It's all about Beer, Burgers, Meat Pies & More on this episode of Big Blend Radio's "Historic Jefferson Highway" Show!
Featured Guests:
* Roger Bell - President of the Jefferson Highway Association
* Chase Miller - One Great City Brewing Co. - https://www.ogcbrewingco.com/
* Beth Hilburn - Hi-Way Cafe in Vinita, Oklahoma - https://hi-waycafe.com/
Podcast links mentioned in this episode:
* Guiness World Records on the JH - https://blendradioandtv.com/listing/guinness-world-records-on-the-jefferson-highway/
* MVPA Convoy: https://blendradioandtv.com/listing/mvpa-historic-convoy-on-the-jefferson-highway/
The Jefferson Highway Association originally founded the Jefferson Highway in 1915. This international highway is also known as "The Pines to the Palms Highway," that runs from Winnipeg, Canada to New Orleans, Louisiana. Learn more at https://jeffersonhighway.org/
This Big Blend Radio "Historic Jefferson Highway" Podcast airs every 4th Thursday at 6pm CST. Follow the show here: https://jefferson-highway.podbean.com/
Welcome to Big Blend Radio's Jefferson Highway Show. This historic highway was formed in 1915 by the Jefferson Highway Association. It runs from Winnipeg, Canada, all the way to New Orleans, Louisiana. Let's go! Welcome everybody. Today on the Jefferson Highway Association podcast here on Big Blend Radio, we're going to be giving you a taste of the Jefferson Highway. We're going to go to Winnipeg, where you're going to hear our conversation with Chase Miller, who represents one great city brewing company, they've got a Jefferson Highway beer. And then we're going to go over to Vanita, Oklahoma, to the Highway Cafe, to chat with Beth about her Jefferson Highway burgers, steak night, and so much more on these conversations. And of course we've got to give a shout out to Nakadish Louisiana who's celebrating their meat pies, their famous meat pies, with a festival coming up in September, so stay tuned and enjoy. I promise you, you're going to get hungry and thirsty after this episode. Hey everybody, you know we are getting the taste of the Jefferson Highway today. We might as well start at the top. And with a beer who doesn't want a nice, cool, refreshing beer, especially when it is from like the city at the top, Winnipeg. We're going to Winnipeg, Canada. Roger is here. Roger Bell, you know the president of the Jefferson Highway Association, as always. And Roger said to me, like a month ago, actually I think Roger, you mentioned this a few months ago, you're like, "Hey Lisa, there's a beer that's about the Jefferson Highway." And I'm like, "Really, we've got to cover this?" Roger Wright, beer, Jefferson Highway? Yeah, so it's just kind of showed up on my radar one time and I was very intrigued by it immediately. He sent out a couple of messages to the company got a response, so here we are today. It's just kind of one of those things as we keep evolving just some of the unique elements that are kind of coming forward. I love this. So everybody, the brewery is one great city brewing company. One great city is Winnipeg, the peg, right? So you can go to OGCbrewingCO.com and check them out. And this is the thing, if you're going to go from Winnipeg to New Orleans or New Orleans to Winnipeg, this is a place you want to visit because this is the only place you're going to get there, pretty much right in the city. But you want to go to the place when you're there. So we have Chase Miller joining us from the one great city brewing company. Hey, Chase, welcome. Hello. Thank you for having me. Listen, we are just kind of annoyed right now because Roger, Doug, you want to beer right now. Come on. You know, you do. Yes, so we're recording this is kind of late in the day and it just seems like a good time. I'm on a lake and I want, I want a beer. I'm sorry. I'm on a lake right now. But that's, that's a thing. I think kind of interesting when you look at the highway history, we had a lot of moonshine running. We've had all kinds of shenanigans regarding liquor. There's wineries on the highway. There's all kinds of great food. There's meat pies and knackeredish, right? Everybody to meat pie festivals coming up September 16th and 17th and knackeredish, Louisiana, I think that's the right date. But beer, we have not gotten to the libation station. So Chase, tell us about this beer. And then I want Roger to kind of tie into the history of the highway. But tell us about this beer that you have for sure. So the pine de palm is the name of the beer. It's a session IPA. We brewed it kind of to start our summer seasonal rotation as kind of an ode to the classic summer road trip. One great city is a brewery that's all about championing local stories in Manitoba, which is the province, but it's located in. And we thought it'd be just a really, really amazing story to highlight the whole region, obviously. Yeah. And so you actually have like one of the markers right there in your city, because it is like the top city. Yes. Yeah. I'm not saying you're better than New Orleans or New Orleans is better than you. I don't want to get into trouble, but like you're at the top of the, you know, the highway here. The start of the highway. Yes. Absolutely. Well, no. New Orleans could claim that to you. No, I guess. Yeah. On the other side. The northern star. How about that? That's the star of the highway, but you have like an obelisk you were talking about. Mm hmm. Yes. On it's highway 75, there is an obelisk that is a marker just that says that it's the pine from the pine to palm highway. Wow. Okay. So larger, you found this beer. Come on. Like let's think about the taste of this palm to pine a little, like this sounds more like a very refreshing kind of thing. You know, when you think about pine palms refresh, is there a little citrus in it? A little citrus. Absolutely. So the beer is brewed kind of to take the drinker through a journey from pine, which is like a resness, hoppy kind of piney notes to palm, which is more of like a tropical citrusy finish. We use New Zealand hops, which have like a lot of like white wine and tropical flavors and then kind of leaned into a lighter malt body. It's slightly hazy and just really refreshing at 4.75%. So it's not like one of those IPA, yeah, not those IPAs that you can't have a second or third one. Absolutely. Yeah. It's supposed to be very drinkable, obviously. So you can enjoy it on a hot day and it's not too late, or it's not too late, not too heavy. Mm hmm. This is a