them, and its market dominance has dictated the structure of the entire American food processing industry, particularly those sectors that supply of beef, potatoes, and chicken. Its practice of marketing heavily to children acknowledged as the real decision-makers for family dining, has also skewed American eating habits toward a preference for faster, easy-to-serve finger foods.

American roadside food today has lost little of its actual variety though much of its ubiquity. Local variations of roadside food have become much harder to find in recent years thanks to extremely relentless competition and stricter government regulations. Yet the cuisine still thrives in more remote locations or where operators have upheld high standards of quality and value.

Bibliography:

Anderson, Will; Where Have You Gone, Starlite Café, 1999.
Gutman, Richard J.S.; American Diner Then and Now; second edition, 2000.
Liebs, Chester; Main Street to Miracle Mile, paperback edition, 1995
Pillsbury, Richard; From Boarding House to Bistro, 1990
Schlosser, Eric; Fast Food Nation; 2001.