Whether it’s crispy fried chicken or a juicy cheeseburger, some fast food dishes are so iconic they never go out of style. But what about the old-school gems that you don’t see around so much these days? From niche American classics like the slugburger (that are a very acquired taste) to hyper-regional sandwiches like the spiedie that were once wildly popular but have fallen out of favour, we’ve ranked the forgotten fast food classics that deserve a comeback, counting down to the best of all.
Click or scroll through our gallery to discover the old-school fast food gems we miss the most – how many have you tried, or even heard of?
New York’s strangest homegrown dish isn’t sophisticated, but it really delivers the goods if you’re hungry. First served at Rochester spot Nick Tahou Hots, which opened in 1918, the garbage plate features minced beef and/or sliced hot dogs crumbled over home fries, French fries, pasta salad and baked beans, then finished with a drizzle of hot sauce. Nick Tahou Hots owns the trademark for the name 'garbage plate’, so other local restaurants serving their own versions tend to name them junkyard plates or trash plates. The dish still has a small but loyal local following Rochester.
This historic Iowa speciality is rarely found outside of the Midwestern US states and dates all the way back to the 1920s. At first glance the tavern sandwich (also known as a loose meat sandwich or a Maid-Rite) looks a little like a hamburger, but the beef in this dish is cooked loose rather than formed into a patty. It more closely resembles a sloppy Joe, but without the tomato-based sauce. These days it’s still sold at regional chain Maid-Rite, as well as some local joints, but we think it deserves to be more widely known.
This hefty sandwich from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a real 1960s throwback. It features grilled bread piled high with sliced roast turkey, crispy bacon and tomatoes, then the whole caboodle is smothered in a tangy Cheddar sauce, which is then grilled until bubbling and golden. It was invented in 1935 by Sicilian American Frank Blandi, who first served them at Pittsburgh’s Stratford Club, but the dish is rarely seen on menus today. The city’s lively Union Grill is one of the few spots where you can still grab a turkey Devonshire.
Jellied eels aren’t exactly your classic fast food, but back in 18th century London they were hugely popular, when an abundance of eels in the River Thames made them a cheap and accessible snack for the East End working class. They’re basically eels cooked and cooled in their own gelatinous stock, traditionally eaten with a plate of pie and mash in a pie and mash shop. Many of the traditional sellers of jellied eels have long-since shuttered, though there’s still a place for this dish in many a Londoner’s heart.
This nautically inspired fast food is one of America’s most delicious sandwiches, but it’s barely known outside of Richmond, Virginia. It’s been a favourite in the southeastern state since the 1940s, and features a pretty unbeatable combination of grilled knockwurst sausage, hot pastrami and melted Swiss cheese, served hot on rye bread. Storied Richmond spot The New York Deli claims to have invented the dish during the Second World War when it was a favourite of the Navy seamen stationed in the area.
The name of this decadent dish might give some clue to when it was invented. Disco fries are basically New Jersey’s spin on Canadian poutine – a mountain of chunky steak-cut fries smothered in melted mozzarella and topped with a rich brown gravy. The dish was first created in all-night diners in the 1970s, when the filling comfort food proved popular among revellers on their way home from disco clubs. You can still grab a plate from a few diners across New Jersey, but we think they deserve a place on more menus.
This quirky yet satisfying fusion dish first hit the foodie scene in Massachusetts back in the mid-20th century, and is only available from a handful of old-school Chinese restaurants around Fall River. The chow mein sandwich is exactly what it sounds like – a rich, gravy-based chow mein mixture (usually combining pork, beansprouts, onions and celery) served inside a hamburger bun. The hefty sandwich isn’t very well known outside of this relatively small area of New England, but you can still grab one at local joints Mee Sum and Faneek’s.
Invented in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1940s, the Polish boy takes the classic hot dog to decadent (and very messy) new heights – consisting of a bun packed with grilled or deep-fried kielbasa sausage, which is topped with mounds of French fries, coleslaw and a generous slathering of barbecue sauce. It’s a real crowd-pleaser, so it’s a shame only a handful of Cleveland joints still serve it.