perfect blend. I like to say that word blend. Roger, we need to go to Winnipeg. Well, you know, I don't know whether the seasonality of this beer is, but I think every trip needs to start now. It's from our people. We have a lot of our travelers that go to our conferences all over, up and down, and we always have a good group that wants to go out to the local brewery and sample it. So when I came across this, it drew a lot of attention for some of our ongoing conference guests because they had no idea and several of them have recently been up in Winnipeg. So it's pretty neat. I think what's so cool about this is it's like this, you know, I'm going to say in a way, you can start it off, start off your trip with this, right? It's like, ooh, get the juice of the highway, or it's like this end result, like you can get the beer reward at the end if you went from the whole thing. Not many people can do this entire route, right? In one swoop, like, you know, are you going to hike the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Trail? Right. That's right. But so you may be doing portions. I think no matter what, beer all along the highway is good, but drink response, drink and drive responsibly, right? I'm not promoting drinking and driving whatsoever. I don't know. I don't know who the marketing folks were, did this, but they did there. They did some research because they pulled. One of the first thing I noticed was they had an original that was actually off one of our early guide maps of Jefferson Highway in the 1920s. So they used the Art Deco design with the car on there. So somebody went to a lot of work to do that. I appreciated that. I thought that was really cool. See, Chase, that's a thing, like brewing, you know, is you get the end result quicker than wineries, right? But it's still about the story, right? And the feel and the vibe when you have your brewers go into this. So I mean, what happens with that to make a beer like this? And then will you bring it back again? Because I think you were saying this is more like the summer beer. It's not always on tap, right? And maybe as we do this podcast and then we may have to just keep emailing you all and like saying, can you just make it regular? What goes into making a beer and saying this is what we're going to do and then doing all the marketing for it? So I think I have a pretty unique perspective on brewing just because my background is actually brewing proper and then my role at one great city is I'm the sales rep. So I helped brew this beer from the beginning. So like I worked with our head brewer pretty closely and he pitched the idea to me and then we actually brewed the beer together. And kind of what goes into that is just deciding like what do you want it to taste like. And we have a calculator that has been built by our head brewer Scott, Scott Barber and he kind of designs the beer for what profile he's looking for. And then he tries to find kind of a story that goes along with it and we bring in our marketing team and see if that's going to be a good fit for us. But all in all this beer was just really a lot of time spent and a lot of really great conversations and deciding how we wanted to approach it. Especially those choice New Zealand hops, I think that was kind of something that really inspired us to go with that tropical note and it kind of tied everything together because we know we can get those res any kind of flavors but having both in one beer I think was really kind of a game changer for sure. So having those tropical notes right because I do a lot of beer and wine tasting as professionally happily but not like a snobby kind of really know it all I just go back this is good but I do have a pallet and the one thing I know about New Zealand and I grew up in South Africa and South Africa has beers that are very similar to New Zealand and Australia and England right they do a lot of loggers too, not as many IPAs but IPAs were more Indian style it I don't know if that makes sense right I don't know. But going into the flavors of the tropical hops from New Zealand I'm kind of looking at it from the wine perspective is when we have New Zealand wines and South African wines and Australian wines there's this minerality that can bring in grassy notes of taste so does that happen with the beer too with the hops with those tropical notes are you getting that freshness of grass that could actually represent the prairies of the Midwest a little bit or no like I'm just taking a really crazy weird leap and you know I am but why not like because the tropical is cool because you're going back and forth between like you're going to how many states you're covering with this one beer right 2500 miles or something um really yeah so does the publicality bring in grassy yeah you'll get a little bit of that grassy note uh hops are very affected by temperature and toar just similar to wine um kind of funny they grow on vines not vines which is I think kind of weird that they just changed the one letter but yeah you're going to pick up some of those grassy notes for sure and definitely that minerality in the soil is going to have a little bit of effectiveness it kind of does have that reflective note of the prairie um I think the haze the color of the beer also is very suggestive of that kind of like wide open plains you know that's cool I forgot one question for you on the your maybe a little bit on your history your brewery and maybe how you got the name one great city for sure yeah so the slogan for Winnipeg used to be uh Winnipeg one great city there was a big scene and that was kind of our city's slogan um and then quite a little bit after that there was a band called the weaker thins uh they were pretty popular in Canada and they came out with a song called One Great City that kind of all talked about uh it was kind of a parody of the One Great City but we decided to embrace it and and again use it to kind of champion those local stories so we feel like we're kind of representative of the mosaic that is one effect wow so music one great city right and then history what about the food because I talked to some folks at the Jefferson highway board meeting a few weeks ago and I brought up poutine and it got chinainade so what would you say was it would be a good food to pair with this Jefferson highway brew um our brewery has an entire made from scratch kitchen our kitchen team is uh phenomenal they did a wonderful job when we had