Lone Star Barbecue & Mercantile in Santee, SC

Driving back towards Florida along I-95, I stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Lone Star Barbecue & Mercantile in Santee, SC. This place was located in a complex of several old wooden houses right outside of Santee State Park.

Lone Star offered both a menu to order from as well as a buffet. I decided to try their buffet.

My first plate of food samplings included pulled pork, collards, black eyed peas, macaroni & cheese, tomato pie, and corn fritters. Most of the food on the plate was tasty. The pork was nice and tender. The corn fritters were on the dry side. The tomato pie was an interesting food that I had never tried before. It was basically layers of bread and slice tomatoes, baked together in a creamy sauce. It was interesting, but not something I'd go out of my way to order.

Second plate included fried chicken, rice topped with some sort of pork stew, lima beans, cole slaw, and hush puppies. Chicken had good batter. The hush puppies were definitely better than the other corn fritters that I tried on my previous plate.

For dessert, I tried some blueberry cobbler, banana pudding, and chocolate pudding. The blueberry cobbler was definitely the best of the three.

I do enjoy trying these little independent places on my trips. Lone Star Barbecue was only about a mile off I-95 and was a far superior choice to stopping into a Subway in a truck stop for some travel food...

McDonald's & Maurice's

While traveling south to Florida, a stop was made in Franklin, VA. The hotel didn't serve any sort of icky continental breakfast or anything, so the breakfast choice was narrowed down to the McDonalds across the street.

I ordered a egg and cheese biscuit combo, so it came with orange juice and hash browns. The whole experience in the fast food restaurant took about fifteen minutes, and probably would have taken longer if the manager didn't come in and all of the employees suddenly started scrambling to make the food faster. Once the food was ready, I took it and ate in the car.


I can't remember the last time that I ate in a standard McDonalds, but I was reminded why I don't eat the food off of the normal McDonalds menu. As I was eating the breakfast it tasted fine. For hours afterwards though, something in the food irritated the back of my throat. Drinking lots of water didn't really help, and it wasn't until a sneeze where a bit of mucus came up that the sore throat went away. This happens to me with breakfast from Burger King as well. Yummy...


On to better food, later in the day I ate at Maurice's Barbecue in Santee, South Carolina. Right off of I-95, this little fast food barbecue restaurant has some good food. You are greeted by this giant pork sandwich in the sky...




I ate a Jr. Pig Dinner, which consisted of pulled pork in a mustard barbecue sauce, fries, a roll, cole-slaw, hush puppies, and something called Carolina hash which was served over rice. The pork was very tasty, and I made my own pulled pork sandwich with the meat and the roll. I'm not exactly sure what was in the Carolina hash, but that was also very tasty. It was a whole lot to eat too.

And here is a portrait of Maurice hanging up in the restaurant. You know you are in the south when a restaurant owner is pictured in front of a Confederate flag...



With all of the meat and fried food that I ate today, I'm really in the mood to go eat vegan food again...