Those "Can't Miss" Places

You know the kind of place I'm talking about. It's the restaurant you simply have to eat at each time you visit, or the park that your family has played at for years. Surely everyone has at least one place like this. It's usually the novelty. There's nothing like it at home, so when you're away, you just have to have it.

My family - immediate and extended - have a couple places that we just have to hit when we are on vacation.

My grandmother is from Lafayette, Indiana and we used to go down there every year for a family reunion while her mother was alive. Friday, when everyone got there, we all met up at a local pizza place called Arni's. They are only in Indiana and they make a flat (maybe you'd call it thin-crust?) pizza that everyone loves. I really like their salad :) After Arni's, many people would go over to Frozen Custard for dessert. I actually remember my great-grandmother having cartons of it in her freezer at her home.

My uncle lives in New York, but when he comes to visit, there are two places he stops. The first is a sandwich shop in Maumee, Ohio called Schlotzky's. We had it for the first time on our way home from NY this year and it was really good. They were founded in Austin, TX, which is I'm guessing where my uncle first had their food. A little closer to us is a place called DonnutTown. My granddad loved apple fritters, especially from there, so my uncle usually goes one day and gets apple fritters for everyone.

I live in Michigan, where we didn't have any Chick-fil-A for a long time, and now we only have a few and none close to us. So when we are out of town and there is one around, we generally stop and get Chick-fil-A. It's still unique to us :)

The last one is a place that was a tradition but fell off. When we'd go visit my mom's friend in Tennessee, we used to always go to a pizza place called Ci-Ci's. What was so fun about Ci-Ci's what that they were an all-you-can-eat buffet and had many kinds of pizzas and a salad bar and a couple different yummy desserts. It's not fancy, by any means, but we kids LOVED it! We don't really go down there much anymore, and when we do, we don't go to Ci-Ci's, but my brothers informed me that we have one in Michigan and it's not too far! So I might have to pop over, for memory's sake :)

I'd love to hear from you! What are some places (they don't have to be food related) that you and your family always have to visit when you're near them?