it on tap and when it was available um I believe our we have like a lamb witch like a nice like lamb kind of sandwich with a red pepper spread that really kind of brought those like grassy tropical notes out um as well we have a wonderful beer and cheese soup that is made uh fresh every two days and it's wonderful as well it really hits those flavor notes wow you bring up lamb so roger right that's a different profile that we always hear about in America lamb is not like as big as it is in England and Canada and you know are European friends and even in South Africa lamb was normal but in the states you don't hear it very often so that's a different flavor note to bring up for for the highway don't you think sure yeah that's not that's but there's that's uh some of the diversity that we've talked about on up and down the highway that's what's you know the uniqueness of this north south element I think uh you know a lot of the American historic highways are east west so they're different but the culture of from uh north this north south route is it just continues to amaze me as you know we've that's obviously we were in Louisiana this last year for our conference and uh there's a lot of differences than a lot of things long around and um it's so it makes me want to go up to Winnipeg I've got to get my gotta find my way up there sometimes well come on we're going to do a convoy you guys you have a military convoy coming through soon from Winnipeg are they doing it from actual Winnipeg or is just over the border I don't think some of them are starting that a lot of the vehicles cannot do that because of you know getting large military vehicles from um all over or not going to work that way but some of them are just going to go up a few days early and so we're gonna well I'm going to suggest they go by the brewery I would hope so we'll see but uh yeah they'll be starting they're actually starting point uh their first overnight is in uh the river fall of Minnesota to stop terribly far from the border not too far at all yeah yeah so chase um I know this it was like a seasonal brew but what are the chances of it coming back and and people getting it like what do we have to do we have to do a petition like we do for voting rights here like what do we need to do to make this become a mainstay what what like like we already we want it that seems like that should be enough eh uh is this yeah but I know it's not quite popular for us like we we slowed it quite at quite a rapid pace like especially me seeing the sales so I'd usually we sit on a beer between you know one to three months if it's going slow this one we got a lot of good press and and it was out pretty fast so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw you know a return but uh I'm not sure what that'll look like it'll just depend on kind of what our schedule looks like for the next year and we base a lot of our choices on uh pop quality and things like that because we never want to bring back some things that we loved and worked so hard on and it'd be kind of an imitation of it you know a copy of a copy right oh so like New Zealand had a bad year in the hops you have to like look at a different hops or yeah because you wouldn't see one for that yeah do you know what is the hmm do you have local hops or like is it too cold because of your prairie and you know that kind of we do have local hops in Manitoba uh the hop provider that we use uh got us in our New Zealand hops we didn't go there and source them ourselves and unfortunately I'd love to have had that experience but um we do have several local hop farmers here but they're very kind of on the craft side very small prairie gem is a big one we work with them every year and do a wet hopped beer which is brewing with fresh hops which again has a lot of those really reflective prairie flavors that you'd get exclusively from the toar here but um yeah again it'll all just depend on ingredients and uh grain quality you know things like that can we make can we make it from grass no we can't but you know the prairie because the prairie is so interesting and that's what I think we forget about you are in the prairie land and I really want to do a plug for that because the prairies I think get a a bad view on on tourism and everything I think people think oh it's a big long prairie whatever and honestly the prairies are biodiverse they're dynamic they're amazing and we need them we need the prairie biodiversity of the actual natural structure of the land and that's what Winnipeg is really prairie land right you aren't prairie country am or am I wrong I haven't been there yet so I don't know but all I know is prairie is good for soil and good for agriculture like all the diversity right absolutely yes so we are kind of on the on the edge of the prairie as you go into Ontario which is the province next to us it's all the Canadian field so it's like a lot of granite and rock and stuff like that and a lot of those particles from that rock have let themselves into the soil in Manitoba so the soil is very rich and has a lot of clay and things like that that farmers look for it results in some really very biodiverse crop yields like you're speaking of the prairies as a whole are just like a very beautiful place it is a little bit more less visually stimulating but you and you watch a sunset for two hours I think it's a pretty spectacular spectacle I love the prairies personally I mean just even the birds and the mornings and then just even that smell right that's why I was talking about that grass taste there's this freshness that comes and beer has it you know just that's those profiles can be in there and I think the tropical notes that you were talking about can help with that which is like there's this fresh it's about freshness right maybe with the tropical notes with the hops that you were talking about from New Zealand is fresh because they have a lot of grass they're their kiwi land they got a lot of people go tramping over there they don't hike they tramp talk about tramping over here as much but you know maybe not but um very cool thank you chase I hope you keep this beer and even if you have to get source ingredients from different places to make it work I hope you keep it because Roger come on right this is part of what the highway is about somehow we've got to get our hands on right yeah oh some of this yeah and uh you know the you know inserts on tap there but the cans are so