When I travel, it’s all about the food. Well before I leave my zip code I am scoping out restaurant reviews and online menus and mapping locations of the cool new (or new to me) restaurants I want to try. Half the fun of getting out of Dodge is what I get to eat when I’m gone.
In my experience, Little House Land is sadly lacking in this capacity. I tend to avoid chain restaurants — with some notable exceptions — and independent pickings are often slim. So I’m always looking for recommendations to add to my go-to list of eateries on a Little House trip. Lo and behold, in a recent story in USA today on the best burger joints by state, the honors in South Dakota went to a place in Brookings called Nick’s Hamburger Shop:
They still fry burgers the way Harold Niklason did when he opened Nick’s Hamburger Shop in Brookings in 1929 on a flat griddle in about an inch of grease. Customers buy them by the bag to go, or sit on stools around a retro lunch counter that has expanded to handle the noon crowd.