Small Town folks: What is your ‘ethnic’ restaurant?

32 comments

1. 3 Mexican restaurants in my town of 3k, during summer it jumps to 5 with food trucks. Had a decent Chinese buffet until 2020, family went back for New Years and that’s the last anyone knew.

2. We had Mexican, Lebanese, Chinese. Italian if you count that

3. > All Americanized, but still the best in town.

   Why do people say Americanized in this way as if it’s a bad thing. I love Americanized Japanese food, and authentic Japanese food in Japan. Both are good.

4. Does the occasional church/community dinner count? Growing up it was Polish & Scandinavian foods during the holidays & summer festival. Otherwise it was the cafe that changed ownership frequently, the bar, and pizza & subs at the gas station. Town of about 550 people in rural Minnesota for context.

5. The biggest town close to my home is about 1.5-2k people. Somehow we manage to have a Thai and Mexican spot, as well as two Italian places and two Chinese places.

6. We’ve got Samvays Wings and Subs- not currently serving subs due to staffing shortages- which is supposed to have pretty good Thai food. I don’t know if we’re really a small town. Technically we are, but we’re also basically a suburb of a large city.

7. My town is about 2,500 people.

   We have a Chinese restaurant that has been here forever.

   We used to have a Mexican restaurant simply called The Mexican Joint. It closed long ago though sadly.

   We now have a Mexican restaurant called Rolbertos. It is a fast-food place, but good.

   The next town over is still pretty small (20k people), they have the normal restaurants you’d expect (Mexican, Italian, Chinese) but they also have a Cornish Pasty place and a somewhat well-known Basque restaurant.

8. Vietnamese, Thai, or Mexican (real, not Tex-Mex).

9. Can’t swing a dead cat in my town without hitting a Mexican restaurant.

10. We have Mexican, we have Chinese, we have Italian, we have sushi, we have French, we have Indian, we have Greek, we have Cuban, and more in my small town.

11. 2 Mexican, 2 Chinese (one is a buffet)

12. We have a Mexican local chain, a “Americanized Asian” restaurant, and what appears to be a generic Americanized Greek place with a 14p menu, but the only the Gyros and Spaghetti would be considered “Ethnic”.

13. My hometown has a Chinese buffet and a Mexican restaurant. That’s about the extent of it.

14. I’m currently in a suburb of Atlanta but previously I lived in a town of 600 in north Georgia. In this town there were two Italian, one Cuban, one Chinese, and two Mexican restaurants. The Cuban was hands down the best food. And I saw the best floor show there too, I got to watch a college kid from out of town try to the the Cuban couple that owned the restaurant and had fled Cuba, that they didn’t understand communism and how great things were in Cuba and how great the Cuban people have it there. It did not go down like the kid thought it would.

15. We have Indian, Mexican, and Korean BBQ. The only reason we have all of this in a town of around 3,000 is because some genius people with food trucks took over an abandoned church and set up shop. They have a nice setup for an extra 5 dollars they have really nice outdoor seating during the summer and use the inside of the church in winter. Plus we have a normal Chinese restaurant.

16. We have a pile of Laotian people that live here, and one of them opened up a Thai restaurant.

    It’s actually some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had— their drunken noodles are literally worth fighting over.

17. There is a Mexican restaurant and a Chinese restaurant in my town of 3K.

18. the mexican joint

19. We’ve got a very solid Mexican place that does a mix of authentic and Gringo and a Chinese buffet that’s far better than it should be. That’s the list.

20. I have

    Italian run by Italian Americans

    Mexican run by Mexican Americans

    Chinese run by Chinese Americans

    For Chinese and Mexican the owners are actually from Mexico and china

21. There’s that poke bar that opened up in the same strip mall as the Indian restaurant. Their menu suggests some sort of Hawaiian-Japanese-Vietnamese fusion.

22. Chinese and Mexican

23. I grew up outside a town of 400 people and the Hunt Brothers pizza sold at the gas station was the closest thing to ethnic cuisine there

24. I’m in NYC, so….

25. Our small town has a ton of “mom & pop” family Mexican restaurants.

26. Some small cities have great immigrant communities. We’ve got excellent Nepalese, Yemeni, and Greek food. Among many others.

27. Americanized Chinese that no Chinese person would eat at. Or Americanized Tex Mex that an occasional Mexican will eat at.

28. Oneida, Tennessee is a small town in the mountains of East TN. I was surprised to find a tiny Filipino restaurant there. Super delicious too!

29. I’m from a town of 500. The only restaurant we have is a burger truck that’s been built around. There’s a sweet old Hispanic lady who pulls up and sells tamales in the Family Dollar parking lot on occasion though.

30. My town is about 25,000 people, so bigger than what most folks think of when they think “small town.”

    With that being said, we have about a dozen or so locally owned and operated Mexican joints/taquerias. There’s one Chinese takeout/buffet place. And a bunch of typical American bar/grill type places.

    If you include the two neighboring towns/suburbs, you can add every common chain restaurant (Applebees, Texas Roadhouse, Dennys, etc) along with one Japanese steakhouse, a brand new Ramen restaurant that I doubt will last very long, and a sushi spot.

    We have no Indian, Thai, (insert national cuisine here) other than the places I’ve mentioned

31. Probably the pizza place lol

32. We have Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Greek, Middle Eastern, and Italian.