McD’s on the road can hit the spot.
Burger King in southwestern Ontario and Toronto has been sucking lately.
A & W, Harvey’s and Wendy’s also hit the spot on the road. I like that Wendy’s now has some iced coffee drinks available.
I sometimes grab empanadas from a bakery for the road.
I rarely make food for the road.
We’re too old to just head out on a road trip from one second to the next, so we are generally able to plan so far ahead as to slap together our favorite sandwich bread (toasted for me only, natch), a shmear of mayo, a kronch of iceberg, havarti or cheddar, roastbeef and/or turkey. Nothing fancy, still better than FF, and made to order 
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[Sorry, I fumble-fingered the previous attempt.]
On one of our trips we visited the Herbert Hoover Birthplace in some very small town in Iowa. After the visit we looked for a local place to eat. Zip. We went to the local general store, where the only cheese was sliced/individually wrapped American cheese slices. The only place to eat was the McDonald’s at the interstate exit.
We will eat at Carl’s Jr. when we travel because we have none near us. (Other FF chains may make the cut for the same reason.). But usually we try for something a little more interesting.
Note that eating in McDonald’s in Japan or Hong Kong is a whole different thing than in the US.
None of them hold any appeal to me. Like, zero.
It’s a Bay Area thing too.
LOVE your newest identifier!
Thanks 
When your with a small group and your entrée comes out first . You sit there staring and you have a sip of wine . Waiting.
We’re big on Hiroshige and Hokusai.
This was apparently not allowing Black people to go the grocery store because it was a day for white people only to shop.
Me either. Or a Chipotle. I lead a sheltered life. And not because I’m a food snob. 
I haven’t been to a Carrabba’s yet.
I have been to Romano’s Macaroni Grill in Colorado Springs half a dozen times, which might be somewhat similar.
I can see why people like Chipotle.
My aunt really wanted to go to Olive Garden, when I visited Santa Rosa about 15 years ago.
So, I took her there. Later, the same day, my cousin wanted to go for upscale Cal Ital Italian for dinner. I pushed for Thai since I had already had 3 Italian meals in California over the previous 4 days with other relatives.
My cousin was ticked at her mother when she found out her mother/ my aunt had requested Olive Garden, when my cousin wanted to take me for upscale Cal Ital Italian that night.
My cousin begrudgingly agreed to go for Thai, and my cousins’ fussy 20something kids wouldn’t eat anything. I ordered way too much food, because I thought I was ordering for 8 people. Luckily, my cousin’s husband liked it, and he took the doggy bags. I picked up the tab.
My aunt passed away this past January. The last time we were able to see her was in 2017. She was in a nursing home from 2010-2024, so that visit to Olive Garden was one of our last restaurant meals with her before she couldn’t do restaurant meals anymore.
So, my last memory of going to OG is that going there made my aunt happy.
With respect to my cousin, I bucked her suggestion again in 2013. In 2014, we let her choose the restaurant. Less drama.
It’s been 10 years since I decided to let the relative who is a bigger control freak choose the restaurant. They’ll be miserable if they don’t get their way, and I can find something that will be tolerable on any menu. LOL
There is SO much value in that.
I no longer try to mix family excursions with ambitious eating plans. Or eating plans in general.
ETA Except when traveling with my sister. 
She might be here on HO somewhere…
When I could travel more, to California, it was usually meeting family or friends at a restaurant somewhere. I’d visit 10 to 15 friends and relatives stretched out from San Diego to Sonoma over a 9 day road trip. On my last visit, we drove from Carmel to Paso Robles one day, stayed over in Paso Robles, had brunch at a diner in Paso Robles with a cousin, then drove to visit another cousin in La Jolla. The next morning, we had coffee at Starbucks with another cousin near Carlsbad, then drove back to the Bay Area to have a home cooked dinner in San Jose. So- our family and friends and meals were completely intertwined.
All my family is food-oriented, and most of the older cousins grew up in the restaurant business. The visit would just be that 2 hour visit, then I’d be on the road to visit the next person, or heading to my motel.
@
Sometimes it’s a little difference that trips you up. All out friends in NJ order Chinese food family style, sharing all the dishes, but when I went with my family in another state and asked how many dishes we should order, they looked at me as if I had grown a third head. “Why, everyone will order their own dish, of course!”
Or going somewhere where you sit at a table with other people, which can be off-putting to people not used to it.
Where to eat out was a source of minor dissatisfaction between myself and my ex-. She was not a terribly adventurous eater (which was rather a switch from the early days of our relationship when I was the picky one). Having a small(er) kid also tended to limit our perceived choices. I say ‘perceived’ because we COULD have gone somewhere that didn’t have chicken strips. We could have packed the kid her favorites (or any other of a number of possible solutions).
She also had a love for Olive Garden and Red Lobster, a product of our very VERY midwest mindset. Eventually being out in CA started to really broaden my tastes, and hers, less so. But hey, Cheesecake Factory is popular for a reason.
I remember when Olive Garden’s main selling point was that they made their pasta fresh, in the restaurant, every day. They had a big extruder set up in the front of many restaurants and you could often watch some worker feeding in some flour mixture and water and slicing off noodles and curling them into nests.
That surpasses any review of restaurant food. A great memory!
Unlimited salad and breadsticks were the big draw when Olive Garden arrived in Canada 35 years ago. It didn’t last too long in Canada, though. Maybe 10 or 15 years. Canada has its own Italian Canadian chain called East Side Mario’s, which is still in business, and I think it’s not quite as good as Olive Garden.