really so cool that we'd love to see those and uh we were excited uh just the fact you know I think it's really unique I don't know how your brew master came up with the concept if he's just uh discovered us or just interested in the history of it uh from Missouri but uh pretty neat stories he's uh very well read he's always reading about the history of uh of our region and what kind of reflects it that's cool yeah wow wow Roger I think we we got it we got to keep on with this taste of you know a highway because we've got breweries we've got burgers we got meat pies and everything so very cool thank you so much everyone everyone again Jefferson Highway go to jeffersonhighway.org and go to the one great city uh you know go there and we want to report go to OGCbrewingco.com one great city brewing company thank you so much Chase please keep the beer for us don't don't please please we'll go try and we'll try and we'll try to get some of your way I think it's uh it's a shame we're talking about it and you guys haven't even tasted it so let's see what we can do well we'll see I think we'll we'll hop over the border for it it's worth it you know I can get over the border we'll do it but like I think if you can help on the convoy that's coming through and the conference right Roger the conference is in June 2025 if folks can have its sip of that brew during the conference and understand this unique taste yeah that'll make our conference right there see we just we're just pulling you on the show so you get sent beer everywhere even though like legally it's weird but like come on you can do it I'll bring a truck up how about that like you know I'll get a truck and then I'll just load it up and and get I'm sure they'll let me like bring a pallet over right who knows who knows but anyone going to Winnipeg go check it out one great city brewing company and I love that you have that name and it looks like fun the one thing before you go but I love about looking at the brewery on the website is that it's um very European in that it seems like everyone can communicate and it's like big tables very European where you can have dinner and maybe you're with your party but you could talk to the person next door to you right that's kind of cool it seems very community based and that's something I think Roger am I right that we want with the Jefferson highways to build this community from Winnipeg to New Orleans where people connect as travelers and business owners tourism representatives everyone right Roger well of course of course yeah very cool thank you all take care cheers thank you thank you so everyone we're on to part two of our taste of the jefferson highway and I do want to say before we bring our guests back on the show Roger Bell of course you know him as the president of the Jefferson Highway Association and we've got Beth Holburn joining us again she is the owner and her family owns the highway cafe I mean this is going to be one of those places the legendary highway cafe I can say that because she was on our show last year talking about the Guinness World Book of Records which they made it with all the stickers on the car at the cafe but they are the can I say the confluence I don't know I've been talking about rivers today they're at the crossroads of Route 66 and Jefferson Highway and since she's on the show they've had all these different accolades we're going to talk about burgers we're going to talk about all kinds of good stuff but I would just really quickly want to give a shout out to Nakadish Louisiana on the last segment when we were talking about beer and Winnipeg I brought up the meat pies of Nakadish Louisiana and that is their food it's actually a state meat pie recognized there and they have a meat pie festival if you go to New Orleans then yays right if you go to Nakadish you're going to have to have the meat pie unless you're vegetarian I don't know if they have vegetarian ones but their festival is coming up so that is happening September 13th and 14th they also have the Kane River Run that happens at the same festival and they've expanded the festival to have a cornhole tournament so I think a lot of you may know about cornhole and if not I think you should get started because it's fun so welcome back Roger how are you do you play cornhole that's my first question I've played a few rounds I wouldn't say I'm a good at it but I have played it a few times but I'd be here and I'm excited to have our guest on with this my friend Beth here who's really doing a lot for us in Oklahoma I'm a big supporter and we have it has a great place and that's it she's in Venita Oklahoma and that's not far from Chicago did I say that correctly yet am I learning now it's it's a waste from Chicago it's oh it's in the north it's in what I would call north eastern the northeastern corner of the state and they're very close to not too far from Miami Oklahoma and not too far the honorary 66th path on the Tulsa so we're open at areas I don't know but I did say to kota right this time though I did get that part right okay I took it's taken like how many years of us doing this podcast for me to learn and then actually go there which helps but Venita that's also a good name and I'm very excited about having you back on the show Beth however you sent me photos of your new jefferson highway burger and steaks and I'm going why did you have to do that I know I asked for it but I'm hungry now so thank you for that welcome back just thank you thank you so much for having me it's good to have you back can we touch on these accolades because you know you've got your Guinness World Book of Records but I think also since you were on the show you've had some additions to the restaurant am I right it looks like you've got you've got your big mufferman dude you've got a you've got the big mufferman and then you've got the Native American man you've got now you got two Ben do you have a big boy too whoa what's going on here you got a little bit yeah um we love all of the roadside attraction and nostalgia of that so that's kind of what we're trying to create we have a 21 foot muffler man that we lovingly call big bill last fall we also added the big Indian which is a 23 foot fiberglass giant that we moved here from outside of Charlemont Massachusetts where he stood for 49 years he comes with a huge following of loyal fans and also you know he's he's right at 50 years old so he's um an i a vintage giant in my view we