Whether you are like healthy desserts or something completely sinful, look for these unique ten fast food stops on your next trip. Our list includes frozen yogurt shops, creative breakfast spots serving amazing pancakes and waffles, homemade ice cream stops, delicious biscuits and other ideas.
Menchie's Frozen Yogurt
Happy cows make better milk. Especially California cows, which are never given hormones, graze on fresh grass, and enjoy the California sun. Their milk has more protein and calcium than federal standards. No wonder it is the only milk used in all 370 of Menchie's Frozen Yogurt shops. That and their fabulous flavors have made them the largest self-serve frozen yogurt franchise in the world.
You can find sweet and tart yogurt, low fat or no fat, dairy or no dairy, fruit or no fruit, and flavors that bring back memories of birthdays or Thanksgiving dinners. And once you choose the flavor at Menchie's Frozen Yogurt, you get to play with the toppings: candy, fruit, nuts, or a combination. You get to do it all yourself, and it will surely bring a smile to your face.
Peachwave
Frozen yogurt shops are cropping up all over the place, and they are slowly but surely taking over ice cream’s territory. Yogurt is considered healthier – it helps stomach flora, provides you with necessary calcium for the bones, and helps absorb nutrients from other food. And it is delicious too. Peachwave makes their frozen yogurts in the style of old soda fountains – you grab a cup, serve yourself a flavor of your choice and then load it with toppings.
This makes the process more fun, and it is more efficient as well. And the toppings and flavors! They have berries, chocolate, coffee, caramel, bananas, and even bread pudding, along with so much more. You can get your yogurt with no sugar, no dairy, sweet, sour, creamy, or anything in between. Don’t worry if you get addicted – they have shops all over the country.
Orange Leaf
Orange Leaf is called an “easy serve” place. But there is nothing easy about choosing just one of their dozens of delicious flavors. We used to think of frozen yogurt as a healthy but boring version of ice cream. Not anymore. Who can resist flavors such as birthday cake, salted caramel, or pumpkin pie? At Orange Leaf, you can get frozen yogurt that is dairy free or sugar-free, but everything is finger-licking delicious.
And, as they say, it’s easy serve: you get your own cup and serve up your favorite flavor from the easy-to-use machine. If you want to spice things up a bit, get two cookies filled with frozen yogurt, try a smoothie, or stick one of their freshly baked waffles into your yogurt.
Pinkberry
All this frozen yogurt craze started in 2005 with Pinkberry, the original brand of frozen yogurt from Los Angeles CA known for their tart, natural, and fruity frozen yogurts. Since then, they have taken over the world, and you can find Pink Berry in 21 countries. So, now that you know you can find your favorite Pink Berry flavor almost anywhere, go ahead and get addicted.
It’s perfectly fine if you want weird flavors such as pomegranate or lychee or if you want a cup of pink bubbly yogurt for the holidays – they have it all. And when you feel like something decadent and chocolaty, you can try flavors such as Mint Chocolate Cookie or Coconut Milk Dark Chocolate. Whatever your fancy, all Pink Berry yogurts are made with real yogurt and real milk with fruits hand-cut fresh daily.
Marble Slab Creamery
Everything starts with the homemade ice cream made in small batches in each Marble Slab Creamery shop, where they use local ingredients such as fresh fruits, milk, and spices. Then they bake fresh waffle cones and add in all kinds of candies, fruits, nuts, sprinkles, and chocolates. You can take as many as you want at no additional cost as long as they fit into your cup or cone.
If you like their ice creams, sorbets, and frozen yogurts, you will love their frozen cakes. You can design the cake for your birthday or valentine or any other occasion, or you can let the Marble Slab artists play with cookies, fruits and nuts to come up with a frozen creation that will look too good to eat, but eat it you will, and you’ll probably go back to Marble Slab for more.
Chick-fil-A
Since Truett Kathy opened his first place in 1964 and started selling crispy southern chicken sandwiches – Chick-fil-A sold 3.2 billion of them. From one small restaurant, the company grew to 1900 restaurants in 42 states. So, what is the big deal? Well, nobody knows. Truett Kathy, who invented the fabulous chicken sandwich, locked the recipe in a safe in a home office in Atlanta and it has not been seen or changed since.
What we do know is that there is nothing like it. You can get a simple chicken sandwich with pure boneless white meat, you can fix it with lettuce and tomato, or you can add scrambled eggs or a sausage. Maybe it has something to do with the soft, juicy chicken breast or their freshly baked buttermilk biscuit. Maybe it’s their white pepper gravy. Depending on where you are, you can get a strawberry jam biscuit, a honey biscuit, or grits on the side. One thing is for sure, you will have the best chicken sandwich ever.
Biscuitville
If you have never tried fresh Southern biscuits, you have no idea what a treat they are. Every Southern cook has a special recipe for biscuits, but Biscuitville’s chef Andrew Hunter came up with one that always results in perfection. Soft on the inside and crispy and crunchy on the outside, the Biscuitville biscuits use real, fresh buttermilk, and they are freshly made by hand and baked every 15 minutes.
They are enough of a delight on their own, but Chef Hunter takes it further by filling them with other Southern delights like pulled pork or catfish topped with house-made relish. You can have them for breakfast or for lunch, and you will fall in love with them instantly. It is a good thing that they are available all over North Carolina and Virginia, and they are just slightly different in each location because every shop uses local ingredients to make their biscuits as good as they can possibly be.
TCBY
TCBY means “The Country Best Yogurt.” They started making their delicious frozen yogurts in 1981 in Arkansas and since then, they’ve exploded into more than 360 stores all over the country. To satisfy everyone satisfied, they offer vegan, GMO-Free, dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar free, and fat free yogurts. They have hundreds of flavors, from white Salted Caramel and Chocolate Mouse to Cookies and Cream.
They have yogurts with any fruit you can think of, and they even offer plain vanilla yogurt. You can get them soft serve or hand-scooped or in frozen pies or cakes. All options are delicious, healthy, low in calories, and absolutely irresistible.
Red Mango
A cup of yogurt a day can really keep your stomach problems in check. But, a cup of Red Mango frozen yogurt does more than that – it supports a healthy immune and digestive system because it contains SuperBiotics, an active, natural probiotic that helps the growth of beneficial bacteria in our stomach. It is also very rich in protein and calcium, it’s low in calories, sugar, and fat, and it’s gluten free.
But, just because it is so good for you, does not mean it is any less delicious. There are dozens of flavors, from fruity and tart, to sweet, tangy, and cool. There are also many fun toppings to make your yogurt extra yummy – granola, fruits, nuts, cheesecake bits, yogurt chips, Fruity Pebbles, and even Cap 'N Crunch. If you are in the mood for something a bit different, Red Mango also has parfaits with fruit or yogurt as well as frozen coffee chillers in caramel, mocha, vanilla, or natural.
Snooze
Snooze is rediscovering the delight of a slow, pleasant, and cheerful breakfast with real gourmet food. They offer a breakfast you can enjoy with your client, with your boss, or with your family. At Snooze, they serve fun, creative versions of all our favorite breakfast foods with pleasant background music and some fun coffee drinks and a cocktail or two.
There are eggs, of course, but they come from free-range chickens. Their sausages are home-made and veggies are local. You can make your own custom pancakes, or you can try Breakfast Pot Pie with Snooze’s homemade gravy made of rosemary sausage in a flaky puff pastry, served with an egg that is preferably sunny side up. There are lots of fun choices, so you can make a visit to Snooze into a habit anywhere in Colorado, Arizona, and California.
