Here Are The Best Fast Food Restaurants In North Carolina and South Carolina
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Fast food is my nemesis. I have a long commute to work, about 45 minutes. If I am not careful I will find my car pulling into a drive through making a bad decision. While it may not be the best nutritional choice, we love our occasional fast food. Here are the best fast food restaurants in both North Carolina and South Carolina.
While I tend to agree with what Food and Wine describes as the best fast food restaurant in North Carolina. I am baffled with the choice they made for South Carolina. Full disclosure, I live in South Carolina and have never heard of the place.
Let’s start with the best fast food restaurant in North Carolina. Food and Wine claims Cook Out is the winner. It was founded in Greensboro, North Carolina and you can find just about anything you want there. Cook Out has barbecue and foot long hot dogs, cheeseburgers and philly cheese steak. Some say the food selection is state fair worthy. I love their wide variety of milk shakes. When I go to Cook Out I usually make a meal of a banana pineapple milk shake.
Food and Wine chose a place called Rush’s as the best fast food restaurant in South Carolina. They are known for their abundance of seafood, “finest” barbecue and their chicken baskets. I have never heard of Rush’s but I will be sure to stop in when I see one.
Here are the best fast food restaurants in North Carolina and South Carolina. Food and Wine compiled a list of the best fast food restaurants in every state. For details, check out the story right here.
What Are the Most Popular Barbecue Restaurants In North Carolina?
If there is one thing you can say about North Carolinians it’s that we LOVE our BBQ. There are different styles, different meats of choice, and different sauces. But we do it all well. And no the term barbecue should never refer to the outdoor cooking of hamburgers and hotdogs- that’s a cookout for your northerners. There are so many incredible barbeque restaurants in North Carolina, it’s hard to say what the best is. And that’s honestly a personal preference. Your choice may be different than mine which may be different from your coworker’s. But while we can’t objectively tell you the best barbecue restaurants in North Carolina, we can tell you the most popular.
Did you know that May is National BBQ Month? It is and in celebration, our friends at BetCarolina used Google Trends to determine the most popular barbecue restaurants in North Carolina. The data used in this analysis is from May 1, 2022-September 6, 2022. And there is a dominant winner that’s right here in the Queen City. It’s one that many celebrities choose to dine at when visiting Charlotte. And funny enough, when we told you about the best Charlotte BBQ Restaurants (per TripAdvisor) last year, it was also the winner. So even with different methods, it’s still coming out on top.
Keep reading to see which that is, you’ll also find the best Charlotte BBQ Restaurants list at the end of this one. You can read BetCarolina’s full study and analysis here.
Catherine Lane is the morning show co-host and midday host on Country 1037 in Charlotte, North Carolina. She has been with the station for the past 24 years and is a recipient of the Academy of Country Music Major Market Personality of the Year award. Catherine has been on air in both radio and television in the Queen City for 38 years. As a content creator for Country 1037, Catherine writes blogs on local events and restaurants. She also writes about great travel spots and out of the way places in the Carolinas. Anything outdoors, travel, food, animals or the many country artists from the Carolinas.
