We’ve reached the end of the road–and the start of the beach. Even the food starts to taste summery on this end of the state.

EXIT 325: Urban Turban Express

Neither urban nor particularly express, Urban Turban Express is the thoughtful extension of Urban Turban Indian Grill and Bar, a beloved Punjabi restaurant in Durham. Located in a corner convenience store, the counter serves up a spectrum of complex flavors, including spicy ones upon request. A comforting chana masala, woven from chiles and ginger, is emblematic of the operation—which appears to have overshadowed Valero’s roller grill, seen dark and vacant on a recent weekday afternoon.

EXIT 341: Tortería y Rosticería Edy

“Wing and a thigh,” has been a customary order at takeout counters across the South for generations, but Tortería y Rosticería Edy suggests what other kinds of deliciousness the poultry phrase could yield. At this small woman-run shop, a standing rotisserie produces crackly-skinned chickens served by the part with corn tortillas, hand-patted to order. Homemade salsa verde, boasting enough zip to warrant a heat warning when issued, is a beautifully bright foil for the slow-cooked bird (and not too shabby atop accompanying black beans.)

EXIT 364: Gorditas Express

Since opening in 2022, Gorditas Express has treated its regular customers to whatever they crave, including shrimp boils, Sonoran hot dogs, and weekend menudo. For first timers, though, the titular gordita is the requisite order. As with the finest pizzas, it’s the dough that matters most when considering the excellence of these delicate masa pockets, griddled to flatter the corn’s sweetness. Whether filled with cheese, pork rinds, ground beef, or nopales, it’s likely to take the prize for your trip’s best handheld snack.

EXIT 385: Sensation Farmhouse Restaurant

Sensation Farmhouse owner Johnny Copeland downplays what it takes for a buffet like his to succeed, implying a gospel soundtrack and good cooks are a sure route to enormous popularity. What he doesn’t usually mention is the warm service and steam table items that have become uncommon in restaurant settings, including chicken-and-pastry, chitlins, and pig feet. Everything skews salty, befitting a stretch of I-40 that bends toward the beach, but house seasoning reaches its apotheosis in a tray of fried chicken. 

EXIT 408: Paul’s Place Famous Hot Dogs

Paul’s Place has been around so long that the restaurant’s marked up the retired signage which gives character to its spartan dining area, lest anybody believe they can buy a hot dog with change. In fact, nothing about Paul’s is compatible with change: In 1943, 15 years after opening, David Paul devised a tomato relish to distract customers from chili sauce, made exorbitantly expensive by wartime meat rations. That sweet condiment, cut with the crunch of cucumbers, still defines Paul’s today.

If you’re traveling west to east on Interstate 40 in North Carolina–which is the common summertime direction–this is where your journey begins.

Exit 20: Ben’s Backdraft Barbecue

Interstate 40 rolls on to Tennessee, but Ben’s Backdraft Barbecue is so far west that its output tastes like Texas. The 2025 successor to a food truck launched by former firefighter Ben Hooper, Ben’s Backdraft deliberately burns apple and oak wood in the smoker which once anchored Asheville’s Buxton Hall Barbecue. The resultant meat lineup includes pork, chicken, and brisket distinguished by exceptional texture and peppery bark: it’s a forcefully smoky reminder that the cut hails from the same creature as expense-check steaks.

EXIT 27: Sherrill’s Pioneer Restaurant

Locally known as The Pioneer—or The Pine Ear, as it’s rendered on a wooden sign that dates to when mountaineers wisely cashed in on tourists’ fascination with backwoods culture—Sherrill’s is a 70-year-old roadside diner where servers pour coffee with a stay-all-day attitude. Should you take them up on the offer, you’ll likely start at sausage-darkened sawmill gravy over biscuits, and wind up at homemade fruit cobbler. But the essential stopover is a bowlful of Appalachian soup beans, simmered in potlikker and paired with cornbread.  

EXIT 37: The Hot Dog King

Roughly 20 years ago, The Hot Dog King figured into the fall of Buncombe County sheriff Bobby Medford, sentenced for extorting bribes from business owners who operated video poker machines. What’s strangest about the story is that the restaurant probably didn’t need illegal schemes to lure patrons. Since 1979, slaw dog fans have flocked to the Asheville area chain’s locations for dogs bedded down with sweet cabbage and robust Greek chili on a buttery bun, a sterling take on the Mountain South classic.