added um our muffler our our big boy that's out front holding a giant hamburger kind of catch your eye right when you first come up on um the highway cafe and then we also have added our little Betty boot so we gotta have a Betty boot um I want to ask Roger Nancy has been doing a lot of research we're working on a Jefferson highway travel guide which will be digital digital publication we're creating a whole new website on that for the guide um travel guide so um it's really focused for travel and travelers um so that you can connect with restaurants and hotels and what to see and do on the highway and just off the highway because you know we all like a good detour right um so Roger Nancy's been doing so much research on the highway in fact it's she's she's kind of gone a little rabbit hole crazy you know how we are about the highway and every few minutes she's like did you know this did you know that i'm like i've got to get worked at Nancy she goes but we need to go back on the highway because all this happened and she said there's some kind of legend between the muffler man and the giant indian man like historically do you know about that i we're gonna do more on this on a story in the future but have you heard about that there's like some there is a following historic following about the muffler man and and things that well i don't you know they are they're kind of you know americana is just iconic so these muffler men you know we have we it depends on what you want to call muffler men and whatever but we have but we have one giant already on the highways that was built in the 1930s and he's the Paul Bunyan and the blue ox and Minnesota and the midge minnesota but these muffler men they were creative for marketing tools a lot of them i want to say 60s was probably the real heyday but there's they just you know for generations people just all they remember seeing these in different places and businesses are on the roadside of america driving by and you know i i don't remember them so it's just i mean when you're driving down the road on here in between near bonita and you and you see these two giants now it just it's just it's like okay we got to stop here well exactly and that's how we are yeah we travel for this kind of stuff a little thing you know when you stop there you don't you you go in and eat at the highway cafe and you're like wow you know this is this is more than just a fun roadside stop this is just a great place to eat and just friendly folks in there and i can't say enough about it and i just want to go on their website go to hi hi hi hi dashwaycafe.com okay and you go on the website and you'll see that their name number six is the best hole in the wall restaurant in oklahoma name number nine the most unassuming restaurant in oklahoma name number nine the best pancakes in oklahoma so now i'm thinking like pancakes i want why do i want pancakes and burgers at the same time like i i think you just got me really hungry in fact i did have to go get a snack before the show because of your photo but it's not anywhere that we just need to go um how how yeah exactly i'm like mix it all together like chicken and waffles yes bring bring it uh bet um having the these two iconic statues of course you got betty boop like you're saying also uh the boy you know the burger boy there um have you seen a lot of people come just you know hey we've got to go see that and then say hey let's go in and have a burger oh absolutely um we actually kind of watch our you know facility and we have visitors that are there 24/7 in the middle of an i'd out there taking pictures we have a we have a car that's on and that's housed on the outside that actually people can stop and use their own sticker to sticker the car and it's kind of um kind of just an attraction a roadside attraction for people to do and people do it at all hours of the day and not traveling the road so um you know i really i really enjoy uh we we enjoy that people um are thrilled to come to the cafe and see all the sites take selfies we have some different selfie spots where people to take um a good photo and we just enjoy um being able to offer it to people and see them travel the roads and um just enjoy their stops along the way it's kind of kind of a flashback to when i was a kid and i just remember traveling with the family and and we stopped it at every um place that had a like a little niche like that my dad was pretty pretty well known for finding some some crazy stops along along the route so um that's just really was my goal was to to create something that's not only fun for people to to see but also create something where they can actually do something i know that's how my kids are they want to they enjoy traveling but at the same time that when they get there they want to actually do something so we tried to make it somewhat interactive as well so so that was the the premise behind it and that that's the thing i wanted to touch back on for those who haven't heard the show on the Guinness World Book of Records a book of world records excuse me um we talk about the 1963 AMC American Ramler that you have and that has 60,000 and 66 you know route 66 right half-inch stickers on the car and that's how it got you know it is Guinness World Record I don't know you know whatever it is world or you know but that's pretty amazing right it was a lot of fun we actually have a jumbo tv set up in the garage where we house the world record car and it's got a time-lapse video that's about four or five minutes you can watch us very quickly putting the stickers on and it shows that eight days worth of work and all the volunteers that streamed in and out over that time we had about a hundred people that came and stickered either one or stickered a several thousand um and so we we like people to enjoy be able to enjoy that as well i'm in i'm in for this i'm i want to come do the other one where i can put a sticker on your car i just have to i've got stickers actually i mean that's going to be fun okay you get you get stickered i like that go to the highway cafe get stickered but now let's talk about roger is like hey Beth has a new burger and it's a jh burger jefferson highway burger tell us about this because it seems like you are having a little spice in that personal announcement yeah i was going to say we are we are we are actually letting the cat out of the bag today so i have not announced this this is something that's i know that's