Marysville, Kan. – The biggest difference between covering pro and college football is not the speed of the players, the media access or the amount of abuse you take. It’s the dining. Seriously. I would gladly take getting chewed out by a freshman safety from Chickasaw, Ala., if his school in Tuscaloosa had more than a couple of decent restaurants.
Unfortunately, the college football landscape is littered with barbecue joints, college bars and awful chains, headlined by the omnipresent zit on every college town’s dining scene, Hooters.
But crisscrossing this country by car trying to reach a bump in the road with an 80,000-seat stadium, I have learned the college scene has an eating experience the NFL can’t touch. There are few simple travel pleasures more wonderful than traveling on a long, lonely highway, with your stomach growling and the roadkill starting to look good, and you see a sign.
It could say “DINER,” “EATS,” “MOM’S.” It doesn’t matter. It triggers a mechanism in your mind that flashes, “HOME COOKIN’,” “GRAVY,” “FRESH PIES.” You know – feel-good food, the kind that makes you waddle back to your car and loosen the seat belt.
Country diners are the five-star restaurants of rural America. Why go to a Chili’s that looks the same from Barstow to Bangor when you can step back in time and get food like your grandmother made? Chances are someone’s grandmother will be cooking it for you.
In August, I traveled to eight states and visited eight schools. Getting there, I saw some of the most god-awful stretches of road in the country. I never thought I’d find any cute sidewalk cafes in Hammond, Ind., but I did manage to find some good eatin’ elsewhere.
The most torturous road of mindless tedium in the Big 12 is the drive from Lincoln, Neb., to Manhattan, Kan. – three hours past cornfields, bales of hay and silos. But this area is rife with country diners I’d take over some places I’ve been in Kansas City.
I drove down U.S. 77 from Lincoln on a threatening night. The blackish clouds looked ready to unleash the Apocalypse. I kept thinking I’d come across the Bates Hotel. Instead I crossed the Nebraska line and entered Marysville, Kan., home of the one, and fortunately only, Pony Express Barn Museum.
One block off the highway on Broadway I found the perfect country diner. Any restaurant called Wagon Wheel must have good food. The Manhattan High football schedule hung on the wall, and a notice near the entrance informed me the Kiwanis Club meets there every Tuesday.
Not seeing any chateaubriand on the menu, I ordered the double cheeseburger and fries for all of $5.95. The waiter in an untucked polo shirt, blue jeans and hiking boots brought me one of those hamburgers that makes you swear off fast food burgers forever. My burger contained two huge, fresh lean patties sandwiched around creamy cheese on a big fat bun. The tiny amount of grease didn’t soak into the bread, unlike at Burger King, which, for the good of mankind, should be extinguished.
When I went to the bathroom I noticed the men’s and women’s were designated with “Bulls” and “Heifers.” (Welcome to Wagon Wheel, ladies!)
It’s a common diner theme. Inside the diner in Nelsonville, Ohio, the men’s bathroom door was adorned by a semi truck. No wonder. Dee’s Diner also had the other sign that gives every diner the traveler’s stamp of approval: “Truckers Welcome.”
On my way up U.S. 33 from Athens, Ohio, I didn’t really need the sign to tell me this was a truck stop. I pulled into a parking lot similar in size to Invesco Field’s and my tiny rental car was dwarfed by seven semis. A wooden swing hung on the porch over which flew a big American flag.
I took a seat on one of the red Formica benches near the jukebox. The first two songs I glanced at were “Who’s Cheatin’ Who?” and “All Hat No Cattle” so I decided I’d better not discuss politics with the clientele. No wonder rigor mortis set in my arm trying to find something besides country western or Rush Limbaugh on my car radio.
I avoided the scary sounding “Meatloaf Special” in favor of good ol’ fashioned fried chicken. For only $6.25 I got three big pieces of chicken, a heaping bowl of creamy coleslaw and a pile of ice-cold applesauce. When I ate the chicken, I wanted to go into the kitchen to find Mom. It tasted just like hers.
I topped it with a big messy pile of fresh coconut cream pie topped by meringue frosting and drove back to Columbus, blowing off the five-star steak house near my hotel.
The thing about country diners is they’re not supposed to be healthy. Don’t look for tofu. Special order steamed vegetables and you might get your butt kicked. The proportions could feed Ka-
zakhstan.
Take Jimmy’s Grille in Bridgeville, Del. I stumbled onto it along Delaware 404 on my way to the Delaware Shore. The huge place was packed and so was the menu. I got full just reading the items: Twenty-one pieces of fried chicken for $29. The Jumbo Special: two jumbo shrimp, New York strip steak, two scallops, ham, two oysters and two pieces of fried chicken with veggies for $23.95.
A woman picked up one of Jimmy’s sandwiches for a bite and it caused a total eclipse of her face.
I ordered the crab cake sandwich for $7.65 and it was a manageable ball of crab with a tub of tartar sauce. Soft, luscious and creamy, it probably pales in comparison to the crab cakes of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, but on an ugly highway on the Eastern Seaboard it sure beat a Whopper.
And then back in the car I drove, following another road through America.
Staff writer John Henderson covers sports and writes about the food he eats on the road. He can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
