By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008
In 1872, Walter Scott inaugurated the East Coast region as the bastion of diners when he served a snack from a rolling “lunch wagon” in Providence, Rhode Island. In the decades that followed, a raft of diner manufacturers appeared, adopting his tenets of portability and efficiency as the basis for [...]

By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008
When today’s motorists wax nostalgic about cross-country travel, the corridors that most often come to mind are Route 66, U.S. 1, or the Lincoln Highway.
Curiously enough, no one makes a single mention of the longest roadway of them all, a pathway that in its heyday boasted more scenery, more gas stations, [...]

By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008
Ahhh … that tangy, thick, and sticky condiment known as ketchup—where would American roadfood be without it? Certainly, drive-ins, diners, coffee shops, and in many cases—fine restaurants—wouldn’t be the same. Burgers would be bland, fries embarrassed by nakedness, and hot dogs robbed of their bite. In a world devoid of [...]