What I like about “world famous” restaurant dishes

Abraham Villarreal
3 min readJul 25, 2021

I really like those hole-in-the-wall restaurants that claim to have “world famous” food items. They are usually located in tiny towns, somewhere in the middle of nowhere USA. When you get there, you drive down Main Street and you turn right at the light. If you go past the old First Baptist Church you went too far.

A little ways down, where the road gets a little bumpy and the only other business you see is a general store looking kind of place, is where you will find an eatery with a world famous food item.

They are often named after people with one or two-syllable names like Rudy’s Diner or Jim’s BBQ. If you’re lucky, on your visit you’ll get to meet Rudy or Jim.

Near the entrance are clips of old newspapers that are turning yellow. They include pictures of the original owners standing outside their restaurants wearing long white aprons and big smiles. The captions tell you that they have been calling their hamburgers and their fried chicken world famous since almost opening day.

When you walk in, the door chimes are heard and everyone turns around to see you. They know you aren’t around those parts but that’s O.K. with them and they welcome you with a smile or a folksy phrase like “partner” or “fella.”

--

--

Abraham Villarreal

People are interesting. I write about them and what makes them interesting.