Hello everybody.

Welcome to another adventurous episode, or I should say, delicious episode of Family

Tree Food and Stories where every meal has a story and every story is a feast.

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Food Stories at the top of the page.

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New things that we can do to make our show more delicious for you.

But this is a fun episode.

Sylvia, what do you think?

Oh yeah.

Sounds like a good one to me about those red side treasures.

That's right.

We're talking about.

Time travel, well kind of time travel when it meant that we could actually

drive along the road and not necessarily know where we're gonna end up at.

Not knowing where our favorite gas station cafe was, or watering hole,

or a diner, or whether you'd walk into a place that you kind of thought

looked good or maybe suspicious, and realizing that maybe shoe fly pie really.

Did have flies.

Mm-hmm.

It was a time before we had GPS and exit road signs.

and local newspapers.

My God, can you imagine what, what is a newspaper, Sylvia?

I have no idea what that is anymore.

Right.

I'm still kind of addicted.

we used to have a great one up north, but sadly that one

disappeared, the Newtown Bee.

But in any case, we are talking about roadside stops and watering holes that

are just a little bit more memorable and maybe, yes, Elvis really did eat there.

We've got one of those here in Brooksville.

Interestingly enough.

he may still be there.

We don't know, you know,

Right.

Elvis is ghost,

well, they say somewhere,

But this is all about making treasured memories.

The kinds that you're gonna never forget.

The stops that mom and dad took you to your sweetheart, your college friends.

I don't know about you, but I remember going to Daytona Beach.

In college asking my mom if it was all right and she said, actually,

now who are you going with?

And I said, oh, five guys from college.

I like, and she said, who?

And said, five guys.

It's is that a restaurant?

No,

Hey today.

Yeah.

and a girl roommate.

Yeah.

But we found south of the Boarder

yeah.

You know,

these were things that we saw firsthand.

it wasn't a marketing ploy or anything like that.

It was this grand experiment, and you'd get attached to these places,

just like old, good old aunt.

Flow.

hey honey, what you having today?

How about a piece of pie and a diner attached to a gas station,

maybe two pumps, and a place where a pie might change your

life, or at least your afternoon.

We've had those memories.

All of us have, but sometimes.

The coffee was burnt and sometimes the meatloaf was dry.

And the bathrooms well, okay.

They were about as big as a posted stamp and we don't know what else.

And you took a leap of faith.

But we found these roadside stands and they were just wonderful.

They created such great memories.

They were stops.

That became regulars for your family.

Eventually.

Sometimes you share them with others, but today we now have the interstate

and those small towns are bypassed hundreds of gas pumps and briskets.

And like you said, the bathrooms.

Well, maybe them were pretty grungy, but they didn't have a brand identity

and they really were a treasure hunt.

They were trademarks of small towns and communities, and I remember one that

was in Long Island when we were kids.

That was a sort of a roadside attraction that one of my

mom dear friends took us to.

And it was.

It was sort of an old country store that had the best molasses,

chocolate covered lollipops.

Who would think that a molasses chocolate covered lollipop would be so good?

Yeah, I can imagine that that sounds pretty good- on-good.

Right.

And it was that unpredictability about what

might happen and who might show up a celebrity or otherwise is

both the charm and the problem.

Now, for instance, Bernie's grandmother, I don't know if

I've ever told you this or not.

She had a small diner on Highway 41 in Bonita Springs.

Now you can imagine, well Traveled road, lived in a trailer park, she

was as eccentric as the day is long.

Made dinner promptly at 4:30 every day for her.

I think they were divorced, but she always made dinner for him

'cause he lived in another trailer.

Okay, so it was like the trailer park drama.

Right.

Two gas pumps and.

She didn't like you, then she would say she didn't have bathrooms and

there probably weren't all those rules, you know, where, oh, you

have so many people, you have to have so many bathrooms and all that.

There was none of that.

, And, oh, I gotta tell you this, you may have to cut this one out, Nancy.

She would never let a Cubian an in.

She, she would never let a, a what in

a CUbian That's what called

that she called Cubians

yeah, Cubian.