Rhode Island’s belly-busting state sandwich is the dynamite grinder – basically a giant sloppy Joe filled with a rich sauce made with ground beef, tomatoes, onions and lots of bell peppers for a hit of spice. It originates in the small city of Woonsocket, where it’s traditionally served at family gatherings and community events to feed a crowd. These days it’s the kind of dish people tend to cook at home, so the sandwich is pretty hard to come by in restaurants.
This no-frills carbohydrate bomb is a hyper-regional British dish you’ll find in some traditional chip shops and takeaways around Wigan, Lancashire, especially regional bakery chain Galloways. The North West town has a rich heritage of pie making, and the pie barm (sometimes called a Wigan kebab) is an ingenious creation that facilitates eating one on the hoof. The dish features a simple meat and potato pie served in a buttered barm cake (bread roll) and smothered with everything from ketchup and brown sauce to mushy peas and gravy. Despite its local appeal, the dish is little known outside of the town.
This regional specialty from Alberta, Canada is a mouth-watering burger made with a Ukrainian garlic sausage called kubie that is pressed and then served in a bun, often with accompaniments such as fried onions, cheese, bacon and sauerkraut. The niche dish was once popular in Ukrainian restaurants around the region, but today there are only a few spots still selling it, including Uncle Ed's Restaurant in Edmonton.
One of Britain's original regional fast foods, these thin brown pancakes from North Staffordshire are made with a batter containing wheat and oats. Traditionally they come stuffed with everything from melted cheese and bacon to sausages, but you can fill them with pretty much anything. Until very recently it was common throughout the region for oatcakes to be sold directly from the windows of houses to customers on the street. Sadly, these hole-in-the-wall spots have pretty much disappeared over the years, with just one left in Stoke-on-Trent.
This quirky sandwich was invented in Dever, Colorado, in 1907 but these days you’d be hard pushed to find more than a handful of local joints serving it. The Denver sandwich is a hearty affair, consisting of a Denver omelette (sweet bell peppers, onions, smoked ham and Cheddar) between slices of bread. Stories vary on who actually first made it, but some historians think it’s a modification of egg foo yong and was invented by Chinese labourers working on the transcontinental railroad.
This iconic South Australian dish consists of a meat-filled pie served upside-down on top of a bowl of thick, green pea soup, usually topped with lashings of ketchup. The pie floater dates all the way back to Adalaide in the 1870s, when vendors would sell pies from horse-drawn carts as a cheap and filling evening meal for workers. But despite being named a ‘South Australian Heritage Icon’ by the National Trust of Australia in 2003, there are only a few spots left serving the dish.
A cheeseburger cooked with steam doesn’t sound (or look) particularly appetising, but it's a loved local delicacy in central Connecticut, particularly the town of Meriden. To make it a beef patty is placed in a specially designed cabinet where it's cooked with steam. This method results in a very juicy and tender burger since the meat is not exposed to direct heat that can cause it to dry out. The cheese is steamed separately in the same cabinet until it melts into a gooey consistency, then poured over the patty, enveloping it entirely in molten cheese. The best place to try the dish is historic hole-in-the-wall spot Ted’s in Meriden.
This hyper-regional (and utterly delicious) chip style is only found in a few fish and chip shops around Britain's Black Country, particularly Wolverhampton and Dudley, but we think it deserves to be a nationwide classic. No one knows for sure who invented orange chips, but fans speculate they date all the way back to the 1940s. So, what exactly is an orange chip? They’re basically potatoes deep-fried in a thick, orange-coloured batter that usually contains paprika and/or turmeric. Loved local Black Country spots that specialise in them include Major’s and Beks.
This divisive burger was invented at the now-shuttered The Wheel Inn in Sedalia, Missouri, and features a beef patty topped with peanut butter, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. The guberburger was the iconic drive-in’s signature dish from the 1940s until it closed in 2007, and the restaurant is credited with popularising the idea of serving peanut butter on a burger. A couple of local spots like Kehdes in Sedalia still serve a version of the guberburger, while US fast food chain Sonic Drive-In even launched its own limited-edition bacon and peanut butter cheeseburger in early 2024.
