Runza

Sally Everett opened a runza stand with her brother Alex in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1949. The runza was her family’s version of the bierock, a yeast-dough pocket filled with seasoned ground beef, cabbage and onion that Volga German settlers brought to the Great Plains in the late nineteenth century. Her son Donald began expanding the business in 1966, franchising followed in 1979, and the Everett family still owns it.

Runza is now so Nebraskan that the Omaha Storm Chasers baseball team once played as the Omaha Runzas and the sandwich is sold at Memorial Stadium on Cornhusker game days. About eighty of the chain’s restaurants are in Nebraska. Attempts to go further have had a mixed record: a 1989 plan to open in Soviet Latvia got as far as shipping two hundred frozen runzas to the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture, and branches in Las Vegas and Moline, Illinois, did not last.

Alongside the runzas, the menu is classic Midwest: quarter-pound burgers made from fresh, never-frozen beef, crinkle-cut fries, onion rings, Frings, homemade chili and house-baked cinnamon rolls. In January, Temperature Tuesdays price an Original Runza at the morning’s coldest temperature in cents. Official calories are listed for every item.

About 85 restaurants, almost all of them in Nebraska, with a few in Iowa, Colorado and Kansas.

• Krystal (United States, since 1932). The South’s answer to White Castle: tiny square burgers with mustard and onions. Also built on beef.
• Harvey's (Canada, since 1959). Canada’s burger chain where you watch them dress your burger exactly the way you ask. Also built on beef.
• Fuddruckers (United States, since 1979). The original build-your-own burger bar, with a produce counter and elk on the menu. Also built on beef.
• Kewpee Hamburgers (United States, since 1923). The second-oldest hamburger chain in America, and the one that gave Dave Thomas the idea for Wendy’s. Also built on beef.