She did not ever let Cuan in 'cause there weren't any kind of

discrimination laws or anything.

Either.

You could do anything you wanted.

Anyway, she was quite a character

Wow.

Well, I've heard of co, I've heard of college kids not being

allowed into certain places,

But not cu beans.

no

Oh.

She would talk about Cuban because that was when the boat lift was happening, I

guess.

And a lot of people coming anyway, but, she's dead and gone

now so we can talk about it.

Right.

But when it was good, it was deeply local.

not every one was a treasure, but you could have fried catfish in Mississippi.

Yum.

Or green chilies in New Mexico.

Yes.

Ha ha.

Hot roast beef sandwiches, drowning in gravy over mashed potatoes.

They just don't serve that much anymore.

And then chocolate pie that tasted like someone's grandmother baked it

that morning, and she probably did.

Oh my gosh, that makes my mouth mortar and reminds me of a little town

that we left not too long ago, a couple of years ago in Reding, Connecticut.

And they have in, well it wasn't really a center of town,

but it was in West Redding.

And the one whistle stop train that went through, even to this

day along the tracks, and there used to be the most famous, well

probably infamous pancake place.

It wasn't IHop.

It was the reading pan.

Oh, I'll, I'll call it the reading Pancake place.

And it had kind of like all these things on the wall, kind of like a TGI Fridays

or a a Cracker Barrel kind of thing.

But the pancakes, people would come far and wired for these pancakes.

And one day the restaurant burned down and that was, it

Um, no.

The memory's all, all the memories is just all you have left.

Right.

Right, but these little roadside stands, there's also one

up in Litchfield that we loved.

A frank would called Bohemian Pizza, and it had a giant skeleton

sitting on the top of its roof.

And Elvis record player covers, well not record player, but I guess they

were record covers all over the, OR album covers all over the ceilings.

And that place was, also a hoot and a half.

So those roadside stands or those roadside ventures really haven't

totally gone away today, but still they are the mom and pop sometimes less

frequently heard about or known about.

Where, like you said, the Coca-Cola cooler was at the door

and the two gas bumps out front.

Yeah, in a Juke box usually too, Uh, a Duke box.

I'm

know, there's a place like, yep, there's a place like that up in

Rhinebeck, New York, quaint little town that we also used to love to frequent

and a lot of people know in the area.

But quaint isn't so quaint anymore.

It is quite the swish place because Chelsea Clinton got married there,

well, a number of years ago, because I think she's on child number three.

But still, once the Clintons found it, it became, Ooh, la la roadside stands.

I love that.

And how about, there's a Canadian roadside place that you've told me about.

What's that one?

Cheese.

Something

Oh, Canadian roadside.

So the wonderful thing about Roadside Eats, we'll call it kind of the.

Family tree, food stories, diners drive in and dives, except ours

are a little better than that.

And my hair's not so punk and neither is yours.

But we were on a trip through Canada, actually it was from, I think it was

Montreal to Quebec or Quebec to Montreal.

And you know how they have these Apple side roadside stands you do in

the fall, especially in New England.

I don't know if they have them down in Kentucky.

Mm-hmm.

The peaches, well, peaches, I would imagine down south.

Not so much up north, but

Georgia ones.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anyway, so we're driving along the highway and there's a couple little signs

that we passed and it says fromagerie.

I mean, little kind of things like you might even see for.

a winery type of place.

And I told Bob, we had to stop.

We have to stop.

And he's like, no, no, no, no Fromagerie.

It's no place to go.

It's probably a grocery store.

So I finally got him at the last sign where it said Fromagerie

in little teeny tiny green sign.

We pulled off the road and we found literally this hut that was probably about

the size of, Maybe a a five hole outhouse.

So you can get the size, not that it was an outhouse, it

was clean and it was beautiful.

And inside was a cheesemonger, a guy who was making cheese from all the cheese

that he had from his cows in the area.

And the cheese smelled divine.

I am a cheese snob, I have to admit, but you don't think of roadside stands as

No.

