Road food is a cuisine concerning food prepared especially for hungry travelers who arrive by road. Most road food establishments are casual dining restaurants. [1] American road food is associated with "comfort food" such as hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, barbecue, and pizza. [2] Road food establishments can include fast food, cafes and barbecue shacks. [3]
Road food was the topic of the book Roadfood by Jane and Michael Stern originally published in 1977. Jane Stern also had an ongoing, James Beard Award-winning road food column in Gourmet magazine. [4] Road food has been the subject of several television series, including the three-season series Feasting on Asphalt created by James Beard award winning food author Alton Brown, and Al Roker's Roker on the Road.
Martin Yan is a Hong Kong chef and food writer. He has hosted his award-winning PBS-TV cooking show Yan Can Cook since 1982.
Rick Bayless is an American chef and restaurateur who specializes in traditional Mexican cuisine with modern interpretations. He is widely known for his PBS series Mexico: One Plate at a Time. Among his various accolades are a Michelin star, the title of Top Chef Masters, and seven James Beard Awards.
Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, commonly known as Frank Pepe's or simply Pepe's, is a popular pizza restaurant in the Wooster Square neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut, at 163 Wooster Street. Opened in 1925, it is one of the oldest and best known pizzerias in the United States.
Chris Hastings is the owner and executive chef of Hot & Hot Fish Club, a restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, and was twice a finalist for the James Beard Award "Best Chef in the South" award. In 2012, Chef Hastings was the winner of this award.
Andrew Scott Zimmern is an American chef, restaurateur, television and radio personality, director, producer, businessman, food critic, and author. Zimmern is the co-creator, host, and consulting producer of the Travel Channel television series Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,Bizarre Foods America, Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations, Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World, Dining with Death, The Zimmern List, and Andrew Zimmern's Driven by Food, as well as the Food Network series The Big Food Truck Tip. For his work on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, he was presented the James Beard Foundation Award four times: in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2017. Zimmern hosts a cooking webseries on YouTube, Andrew Zimmern Cooks. His show, What's Eating America, premiered on MSNBC in 2020.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media awards are presented at a dinner in New York City; the chef and restaurant awards were also presented in New York until 2015, when the foundation's annual gala moved to Chicago. Chicago will continue to host the Awards until 2027.
Jane Grossman Stern and Michael Stern are American writers who specialize in books about travel, food, and popular culture. They are best known for their Roadfood books, website, and magazine columns, in which they find road food restaurants serving classic American regional specialties and review them. Starting their hunt for regional American food in the early 1970s they were the first food writers to regard this food as being as worthy to report on as the haute cuisine of other nations.
Roadfood is a series of books by Jane and Michael Stern originally published in 1977. The term Roadfood was coined by the Sterns to describe the regional cuisine they discovered when they began driving around America in the early 1970s. Their focus was not on deluxe fare, but on everyday local food – barbecue, chili, fried chicken, apple pie – and the unpretentious restaurants that serve it: diners, small-town cafes, seaside shacks, drive-ins, and bake shops.
Pat's Hubba Hubba, now known simply as "Hubba's", is a late-night greasy spoon chili restaurant located at 24 North Main Street in the village of Port Chester in Westchester County, New York. Near the New York-Connecticut border, Hubba's caters to the local bar scene by staying open until 5:00 am on the weekends, and at least 3:00 am on weeknights.
Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse is a well-known BBQ restaurant in Dallas, Texas that was founded by William Jennings Bryan Jr. in 1958 near the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. It has seven locations in the Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex (DFW) while closing all franchise units in Utah by mid-2014. Sonny Bryan's also has one of the largest catering companies in DFW.
Mosca's is a Louisiana Creole Italian restaurant in Waggaman, Louisiana, near New Orleans. Operated by the same family since it opened in 1946, it has long been regarded as one of New Orleans' best restaurants, known for dishes such as Oysters Mosca, crab salad, Chicken a la Grande, and pineapple fluff.
Tanya Holland is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, podcast host, writer, and cookbook author. She is known as an expert of soul food. Holland is an alumna of Bravo TV's Top Chef, where she competed on the 15th season. She was the owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, California, which received national recognition and multiple Michelin Bib Gourmand awards.
Tony Luke's is an American-based cheesesteak restaurant that was founded in 1992 by Tony Lucidonio, Sr. and his sons, Tony Luke Jr. and Nicky Lucidonio at its original location at 39 East Oregon Avenue in South Philadelphia. The franchise has since expanded, with 16 locations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, one location each in Washington, DC, Maryland & Texas as well as one in Bahrain.
La Teresita is an historic Cuban cuisine restaurant with affiliated market and bakery in Tampa, Florida, in the West Tampa region. La Teresita opened in 1972 as a market. La Teresita is owned by the Capedevila family. A grocery market is located on the other side of a side street off West Columbus Drive from the restaurant and bakery.
World's Best Donuts is a doughnut shop and American restaurant in Grand Marais, Minnesota. It is located along the waterfront of Lake Superior. World's Best Donuts is an independent family-owned business established in 1969 by Merieta Altrichter. The shop has been featured in Minnesota Monthly and The New York Times, both of which described the shop's donuts as living up to the business's name.
John's Roast Pork is an Italian roast pork and cheesesteak eatery in South Philadelphia that was founded in 1930 at its original location on East Snyder Avenue in Philadelphia, just outside the Pennsport and Whitman neighborhoods. The eatery is considered a favorite among South Philadelphia locals and has gained mainstream recognition for its roast pork and cheesesteaks.
Franklin Barbecue is a barbecue restaurant located in Austin, Texas, founded in 2009 by Aaron Franklin. The restaurant has attracted a national following.
Michael Solomonov is an Israeli chef known for his restaurants in Center City, Philadelphia. His first restaurant Zahav, founded in 2008, has received national recognition including the James Beard Foundation "Outstanding Restaurant" in 2019. Solomonov was also awarded Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 2011, Cookbook of the Year in 2016, and Outstanding Chef in 2017 from the James Beard Foundation. In 2021, The New York Times named his restaurant Laser Wolf as one of "the 50 places in America we're most excited about right now."
The Crumpet Shop is a bakery and pastry shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, in the U.S. state of Washington.
El Güero Canelo is a restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, United States. In 2018 it was named one of America's Classics by the James Beard Foundation.