Little known outside of Winnipeg, Canada, the fat boy is a gloriously messy burger that has its origins in the city’s Greek community way back in the 1950s. At its core, a fat boy is a cheeseburger topped with mustard, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, a generous dollop of mayonnaise and, most importantly, a rich and meaty chilli sauce. Many of Winnipeg’s longstanding burger spots claim to be the inventor of the dish, but most credit it to Gus Scouras, founder of Junior’s Restaurant, which still has three locations today.
This old-school burger from Butte, Montana is so niche you can barely get one anywhere. The sweet and salty fast food delicacy consists of a smashed beef patty topped with a combination of crushed peanuts and Miracle Whip. It was invented in the 1930s by Matt Korn, founder of Matt's Place – which was Montana's oldest drive-in restaurant before it closed in 2021. Sadly, no other local restaurants appear to be carrying on its legacy, but you can grab a similar burger at Everybody Burger in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Chicago’s iconic deep-dish pizza is known and loved all over the world, but did you know the Windy City is also home to a much lesser-known variety? Chicago thin crust pizza (also known as tavern style) is basically the opposite to deep dish, favouring a super-thin and crunchy base that is usually cut into squares, as opposed to slices. It’s thought to date back to the 1940s and was traditionally sold in taverns as a bar snack. Happily, the pizza’s popularity has increased in recent years, with diners appreciating its communal, sharing style, but it remains pretty niche outside of Chicago.
Thankfully these thrifty Depression-era burgers don’t contain any slugs, but they’re still unusual. The slugburger was invented by John Weeks in Mississippi in the early 20th century, and features a beef or pork patty that’s bulked up with an inexpensive ‘extender’ such as potato flour or soy grits. The name refers to the fact that they cost a nickel – ‘slug’ being slang for a five-cent piece. They’re then deep fried and slotted into a bun with plenty of pickles, onions and mustard. The historic burgers still have a niche local following around Corinth at old-time diners such as White Trolley Cafe or Borroum’s.
Philadelphia is best known for its cheesesteaks and hot dogs, but there's another more obscure dish that the Pennsylvanian city is also famous for – the fish cake hot dog. To make it, a soft white bun is filled with a split hot dog and a deep-fried fish cake. The old-school dish is also known as a Philly combo, and was apparently invented by Abe Levis at his restaurant, Old Original Levis Hot Dogs, which was founded in 1895. These days just a handful of Philly joints serve the dish, including local favourite Johnny’s Hots and Pat's King of Steaks, where the cheesesteak was invented.
This belly-busting Scottish snack is famous all over the world, but perhaps not for the best reasons. The deep-fried Mars bar started as a novelty item in a fish and chip shop in Stonehaven, near Aberdeen in the early 1990s. It was widely criticised by the UK media, who accused it of contributing to Scotland’s poor diet, despite not really being sold by that many vendors. These days the battered chocolate treat remains a novelty dish served at a few chippies in Britain (surprisingly it’s also made its way to some American state fairs) but we think it deserves a re-evaluation.
American fast food doesn’t get more retro than the humble patty melt. This diner mainstay features the best bits of a grilled cheese sandwich and a burger, usually consisting of a juicy burger topped with fried onions and melted Swiss cheese, all sandwiched between slices of griddled rye bread. The dish has recently seen a resurgence in popularity, with trendy New York restaurants like Daily Provisions and Revelie Luncheonette putting a gourmet spin on it, but we'd love to see it feature on more menus.
At one point there were countless joints around Binghamton (in upstate New York) that specialised in this lesser-known regional sandwich, but the majority of them have shut down – which is a shame, as it’s a real gem. The spiedie (pronounced 'speedy') dates to the 1920s and consists of skewered cubes of meat which are marinated in a mix of olive oil, vinegar, Italian herbs, and spices, before being chargrilled and served in a hoagie. You can still grab one at local joints like the Spiedie & Rib Pit in Binghamton.
Oklahoma’s signature burger is so much more than the sum of its parts. To make it, a hearty helping of gooey caramelised onions are smashed onto one side of a juicy beef patty, which is then topped with melted cheese. It became popular in the Depression era, when thrifty restaurants would add cheaper ingredients to their meat patties to bulk them out. Its fame around the rest of the US is growing (especially as it features on the menu of burger expert George Motz’s New York hotspot Hamburger America) but we think the rest of the world deserves a bite of the action.
Now discover the fabulous fast food classics invented in every state