Anyway, so we're in there and he's speaking French and Bob's trying

to pick it up because his grandmother was Quebecois and Bob is figuring out

a little bit about what he's saying and the cheese monger is just thrilled

hearing about his grandmother's side of the French qua side of French.

Anyway, and he had just made a fresh cheese.

Had no name for it.

Didn't know what to call it, and he asked what my name was.

Nancy.

Well, Nancy has a French derivative, so the cheese was named Nancy.

Do.

Oh, you ought to go back.

I have a stinky cheese named after me, but he also told us that.

Well, you make me

But yeah, but wait a second.

You also hear these other little things along these roadside stands, what

you're supposed to eat with the cheese or the apples or everything else.

He told us not to drink wine, but to get a good, strong beer.

And we got beer and our cheese a whack of bread, and we sat in our

Airbnb and had cheese, beer and bread for dinner, and it was delicious.

Ah, but no wine, eh.

No, I, no, no, no.

no.

Yes.

Well, you made me think of roadsides on a news,

story during our long ago now.

ice storms, fella built out of ice in his yard.

A good humor ice cream truck.

I mean, it is gorgeous.

And not only that, but he put his own freezer in there where he put ice cream

and sold the ice cream for charity.

During this winter storm.

Yeah, I mean, it was big blocks of ice in all

our yards and they're gone now.

But anyway, I thought that was a cool roadside idea.

I love it.

So it, that was not a drive by, that was a slide by,

Yeah, it was so sweet.

but you know, there was an attempt to bring order.

Now we've covered this before.

Duncan Hines, Duncan Hines cake

mixes and a lot of things traveled.

The country rating restaurants 'cause he knew there was no other way.

So he was kind of the precursor of setting up a rating system.

But, you know, times kind of passed him by, uh, people.

You know, wanted something new and different.

So they wanted to know the bathroom would be clean and

Duncan Hines was only one man.

Right?

And that the food would be consistent and that they would never run

into Mom Evie in South Florida.

And so what are you gonna do?

You have something new that's gonna reshape the American roadside.

So let's talk about the interstate shift.

From about 1950s to the 1970s and in the 1950s, something

really, really big changed.

And it wasn't just the cars, the interstate highway system championed

under our dear President Eisenhower, began cutting across the country faster,

roads, straighter lines, fewer stops.

You had to go and exit, not turning off.

And what was the most important shift?

You no longer had to go through a town to get there.

To get anywhere you could go around it.

And I remember this very vividly because I worked cities.

That was my job, was to defend cities against these interstate, taking away

the little downtowns and all of that.

So it changed everywhere.

I didn't, I largely lost because they took over.

Right.

And little towns are starting to come back a little bit, but not much.

But changed everything for Main Street.

Main Street reminds you of just old quaint towns now today.

Right.

And it's sad, but so many of those main streets are going away.

Ours is trying to revitalize

itself and it's hard.

But Brooksville.

Florida is the typical.

Well, actually I'm gonna back that up because Brooksville Florida, if you

don't know it is a jeopardy question.

So maybe the interstate hasn't totally passed

us, but the jeopardy question was what is the center of the state of Florida?

And they said it's Brooksville.

We might be off by by a mile or so, or a couple miles, but we're pretty darn close.

Anyway, that's the trivial point for today.

But suddenly the hardware stores are gone and the courthouse, we have a

courthouse right in the center of town, which is sort of gobbled up everything.

Courthouse and lawyers.

I guess I should be nice because you are a lawyer.

Yeah, that's all right.

You can pick on me.

And remember the corners like you always say, the four corners have,

every corner has a gas station on it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Or a CVS and a Rite Aid or, you

know, whatever, Walgreens.

We have an old corner that looks like it had four gas

stations, 1, 2, 3, 4, whether it was a Texaco or Sunoco or whatever it was.

But they're gone.

One is now a butcher and then a pole barn builder, and the other two are just empty.

But those places have gone away and in many cases, far, far away, they're out

of sight forever and ever, which is so sad because that's where kids hung out.