EXIT 51: Hillman Beer

Other than vast quantities of beer, which most highway drivers aren’t seeking, breweries offer just about everything a road tripper needs, including family-friendly menus, outdoor seating, and socializing space for dogs. But Hillman goes one better by serving top-notch food that screams—sorry, thoughtfully intones—Asheville and its ethos. Picture pimento cheese with naan, blackberry hot wings ringed by kale, and a tempeh rice bowl studded with black beans. Or just order them with a local nonalcoholic craft ginger beer.

EXIT 59: Blunt Pretzels

Emblematic of the passion-driven artisanship that flourishes on Asheville’s fringes, Blunt Pretzels in 2020 relocated to Swannanoa from Marshall, two communities later devastated by Hurricane Helene. Yet there’s no sign of hardship at Eddy Schoeffmann’s sunny bakery; furnished with multiple ping-pong tables, it’s the source of standout Bavarian-style organic knots and sandwich-ready buns. For snackers, the pretzels—recognizable by their snowy white interior and caramelized shell—are sold with beer cheese or locally-made Lusty Monk mustard.

Welcome to livermush country! If pig parts aren’t your preference, protein choices abound along this stretch of I-40, including chicken, fish, and local beef.

EXIT 81: Pho 828

When Pho 828 took over the strip mall space previously occupied by Sakura Japanese Ramen, it kept its predecessor’s signature item on the menu, a decision that evidences confidence rather than mission creep. There’s no broth or noodle that this restaurant can’t handle, although the aroma of grilled pork and sound of a cleaver rightly steers eaters back to Vietnamese dishes, including a sonorous pho with admirably fresh garnishes.

EXIT 90: Mama’s Country Kitchen

Mama’s Country Kitchen is hardly the only diner in McDowell County serving livermush. But what makes its rendition of the regional delicacy so valuable is short-order cooks here are egg virtuosos, meaning every plate and sandwich does justice to the loaf of cornmeal and pig parts (although a smear of mayonnaise doesn’t hurt when the combo’s bookended by white bread.) While staffers take equal care with the iron-rich flaps of livermush, even some lifelong western North Carolinians abstain: Mama’s also serves an estimable cheeseburger.

EXIT 103: Tokyo Diner Japanese Restaurant

While it’s little appreciated outside of the state, one of North Carolina’s favorite cuisines is counter-service hibachi, in part because eye-poppingly affordable portions of soy-saturated chicken, buttery shrimp, and griddled mushrooms reliably strain the seams of their Styrofoam boxes. Mostly, though, genre fans are fiends for white sauce, or sugared mayonnaise tinted by paprika. Tokyo Diner serves a flawless interpretation of the condiment, as well as fresh rice and bright vegetables, which may account for its perpetual drive-thru line.

EXIT 112: Highlands Butchery Restaurant

As the old joke goes when food’s slow to reach the table, “What did they do? Kill the cow?” At Highlands, that’s close to accurate. Co-owner Daniel Wall raises all the meat at his 75-acre farm in Icard, and it’s prepared for retail in a glass-fronted production room. But the butcher shop doubles as a restaurant specializing in smash burgers, grilled to order and presented on potato rolls. The grass-fed beef is stunningly rich; pickles are a must with every patty.

EXIT 118: Tex’s Fish Camp

Tom Burns opened Tex’s Fish Camp in 1972, as any of his many family members working at the community institution could tell you. What’s unknown is the year in which Tex’s started out-Calabashing Calabash, serving exquisite shrimp, sheathed in a see-through batter of flour and ground crackers. Tex’s menu is visually monochromatic—save for the can’t-miss homemade desserts, including persimmon pudding when the fruit’s in season–but its vinegary slaw, brittle-walled hush puppies, and deviled eggs are astonishingly multidimensional.

Across North Carolina, it holds true that the lower the elevation, the higher the heat index–at least on your plate. This set of exits gets off to a spicy start with dipped chicken, one of Southern cooking’s finest hybrids.

EXIT 148: Phifer’s Hot Wings & BBQ

If eaters outside of the Statesville area are familiar with dipped chicken—that magical amalgam of church suppers and backyard cookouts which involves frying half a chicken and submerging it in peppery barbecue sauce—they probably know Keaton’s. Locals, though, will tell you the dish isn’t the same since B.W. Keaton passed away. If they’re feeling generous, they’ll then steer you to the glorious version at Phifer’s, where every side is an excuse to soak up more hot vinegared sauce.

