The meat-and-three is not a restaurant style. It is an economic position. It is what survived when the cafeterias closed and the diners gave up and the country-store lunch counters got tired of the work. It is the format where a working person can get a hot lunch, three vegetables, cornbread, and sweet tea for under fifteen dollars, sit down on a vinyl-covered chair, hear the news of the day, and be back at work in forty minutes. The food is honest. The portions are correct. The chairs do not have arms. The bill comes with the food.

US 70 between Morganton and Marion is a twenty-mile stretch of secondary road that runs parallel to the interstate, and it has held onto five of these places — not by accident, but because the people who eat at them have refused to let them close. You can do the whole crawl in a day if you have a sturdy stomach and a clear afternoon. You will not be the same person at the end of it.

"The food is honest. The portions are correct. The chairs do not have arms. The bill comes with the food."

A few rules.

Before you go, a few things to know. None of this is negotiable.

House Rules · before you order

  1. Order the country fried steak only when it's fresh. If the steam table has been holding it past two o'clock, get something else. Ask the woman at the line. She will tell you.
  2. Take the cornbread. Never the rolls. The cornbread is the test. If it's good, the rest will be good. If it comes from a box, leave.
  3. Pay in cash when you can. Card machines break. Small bills tip better.
  4. Tip what you'd tip in a city. Then add two dollars. The check is twelve dollars and the work is harder than the work at the place that charges thirty-eight.
  5. Don't ask for substitutions. The menu is the menu. If they offer six vegetables, pick three of those six. Asking for the macaroni from one plate and the green beans from another marks you as a tourist.
  6. If they have chess pie, you order chess pie. We will explain why, further down.
  7. Compliment the cook by name if she's working the line. She usually is. She has been there longer than you have been driving.

One more thing. The stops below are listed in geographic order, west to east, starting in Morganton and ending in downtown Marion. If you actually try to do all five in one day, do them in the opposite direction — east to west, Marion to Morganton — so that the lightest meal is first and the heaviest meal is last and you have a shorter drive home when you're full. Or do two in a day, and come back. We do not judge.