something that we have kicked around and and decided to add a worker and i call it the jh burger that's going to be um you know added to the menu i'm going to make sure that it's out there before the convoy comes through in october so um it will be a jalapeno bacon cheeseburger and it will be served either with one two or three patties depending on how hungry you are see i love that what you've done with the flavors because it's kind of like representing the different regions of the highway too with the jalapeno kind of represents hey you know all oklahoma all the way down south right the cheese starts going more north you know what i mean bacon i think it's for all of us who know good food it's just my opinion i'm just messing with you but you know everybody wants bacon come on but i think that represents the highway pretty good and bacon as a strip of bacon looks like a road so to me that's the perfect you know that's a perfect dish absolutely absolutely we're we're excited to to unveil this new burger and roll it out and and uh can't wait to add uh we're going to kind of have a little bit of a kick off for the jh burger when it gets added to the menu and so we're super excited to be able to include that on our menu as well so roger you're going to go do a taste test you know you are the president of the highway so yeah yeah i uh i've been there several times with death knows i've certainly been a regular i missed the last one but i've been going to first saturday uh of the month's take night for uh several times now and got to take my son there so it's just great but you know i'll be a sample on that and i'm really excited about that you know we're um as we talked about before uh the different food and the diners and the local places but that's really that's part of the the route and that's part of why you want to travel around and i don't know of another jh burger out there so we're we're excited to have that yeah i know you go girl i like this now i like it too yeah the convoy coming through this is um and everyone i'll put the link in the episode notes too for the Guinness uh book of world records or the Guinness World Book of Records uh which had bets on there um and also the man with the longest beard um that was so cool so i'll put that episode link um in the episode notes but also the one for the military convoy um this is like the these are the military vehicles and it's like the historic preservation of these vehicles and then it's a convoy going from Minnesota down to New Orleans which is pretty epic this will be happening the entire month of October i mean people in cars like in in a massive convoy and it's such a huge ordeal of putting this together because i remember even on the podcast when Chuck and John were on there Roger they were talking like hey we have to even make sure that some of these vehicles are okay to go over certain bridges even because of the weight right yeah it's it's a we talked about it's a it's history in motion i mean these guys are this is an historic event for this convoy across the highway so it's history itself but it's celebrating history military history it's also celebrating the history of the Jefferson highway so it's it's just great and uh one of their lunch stops imagine that it's going to be at the highway cafe well yeah that's gonna be cool that's right it's going to be they're actually stopping at me on Wednesday October the 16th if anybody wants to mark their calendar um i've been told that there's around 30 plus vehicles and uh they'll be here about noon wow 37 last night i'm getting closer to 40 oh wow awesome wow so if they're that's amazing so they're going to come down and then so this is for folks can come and look at the cars and that well not they're not cars they're kind of cars but they're not the actual vehicles i mean you're talking about medical you know hospital wagons and all kinds of stuff we're talking about everything's from vintage ambulances to jeeps to military cars um you know just and then it's a big time vehicles that you won't miss when you see those but uh yeah i love it everything oh this is gonna be so much fun and at that point you're gonna have the burger are you unveiling the burger then or before that we will probably do it before that i really wanted to talk to roger i want him to eat the inaugural burger so i will get with him and find out when he's in my area again and make sure i can i want him to have the first one fresh alcohol i love that roger did listen i want people to know this like the jefferson highway association it was 100 volunteer and there's so much work that goes into you know interpreting and preserving this history and this program of getting signs on the route like these historic signs so travelers know hey you're on this historic highway i mean this is a revival of this highway that was started in 1915 and everyone doing this putting on a conference it's coming up in june in where is it going to be roger in your state right aren't we going to you mccallister of home i know i'm just messing with you i know it's mccallister it's i'm excited about that because they have some crazy cool history but i'm speaking of signs we just uh got some not too for our son is going up in oklahoma and um right by the highway cafe we started to see sign is going up now so uh yeah i've got i've got three right around me oh well yeah i think you're a magnet bet um but i think you know roger to have the first burger is is important i mean that's what i was saying you know it's volunteers i think it's so important that we understand that a lot of these associations we're always you know doing things with it a lot of volunteers are just absolutely dedicated and people getting the signs and making the signs happen in their community are often pure volunteers someone of just interest of preserving and interpreting the history of their community so and also and you know looking at tourism you know which is also important and i'm sorry but berry burgers on the highway are mandatory meat pies and knackettish that's mandatory bignet and in new Orleans is mandatory but uh going back to volunteers and looking at giving back can you tell us a little bit about your giving wall uh yes we have uh started the giving wall that's been almost three years now where people can pre-pay for meals for other people who may not can afford a meal we really saw the need during covid and specifically with you know kids that weren't in