You sat there with a pop.

Right?

and, but unfortunately we've been trained to want something different like

security and something that's not boring.

Like a Chuck E. Cheese.

I don't know.

I've never been to a Chuck E. Cheese.

Oh, I have,

Yeah.

all those cool places that just a little kind of grungy the kids wrinkle

their nose up at, well, we actually had one up in Bethel Connecticut,

which was called the Sycamore Diner.

We love that place

mm-hmm.

it was a little grungy and some people didn't like it, but sometimes

I think a little less clean makes you inoculated against the rest of the world.

Probably true.

That's probably true.

Yeah.

You know, we, kind of came along with some really cool things and we're

gonna just pick out two of them.

I'm sure there are many others.

I do have to tell a quick story about.

Small towns and I worked with small town mayors and

commissioners and council members.

And I was sitting with one, one day in Paducah, Kentucky, which is

on the western edge of Kentucky.

It's beautiful little town.

And he got something off of the radio that there were thieves, at the Walmart,

that there was a break in at Walmart.

And he looked at me, he says, you know.

Everybody ends up at Walmart.

Even Thieves.

that's funny.

We're gonna take a break at Walmart.

I think I need a break after Thieves and

wa Yeah.

and we'll be right back.

So Sylvia, we left off at my favorite place,

Yeah, of course.

Walmart.

I have to say, I, I have a, we have a name that I call Walmart.

I call it Walt, the name that should not be mentioned.

I hope I don't get a slanderous note for that one, but in

any case, it is an adventure.

Mm-hmm.

got some stories about some roadside attractions that had built,

well, roadside stops, we'll call them.

Yeah, let's choose two of them, because they're kind of iconic.

I remember I didn't go very many places when I was a kid, but Bernie

did, and he talks about some of these places, but Howard Johnson's the bright

orange roof of Howard Johnson's was kind of a lighthouse for travelers.

It was founded in 1927 in your backyard, Quincy, Massachusetts.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Began as a soda fountain, but along the interstate it became something more.

You could see that orange roof there.

There it's we're.

Okay.

We know we can get food

right?

and 28 flavors of ice cream.

Yay.

They had the best ice cream.

Oh my God.

And clam strips.

Really good.

Chef Pepin help plan their menus too.

What was it clam?

There was something with clams.

strips, they were clam

Yeah.

tartar sauce.

I remember going to one as kids that my parents would stop on away from, I think

it was Long Island, to Massachusetts up to see his, my dad's brother.

And the clams strips were just like my favorite.

I wouldn't order anything else.

And of course the ice cream had to be chocolate chip

and it always had like this.

Crunchies.

I mean it was the, it was how the scoop that they used.

But today I cannot eat a clams strip if my life depended upon it.

It can only be roadside belly clams.

Okay.

I love that.

I'm gonna have to pick some of those out in Florida, right?

Come down to Florida.

I

got the best roadside belly clam place you can go to.

You are the center of the Florida universe.

But I think it's pretty cool that, chef Poppen, Jacques Poppen famous of

course, for hanging out with Julia Child.

he standardized their recipes.

I mean, they were already into the flow of consistency, That

was something that was missing.

you never knew where you were gonna find a good meal.

and it was, was pretty cool.

It

was pretty cool.

My, college roommate, her dad owned a Ho Joe's franchise and hotel.

Up in upstate New York.

Yes,

he did.

He cleaned up with that, apparently did really well, but it was the only place

that was clean and I guess standardized in the area outside of Syracuse, New York.

And that's where all the kids would go?

You could eat and get a place to lay your head down.

That was consistent.

And

College kids, maybe

not.

it has changed.

I mean, it's changed, but then there was Stuckey's.

that's a personal favorite, the teal roof of Stuckey's, and it was founded in 1935.

I love these origin stories by WS Stuckey Sr.

With a $35 pecans pecan stand in Eastman, Georgia.

And then it grew into something uniquely American, and it wasn't just a restaurant.

It was really an emporium, not much in the restaurant line, but pecan logs.

