How do you find new mom'n'pop restaurants?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Do you have any tips for finding non-franchise, inexpensive restaurants?

Two weekends ago we were approaching a small town not too far from our own city and it was getting close to suppertime. I was hungry, anyway. So we stopped at the first apparently mom'n'pop place we saw that had a lot of cars outside. (That's my tip--lots of cars. Not very good, I know.) Turned out it was sort of home cooking, but from a large menu. Quality was so-so overall, decor was amusingly witha hodge podge of big, old, not too obnoxious prints. Very young waiter was humorous, trying to tell us what cod is! He must have thought it exotic. He said he had done a lot of fishing and never caught one. (We are in the Midwest!) Other diner started talking to us from across the room. Friendly, but I was tired and hungry and did not wish to be reached out to.

The meatloaf I had was better than my own, which is certainly one thing I look for in a restaurant--better cooking than my own.

Seems like the kind of place that was probably full of "regulars."

How do you find a decent inexpensive restaurant in a new you to place? I'm always wanting to discover some amazing gem that "nobody else" knows. Got any tips?

[cschin4]

I think you do what you just did which is when you are out and about and you find a place, go take a chance on it. Sure you will get a few bad meals along the way but over time no doubt you will find some great places.

[Like2Plan]

Got any tips?

There's an "AP" for that.... I use AroundMe--we mainly eat out when we are on the road, but I could use it at home, too.

I've found a couple of good pizza places while on the road. This weekend, it guided us to an interesting little place in Montpelier, VT. (We would not have found it otherwise. )

[HamSandwich]

There is a great show on the Food Network called Diners, Drive-In's and Dives that features mom and pop places across the country. I've been to handful of the places based on the show and all have been as great as they said it would be. Here is a link to the list of places that were featured.

Guy's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives : Shows : Food Network

[dana67]

Sometimes word of mouth. If I'm traveling, I may ask someone when I stop for gas. Locally, I hear about new ones from friends and family.

[disneysteve]

I typed a long response to this and then my browser crashed. I'll try and reproduce it.

1. Avoid strip malls. They usually have higher rent and don't attract small family-run places. Focus more on the main street through town (if a fairly small town), unless it is a resort/tourist area in which case you may do better venturing off the main drag.

2. Before entering, if possible, take a look at the menu. Does it have a zillion choices? Stay away from those places. Too many choices often means they don't really focus on quality but more on quantity. It also tends to mean more frozen and canned ingredients since stocking all of that food fresh would be impossible. One of our favorite restaurants only has 8-10 entrees on the menu on any given night.

3. Does the menu mention the owners by name - "The Scarpelli Family welcomes you to..."

4. Look for hints that things are cooked from scratch. "All meals are prepared to order. We appreciate your patience." or "Soups made fresh daily." or "Homemade pasta dishes."

5. Take a look inside. Trust your instincts here. If the place looks cold and generic, turn around and go elsewhere. Every great mom-and-pop place I've ever been to had a certain feel to it. It didn't matter if it was an inexpensive breakfast shop, a diner or a fine French restaurant, they all had a certain homey atmosphere that you felt as soon as you walked in.

6. If you get as far as being seated and decide at that point that the menu isn't to your liking or the place just doesn't feel "right" don't be afraid to get up and leave. If you've already been served water or anything, be sure and leave a tip and apologize to the server/hostess. Just say you changed your mind. We've walked out of numerous places over the years while traveling.

7. If you are staying at a hotel, ask at the front desk for recommendations. Tell them you are looking for independent, locally owned places, not Chili's and Applebee's. We found a great Italian place in Virginia a couple of years ago by doing that. Our daughter still periodically mentions that meal and asks if we can go back there sometime.

[cicy33]

totally word of mouth. generally those don't advertise. we don't.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Mmm, Johnston City, IL, you say? I'm next door to Illinois. I'll have to look on the map!

[cicy33]

it is in southern illinois. I am about 45 minutes south of mt vernon. we are near Southern Illinois University.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Yeah, we go to Shawnee Park sometimes in summer. I did look up Johnston on Google maps.

[carpevacationum]

I go on the Chowhound.com forums board. Have found some awesome restaurants through here running the gamut of hot dog stands to five star cuisine.

Fun board to hang around.

[highsavings]

yelp works out pretty well

[eric eckman]

I'm a professional pilot and regularly find myself in new places and looking for good food. I'm quite sure that the Chili's in Aspen, CO is exactly like the one in my home town, so I always try to find the good local places.

If you have an iPhone, download Urban Spoon from the app store. It's free and uses your GPS to mark your position and will show you all the restaurants nearby along with user reviews.

Talk to people. In the age of instant information at our fingertips, sometimes we forget about the old school way of passing information. Go find a real human and ask them for their recommendation. People working in the local businesses around where the restaurants are have likely either tried all the restaurants nearby or know someone who has. Pool their collective wisdom and ask. When I'm in a new town, I usually ask anyone who I come into contact with if there are any good local places that I should know about.

Restaurant.com is another good resource, along with the benefit of providing some killer discounts. I recently tried two new restaurants in my town simply because they had gift certificates available online. When shopping at restaurant.com, always always always open a new browser window and google "restaurant.com discount code." In my experience, they're always running a promotion with discounts from 70-90% off their prices which are already discounted. I recently got $150 worth of gift certificates to mom and pop type places for $18 and the meals were excellent.

[disneysteve]

Talk to people. In the age of instant information at our fingertips, sometimes we forget about the old school way of passing information. Go find a real human and ask them for their recommendation.

Good advice but reminds me of a funny story. We were in Toronto in Chinatown and wanted a place for lunch. Of course, there were a couple dozen restaurants and we didn't know which to pick, so we asked a shopkeeper which was the best. He told us and off we went. We went in and the hostess seated us and handed us menus. They were in Chinese and only Chinese. The waiter came and he spoke Chinese and only Chinese, as did every other person in the restaurant. We politely excused ourselves and went elsewhere. I'm sure the food would have been good if we could have figured out how to order it.

[GrimJack]

Good advice but reminds me of a funny story. We were in Toronto in Chinatown and wanted a place for lunch. Of course, there were a couple dozen restaurants and we didn't know which to pick, so we asked a shopkeeper which was the best. He told us and off we went. We went in and the hostess seated us and handed us menus. They were in Chinese and only Chinese. The waiter came and he spoke Chinese and only Chinese, as did every other person in the restaurant. We politely excused ourselves and went elsewhere. I'm sure the food would have been good if we could have figured out how to order it.

See, now this would have been my suggestion - if it is an ethnic restaurant, is it full of 'them', that is where I want to eat. But then I live on the coast so I have a lot of experience with various ethnic restaurants. One of my favorite restaurant critics had business cards made up in about 20 languages that said "I'll have what that person is eating"

I grew up in Montana thinking that pot roast and potatoes was a balanced diet; my horizons expanded when I moved to Seattle. NPR has a program 'the splendid table' that has a segment on 'hidden treasures' called Where We Eat - they have wonderful suggestions all over the country and talk about how they find them.