The Regional Fast Food Chain You Can't Find Outside Tennessee And Virginia

In the world of fast food, there are the big giants that everyone knows about — places like McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Chick-fil-A. However, there are also smaller, generally regional chains that may be very good and popular locally, yet are obscure elsewhere. We've highlighted nine of those lesser-known chains worth paying attention to, but there are more beyond those, too, including one in Tennessee and Virginia called Pal's Sudden Service.

The first location opened in Kingsport, Tennessee, in 1956 by the late Fred "Pal" Barger. It's since grown to 31 locations, 26 in northeastern Tennessee and five in Virginia. But it's not in a big rush to expand. Pal's doesn't franchise, so all locations are company-owned, and it doesn't build any new ones until it's found a long-time employee who's a good fit to serve as a proprietor.

The stores all operate as drive-thrus only, but on a more human level, as customers give their order to a worker at the window instead of speaking into a never-clear microphone setup. The system is so streamlined that it takes an average of just 18 seconds to receive an order at the pickup window (per QSR). The buildings themselves have the cartoon look of something out of a theme park, turquoise and blocky, with very large replicas of menu items on the building, like a hot dog, hamburger, and fries.

Pal's has a relatively streamlined menu, which Fred Barger intentionally kept simple. The burgers include the basic Big Pal, which features a ⅓-pound all-beef patty, and others with names like the Double Big Pal and Big Pal Bacon. Other options include a Chili Burger, Patty Melt, and the popular Sauceburger, a patty covered with the chain's lightly spicy ketchup-based sauce, and optional cheese or bacon. There's also a hot dog with chili, mustard, and onion, and the quirky Chilibun, which comes without the frank. Frenchie Fries are shoestring fries with a signature seasoning salt, and drinks include a 32-ounce iced tea, as well as two others flavored with peach and raspberry.

The breakfast menu features crispy Cheddar Rounds, which are crispy hash brown nuggets filled with cheddar cheese. Otherwise, you can order biscuits with either sausage, bacon, country ham, butter, or sausage gravy.

The chain puts a huge amount of emphasis on keeping everything running smoothly. Workers go through up to 120 hours of training before they even start, and can even face pop quizzes about kitchen procedures. In fact, it's been so well run that Pal's won a prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2001, the first restaurant to ever receive it. A case study about Pal's and its operating practices is even taught at Harvard Business School.