Oh my, you know, a pecan log.

It's got that noot center.

Now do you say pecan or pecan?

Or pecan if you're in the deep south, souvenirs, road

snacks, clean bathrooms, and it was a pit stop in a, into a small event.

I love that Noot Center, caramel wrapped around that

Noot center and, and little Oh,

I didn't even know what a stuckey's was till later on, I guess in

my twenties, I'd never experienced one.

Oh, and, you know, the rest of the story on the pecans and all

of that is, oh, by the way, you could get souvenirs, you know, those little.

Eh,

Things.

Yep.

Roadside chais.

key chains, pennants, snow globes, and in Florida, I have to tell

you, we had buckets of plastic alligators when we were just recently in Florida,

but a new thing, a gummy alligator that was about a foot long, and each kid

had to have one, and they were $5 each.

Do you know?

We ended up throwing that thing away.

Even they couldn't eat

Oh, so it was plastic, it wasn't something you ate.

It was something you ate?

It was a, gummy alligator,

Like a giant lollipop, but it was a gummy thing.

It was gummy,

Where all the dog hair sticks to it.

No, it got thrown out.

Not, not too long after that.

But anyway, Mr. Stuckey died and the restaurants virtually disappeared.

until granddaughter, Stephanie brought it back to life Now you

can order a log, a pecan log.

I am going to order Bernie a log.

I can't wait.

I am not touching that one with a 10 foot alligator.

Thank you very much.

Oh yeah.

But, and I find it fascinating that, Stuckey's was going through some

really hard times and you said it's the granddaughter that's brought it back.

I think that's wonderful.

A little roadside nostalgia sticks in the family, and that's important because it's

also partially what we're all about is family and food and traditions and, and

maybe even a roadside stand here or there,

Yeah, her father tried to make it and they ran into, it was

the 2008 great recession that did them in, and then the son tried to take

it to a new place and it was like, it lost its shine, you know, sometimes

when the original owner passes on.

And then Stephanie has taken it up and she went online, which

is one, uh, she also retail establishments, but online is really.

The name of the game today,

We could have to reach out to her and see if she's got a

family food store to share with us.

I think

Yeah, I bet she does pecan stuff.

So then we go to the 1970s in the two thousands where the interstate had

fully reshaped the American landscape.

Fast food chains exploded, and the juggernauts of other

episodes that came along.

But some of the more interesting that happened along the roadside

stands or the roadsides were.

The speedways and the speed and efficiency and everything that came fast.

if it's not fast, you didn't want it, right?

Yeah, but.

there was a couple of things that happened.

A restaurant came along that didn't just serve food, did it?

It served up memories, and that was Cracker Barrel.

Founded in 1969 in Lebanon, Tennessee, and I've been dying to

say this word, so just let me say it.

It captured the zeitgeist.

I love that word.

That is such a cool word.

And I've just been dying to use it.

uh, I'm sure the smart people out there already know this,

but I had to look it up.

It means kind of the.

Era that you're in.

a changed era, kind of everything changed with a zeitgeist It's

what kind of our, our shtick now.

Right.

Okay.

That's as good as I can do.

but you

had rocking

down, right?

Yeah.

Rocking chairs on the porch.

A peg game at the table.

Biscuits and gravy, and, no, not your favorite, but.

It is mine and grits and a country store, a boot.

I mean, my mother loved it.

My, mother-in-law loved it and it was really pretty neat.

and so there you have it.

we actually have I think it's the oldest roadside stop.

At least in the state of Florida, not too far from us, and we decided to go find it.

It's this tiny little thing.

You have to go off the beaten track off Route 50, and it's a tin roof and really

a hot place for people to stop and see.

But you see the old nostalgia, the dial up telephone and the the little, the sticky

things, you know, the long flavored candy sticks that you had along the way that.

Very interesting.

Mm-hmm.

anyway, that's a nostalgia part that's sort of gone, but

still there, which is kind of cool.

But

biscuits, I know I never had a biscuit that I particularly loved, but south

of the border in New Jersey, yes.