school for the lunch program and so we decided to to see what we could do and i really initially just thought we would fund it maybe through the summer and um here we are almost three years later and we've fed over 1200 people so far so it's been a wonderful thing we've we've had donations from um i think we're up to 13 different states and two countries that's amazing that's really nice you know as as the world keeps arguing with itself because it is in all kinds of ways across the country around the world this is something that brings us back to that humanity still has good right you know what i mean when you see things like that absolutely yes yeah i love that i absolutely yeah hats off to you to doing that um so steak night is every first saturday right every it is the first saturday of her month yeah and we we do 14 14 ounce rib eyes or bacon rat fillets we we hand cut everything and um we took them on a wood fire grill so it's it's a it's a special night i would suggest to get there early we serve steaks from four to eight and it's pretty much every month around three thirty it's packed out yeah it's completely packed around three thirty people waiting for the steaks to start so um you know and be and be patient when you come so we we do our best to serve we seek 95 people and we go from zero to 95 really quickly so um we do the you know best we can we we turn out a lot of steaks during those uh four hours so my husband is not working with us excuse me when i walked in there last time uh the corvette club of some most all these corvettes from falling into your parking lot and uh i had to get in there from the i had to get in there quickly but before they got in the door that was the talk of that sit yeah they they came up for our last um a couple months ago i think it was and they they enjoyed um a steak night on their way i think up to uh Branson or or something they were going to a another event but anyway yeah we we've really enjoyed you know our steak night we're trying to kind of draw people to a horse northeastern oklahoma and um we love people having visit veneeta main street and and kind of see see what we're doing up here in the theory of the state oh man this is exciting everyone oklahoma is rocking it winnipeg's rocking it louisian is rocking it let's talk a little bit about some of the other states real quick before you go um roger can you give us a like texas that's more steak right texas which what would you say it would be like a good like item yeah there's probably is um you know we have uh um there's just a lot of different culture and obviously you know louisiana has um agin and all the the seafood everything is down in that area that we had we actually got to have some of it in our conferences here first time i've ever had a alligator um was at the conference this year which is surprisingly really like chicken it's like it was pretty good oh my gosh but um you know then you've got um um the the sandwiches uh they're up in uh Iowa and up in that area they uh there's there's just so many different diversity long and out but the diners of america that is something that if we haven't kicked off i hope in 2025 when i can find the time to slow down we started our uh historic logic association but else i want to start a not sure what do i call it yet and diners but it's also going to be eatery such as we got some iconic ice cream places on the route there's one in mason city that's been serving homemade ice cream since 1923 on the route um and we've got uh there's several places like that they're just not what we call diners or just weed places so but you know these are these and your guide we're talking about these are obviously things we want to feature in the guide and uh but this is you know we have you know we've talked about great i can't tell you how great steak night is it's just wonderful you have to you have to go there but uh the other thing that you have to have there is you got to have dessert yeah if i don't know you left that out because uh those cinnamon rolls are to die for great and um they are you know their desserts are equally as good so uh when you leave there you are going to put a few pounds on so just tell us okay yeah because you can jog the highway too if you want you can jog it a little bit afterwards um yeah so yeah so this is cinnamon rolls you have to have a cinnamon roll before you you have to my wife can always spread ours but that's what it seems like popular bit oh you're open pretty much in my right it's wednesday through sunday seven a.m to two p.m just because i want people to know you know to make sure you you know when you're driving there like stay the night and then go the next morning tiny thing unless you're there for a first saturday steak night which sounds like it might have to be a second saturday third saturday i don't know i'm just saying best well my husband would love a reason to yeah he would love a reason to cook so oh that's cool that's cool but now tell okay so ultimate dessert well uh the cinnamon roll you really can't go wrong with that we also have a chocolate caramel cake that's pretty amazing uh we do blackberry cobbler cherry cobbler apple cobbler and ice greens we also um on rotation do um i have a coconut pecan cream pie that's really good a coconut pie um i make a pumpkin pie are you kidding me um no in the summertime we also have a very popular lemonade pie which is something different and and a buttermilk pie so those are kind of the rotational ones but you can always get the cinnamon rolls you can always get um the chocolate caramel cake and the cobblers so those are pretty staple i do that okay you're just one hundred percent dangerous now like seriously we always ask if the cinnamon roll we gotta we gotta make sure they have one so we always order ours with us to make sure we have one we'll see there's a lot of people that do that yeah and a lot of people take them to go so they can have them for breakfast yeah uh i want to think too uh the best is going to have is you know you're likely to see people from all over there i'm not just talking about counties around i mean you have visitors from all over the world they're under 66 so you're you're you have uh all kind of dialects and languages and people find your book from all over it's just really cool just just last week i did we have a visitor log so we asked people to sign the log and um usually i i know the people that are visiting us for the