Diners, Barbecue and a Slice: Eating Across America With Kids

America is a country where every region eats differently and every one of them has a version that a child will eat. The trick on a road trip is to eat the local thing in each place and skip the chains that are the same everywhere.

The diner is the answer in every state. A counter, booths, a laminated menu with two hundred things on it, pancakes at any hour, a milkshake in a metal cup, and a waitress who calls the kids honey. Breakfast at a diner is the American meal and it costs less than a hotel coffee.

New York is pizza by the slice, folded, eaten walking. A bagel with cream cheese from a deli. A hot dog from a cart in Central Park. Boston is clam chowder and a lobster roll on the harbor. Philadelphia is a cheesesteak, and the kids will want to try both famous places and decide.

The south and the west

Barbecue changes every hundred miles in the south. Pulled pork in the Carolinas, brisket in Texas, ribs in Memphis, and every place will tell you theirs is the real one. A barbecue joint with a smoker out back and a line at noon is the lunch. Biscuits and gravy for breakfast, fried chicken, sweet tea by the gallon, and a slice of pie in every town.

Tex Mex in Texas and the Southwest, tacos and enchiladas and a queso the kids will fight over. Green chile in New Mexico on everything. Fish tacos in San Diego, sourdough and clam chowder in a bread bowl in San Francisco, and in Hawaii, a plate lunch of rice, macaroni salad and a kalua pork that is the best value meal on the islands.

Ice cream everywhere, in a size that will alarm a European. A root beer float. A s’more over a campfire in a national park, which is the dessert the kids will remember over all of it.

Planning United States with kids? Start with the full United States family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.