EXIT 168: Miller’s Restaurant

On a recent visit to Miller’s, a man in a Vietnam veteran ballcap sighed as he escorted his mother through the front door. “It’s the only place she wants to come,” he said of the storied family restaurant which opened as a truck stop in 1952. “She’d come here every day.” Some do. Homestyle cooking is a draw, but plenty of regulars swear by the superlative pimento burger, featuring a rail-thin patty spread with mayonnaise-heavy pimento cheese.

EXIT 188: Taste Jamaica

Taste Jamaica’s food truck roots are showing at its new permanent location: if you’re ordering takeout, for instance, Jamaican-born owner Sonia Beckford stays behind an order window and sends out a robot server with a to-go box. What’s in the box also reveals lessons learned on the road, such as how many butter beans belong in a glossy, allspicy oxtail stew, and the right ratio of pepper to cabbage in the cuisine’s essential steamed side dish.

EXIT 203: Clark’s Barbecue

Long before the barbecue map got mixed up by Texans selling barbecue in Georgia, and South Carolinians smoking meat in Alabama, the Gentry family of Davidson County had the gumption to bring Lexington-style barbecue to Kernersville, about 35 miles away. Three decades later, the gamble’s paying off for travelers in the form of tender wood-smoked pork, portioned out with a good amount of crispy bark. Plus, if your tastes tilt toward crunch, Clark’s sells its skins by the box.

EXIT 217: Bánh Mì Saigon Sandwiches

Have you ever gone shopping for a white shirt? The simplest items are sometimes the hardest to find, a trope proved true by most sandwich searches. Fortunately, the family-owned Bánh Mì Saigon challenges conventional wisdom with its terrific bánh mì. In addition to the usual fillings, choices include curried chicken, fried fish, and pate drizzled with Sriracha in what’s billed as a nod to New Orleans. All display the three C’s of bánh mì brilliance: Crusty bread, crunchy vegetables, and contrast aplenty.

Not so very long ago, the first stop in this set of exits was even closer to the Interstate, but the revered restaurant has since shut down its satellite locations. It still gets a mention, though, because this map features representative hot dog joints and barbecue pits in western North Carolina, eastern North Carolina, and the Piedmont, where it’s hard to get more representative than Zack’s.

EXIT 143: Zack’s Hot Dogs

A notice posted at Zack’s announces there’s “no social media posting without permission” at this nearly century-old restaurant. In other words, these chili dogs aren’t content: They’re the lifeblood of a community. A favorite of laborers and political leaders alike, Zack’s—named for its founder, Greek immigrant Zack Touloupas—is best known for its cheese dogs, composed of an oblong block of cold, orange cheese (“no wienie!” the menu warns), sauced with chili that’s spicier than what prevails at either end of the state.

EXIT 263: New Hope Market

If rather than taking the interstate to New Hope, you were teleported there from a faraway place, it would take about 30 seconds to figure out you’d landed in Chapel Hill. This wonderfully wholesome all-day destination’s menu of sandwiches, salads, and baked goods, largely forged from local ingredients, runs long; still, almost everything on it is morally and nutritionally defensible. For those headed somewhere that requires a host gift, the market’s selection of North Carolina products is unbeatable.

EXIT 278: Boxyard RTP

For drivers who don’t have time to duck into one of the Triangle’s downtown dining districts, Research Park Triangle’s sprawling open-air food hall supplies an ideal summary of the area’s culinary scene, with tacos, Korean barbecue, salads, and ice cream all represented. That said, the obvious choice in the most collegiate section of the state is pizza, and Fullsteam makes a mean one: Its square slices are elevated by the same respect for grain that informs the groundbreaking brewery’s celebrated place-based beers.

EXIT 297: State Farmers’ Market Restaurant

In appearance, the Raleigh State Farmers Market’s expansive restaurant is a doppelganger for oldfangled museum dining halls. That impression won’t survive a meal, though, since its country cooking is stellar, particularly when vegetables are involved. On most days, there are a dozen lunch specials, and twice as many listed sides, but the conflicts posed by country ham steak versus fried flounder, and collards versus pickled beets are counterbalanced by the guarantee of top-notch hush puppies, a biscuit, and banana pudding.

EXIT 319: Stephenson’s Bar-B-Q

A don’t-miss barbecue institution regardless of which road you’re traveling, Stephenson’s has been smoking hogs magnificently since 1958. Barbecue’s always on the menu, along with hush puppies made carnivalesque by unstinting sugar, acclaimed fried chicken, and masterful hand-cut fries, but you have to show up during collards season if you’re after greens. Like the liver and gizzards on offer, they thrum with the promise of future strength. To put it another way: They’re wonderful.