You've mentioned it's Cracker Barrel.

It was mom and pop.

It's everything about it that just felt so old fashioned and loved, and.

There's nothing that can say old fashioned and loved and nostalgic in

the world of ai, I think right now.

Mm,

So speaking on Cracker Barrel, Sylvia, there was a bit of a backlash

that I found was kind of interesting that apparently, , everybody wanted

to hate Cracker Barrel for a while because they were changing everything.

But I found that the AI world was kind of to blame on that, which is

kind of sad now that our traditions are being mixed and mingled with.

Things that may not be so real, a researcher found that 45.5 or 44.5% of

all X tweets or posts, that mentioned the Cracker Barrel were first generated by AI

bots done within 24 hours of this change.

So somebody started it somewhere and somebody was upset with

Cracker Barrel and approximately 49% of the boycott related posts.

Of the same time also were bot generated.

So all this hoopla, the 2.2 million cracker barrel related

posts against Cracker Barrel were AI related posts, which I find

a little scary,

really sad.

I mean, why?

Why are we so upset that we have to create a bot to attack the nostalgia

of something that was just trying to be a little bit more modern in hip?

I guess maybe it shows that we really do care,

Yeah.

Uncle Herschel.

Isn't that what his name was in the rocking chair?

Wasn't that

I don't know.

Is that his

name?

Uncle Harshel.

I thought so, but maybe I got that wrong.

But anyway, I gotta tell a quick story.

The day I attacked somebody in the Cracker Barrel parking lot,

okay, all right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

When my mother was very ill.

She wanted to go to Cracker Barrel all the time, and so,

uh, I of course would take her.

And when she was leaving, it took her forever.

She was on a walker.

she was going fast and she was trying to get in the car and she was walking

out and I had parked right where she could get to the car, and I opened

the doors, a couple pulled out behind us and started laying on their horn.

That was it.

I

went for, for us to leave and get out of the way.

Here's this poor woman, and so I went up, they rolled down their window,

but they looked scared to death because I was ready to kill them,

and I just yelled at them and it was.

five foot one of you.

yeah, and I just said, you know, I, I hope someday when you're

ill that people are nicer than you are.

my mother loved Cracker Barrel, and sometimes it's worth just waiting,

you know, just waiting for someone to get on a car if they're on a walker.

it's hard to believe.

Hard to believe.

But

anyway, that was the day

I, agree.

My dad loved Cracker Barrel, which I never took him to, but, our aides did

and the stories of Cracker Barrel were pretty strong and how he enjoyed that,

Mm-hmm.

But now we arrive at today Buc-ees Buc-ees is a hot.

Have you ever been to a Buc-ees?

I've never been to a Buc-ees.

And I shall never return.

But

anyway,

kinda like me in Walmart.

the wa the mega stops.

it's Buc-ees two places again, two places to talk about.

One is Buc-ees and yes, there is one right off interstate.

75 just passed it the other day.

it's something that our grandparents would never have imagined.

Up to a hundred, I think 120 gas pumps, walls of jerky, custom coffee bars,

briskets hard in front of you in bathrooms so clean, they're part of the mythology.

It's almost theatrical.

you don't just stop.

You arrive and it's like, for the kids, it's like Disneyland.

I can't imagine

It's a destination.

a truck stop as a Disneyland.

I'm like, no, I will never go back.

We did, we made a special trip 'cause I'm about, uh, about 45 minutes from here

when it made a special trip to go there.

And it was like an onslaught against your senses.

Sorry.

Buc-ees I'm sure with that little beaver, you're very nice people.

'cause the beaver is a friendly little guy.

But then now we have Wawa and it's close by.

Have you been to a Wawa?

Are everywhere.

They're kinda like the seven elevens of the South.

Mm-hmm.

They're similar to Buc-ees.

Um, and you say here, you love

their coffee.

You've been in a Wawa.

Oh,

very good.

Almost as good as Dunking Donuts, but I won't go there 'cause I'm

from the Northeast and we love our Dunking Donuts over our

I do love Dunking Donuts.