first time so um i actually went back and looked at the book for last week which were just open five days but we had nine different countries that were there so it's it's very uh you just never know who you're going to see we've had celebrities at different times we've like i said you just just never know who you're going to run into and who you're going to see and i actually was fortunate one night i had both Roger and i had Reece Martin who is the president of the Route 66 Oklahoma Association so they were both in um at the same time and that was that was really i had two rock stars in the cafe at the same time it was really neat meeting of the highways i love that i mean remember what night that was it was steak night i mean it brings a little it was steak night oh my gosh steak night yes it was that is cool listen i'm thinking i the cinnamon roll with bacon is that allowed oh sure oh okay i'm just asking i just kind of feel i don't know i don't know i'm hungry now it's it all right we'll see you soon we'll be going through Oklahoma at some point i know and we'll be seeing there we'll be stopping we'll get some sustenance and some sweetness and some bacon some burgers some steak oh and fries oh how are your fries done like are the fries good they're really good but i i will tell you we sell a ton of homemade onion rings we make our onion rings fresh every morning and they're hand-battered with our own little concoction and we have we serve it with a side of homemade ranch so that was the onion ring appetizer is very popular you know nancy's perking her ears up already because onion rings and i was thinking that when i was talking about texas i was like the onion rings i didn't say it yet and i wanted to say onion rings are a thing a good onion ring i mean you just now that that is like the ultimate of dino food and yeah um yes please yes please that oh yes mmm okay well thank you for making us all hungry Beth it's been a delight and here one of those accolades and i feel like we should all bring you things to put on the property we need to bring you america you know can i make one final comment and make sure you talked about an ounce of dais burger we do have one another thing to announce publicly for the first time here that we are uh we are now going to have the highway cafes one of our official Jefferson highway visitor centers um so that will be breaking breaking soon so uh they will be i think the seventh or eighth one on the route now so we're excited about the first in Oklahoma so we're we're excited about that and uh we really enjoy uh Beth and and um it's just a great place to stop that is awesome that you're a visit that's so fantastic and and so everyone just has to go to jeffersonhighway.org um to connect with the highway association to to become a visitor center and and work with you to do that uh we we think we're we're kind of selecting these because we want them to be places where people are stopping and that people are passionate along with us about the future of the highway because those people are going to be you know the ones of telling the visitors and so on about us and uh so uh you know we're we're we're there's not a quote system to become a visitor center we're just kind of about value right being and selecting uh appropriate people to be there that's awesome Beth and and here you are doing it and you have your own burger i mean you got the i mean you got the big jh i know i was thinking you got to have a brand a branding iron so you can brand the burgers with jh on and like that sounds great you can be in the work you also have a sigh of a savory burger is that correct Beth for your yes yes i do i put that on yeah you know you can have a crossroads right there you know your your spouse can have a rooster 66 and you know the other one can have a jh burger so and you can share a pickle yeah there you go i like it everyone again for the highway cafe go to high like hello high dash way cafe dot com and the jefferson highway association do look at becoming a member go to jefferson highway dot org that is the place to learn everything and i encourage you to join their facebook group and and make sure you follow them on facebook instagram also on twitter um but the facebook group is so cool to hang out with because you just see i mean it's just it's prolific it's like every day there's things going on um with you know different communities events murals are going up you know we've got highway cafes putting out a new burger and you know hey i got a new you know muffler man and maybe you'll have a second one who knows you never know it's going to happen in the highway cafe but there's always something going on in the group and it's really cool to see all the communities come together and you know share what's going on and travelers share things um you know so it's it's really cool so i encourage people to go and be part of that group but most definitely follow the jefferson highway association on social media and beth uh keep up with the highway cafe there because she'll make you hungry and if you follow them on social media you will have to go period that's it right beth it's true that's right that's what we're trying to do yeah trying to tempt you with those pictures all right well thank you so much beth thank you roger's always thank you listeners and keep up with us big one radio dot comer here every fourth thursday with our jefferson highway show and as we're saying we are in the works of creating the first jefferson highway guide it will be a digital magazine and a website so can be used on your phone when you're traveling um and also the guide will be really cool to help plan your trip and actually get a good view of where the highway is where it goes some of the you know exciting things you can see and then the website will have more of the nitty gritty and maps and all kinds of cool stuff so we're busy and who doesn't want to be busy on the jefferson highway it sounds like fun so everyone take care thanks so much all right thank you thank you for joining us here on the big blend radio jefferson highway show the show airs every fourth thursday and we encourage you to go to jeffersonhighway.org to learn more about the jefferson highway association or even become a member you can also dig into the history of the highway and share travel notes with friends at the jefferson highway association facebook group follow our shows at big blend radio dot com happy travels
