Cliché alert! The best barbecue/fried chicken/soul food/what have you is to be found at roadside shacks with lots of American-made pickup trucks in the parking lot and lots of guys wearing uniforms inside. We here in the journalism business are supposed to avoid clichés, but the thing is, there are a lot of American-made trucks outside Chaps, and quite a few uniformed cops, firefighters, and EMTs inside. Heck, even the customers not in uniform are wearing uniforms: work crews in Dickies and red T-shirts, female office workers in business attire.

But what really matters is the pit beef--that is, the native variety of barbecue: hardwood-smoked, thinly sliced beef, served on a kaiser roll or maybe rye bread, topped with sliced onions and horseradish. At Chaps, it's damn good, and the folks there cook it all day long, to your specification (we like ours bloody). You can also get burgers, grilled chicken, sausage, and the like at this joint just inside the city-county line, but they're all just OK (same with the fries, beans, and coleslaw), so stick to the pit.

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