I do

but Wawa was named for a Canadian goose

Mm-hmm.

roots.

I know.

I can't

Don't tell me how that happened.

I don't know.

know.

I know it was a little bit too much information

to delve into for this.

But anyway, yeah, that began as a

I have, I have, I have, one little story.

This is a side sidebar story.

I was visiting my sister out in the Oklahoma area in Wagner,

outside of Tulsa, and they don't have seven elevens out there.

At least we didn't see one.

But you know what they have?

What

They have something called a Kum & Go.

they Kum & Go.

Is that like in and out

went, come and go.

I'm driving along thinking Kum & Go.

This doesn't sound right.

This is like, this is not Bible belt

Mm.

territory.

I laughed every time I saw the Kum & Go.

I mentioned it and I started to laugh hysterically with my sister in the car.

And that Christmas, what did I get for Christmas?

Gift two T-shirts.

One for me and one for Bob.

Kum & Go.

Oh, that is hilarious.

I love that.

but you know, since you obviously like it came out of a dairy farm and it was one of

the dairy farm was very meticulous about.

Children getting good milk.

And so that was like, you know, so it's sort of a, a good feeling kind of story,

about the dairy that turned into Wawa.

I love the origin

Kind of like the Stew Leonards of the north, which is

only a couple of places, but still,

Now, you know, here's something going on out there though,

and we'll just have to watch.

Are the mascots, we've talked about that and we've talked about branding.

We've talked about Uncle Herschel and we talked about people

that kind of became the face.

But these little lovable animals kind of remind you of, mascots like.

Sports teams, they're here to love you and you love them back 'cause they have

big old giant grins on their faces.

And so I thought that was kind of interesting, that phenomenon.

We have the Florida Gators and we also have, the Pirates, so

Mm-hmm.

We had Wildcats, but.

we have Buccaneers.

I guess you gotta love a smiling pirate, but

Yeah.

Mm. Anyway, Buc-ees is the beaver, and then you have the Canadian goose.

So there you have it.

Uh, but they, out of the consistency of Howard Johnson's and the retail flare

of a stuckey's, a comfort nostalgia of Cracker Barrel and Scale, that

would've stunned early road travelers.

I don't know.

Are they authentic or do we care?

I mean, you get in there, you get what you want, and you leave,

You

don't linger.

Which is kind of sad, but I think it's time to do a little bit of a nostalgic

or family tree food stories, revolt and, well, not revolting, but revolt

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

and decide that we should all frequent the side rose

stands, the little outta the way

places, the diners, the.

Cute and even delicious, or maybe not so delicious coffee shops that just make

our lives a little bit more interesting where we have to slow down and just

take in the smell of a good apple pie along the way, or maybe a pecan pie

a pecan pie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and just kind of create a, a canvas on which a real story is written.

So yeah, I

The purpose for stopping

and wanting to stop as opposed to just a flash by drive by, because

every meal has a story and every story is a feast, and that's our motto.

And roadside, or off the road or off the beaten path, or shunpikeing as

we call it, in many cases, makes life a little bit more interesting.

It's not so much the food, but it's the destination.

Or the journey even better, and getting there that makes every

day just a little bit better.

I love it.

I love it.

Let's go find a place.

Let's go find a place.

So if you like the show, or better yet, if you have a roadside attraction that's

just a little bit more delicious than the next, please share it with us at

Go to podcast Family Tree Food stories.

Share a link to your roadside attraction or a restaurant or

diner or someplace that you like.

Actually, I saw.

I saw a diner that was listed in a roadside attraction called The Damn Diner.

So if you are somewhere in central Florida and find The Damn Diner, please

take a photo of that and share it with us, because we'd love to see it.

Well, and I've lived in central Florida and there are

some contrarians who did run diners, including Bernie's grandmother.

So I mean, there are places to visit and then

there are places that maybe not

share your story with us at Podcast Family Tree Food and Story,

because like we said every meal has a story and every story is a feast.

We'll see you soon and we'll hear you soon.

Take care and

happy eating.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye.