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I went to one of America's biggest steak houses that draws in more than half a million guests a year. The Big Texan opened on the iconic Route 66 in 1960. But by the '80s, traffic on the old highway had nearly disappeared. My dad's business went from a full dining room to two people for the whole day. The steakhouse moved to a busier spot off a new interstate and survived. But plenty of businesses along Route 66 weren't so lucky. Back in the 1940s and '50s, it was one of America's most popular highways stretching across eight states from Chicago to California. I actually grew up right along Route 66 and I think I didn't really understand the historical significance of the road.
Small towns built their economies along the road dubbing it the Main Street of America. Today, some of these communities are ghost towns. There's not much left to it. It's largely abandoned and it looks like this. This year, Route 66 turns 100. So, I drove down the old road myself to learn what made it famous in the first place and meet the people and businesses still fighting to keep it alive. Without Route 66, we would not still be here. All to answer what happened to America's most iconic road and why should anyone still care about it.
I started my journey at Ted Drewes in St. Louis, Missouri where I grew up. Travis Dillon is the son-in-law of Ted Drewes Jr. He's carried on the family business since his passing. Here I am in my 70s and I still hang around here. The creamery opened up on Route 66 in 1941. And it stuck to the same frozen custard recipe ever since. I don't have any goals of franchising. I've turned them down my whole life. They whip together eggs and butter fat for the base. And stir in mix-ins to create new flavors.
There's a certain recipe that's regulated. It's got to have so much butter fat and has to have so many eggs in it. Mhm. I would say custard melts much quicker in your mouth. The kitchen uses this frozen custard to make its most popular item on the menu, the concrete. They say they invented the treat at this very location. Dairy Queen even tried to say they did. But fortunately, we proved that it wasn't. We have some records of it. But mixing a treat as thick as cement takes a bit of a learning curve.
Now, your goal is to push the flavor throughout. And we go up and down to push that strawberry to the bottom. So, you can see why I could spray myself pretty easily. Now, there's a final touch here. Okay. It's spraying everywhere. When you take it off for me. Okay. And you pull it out the right time. So, you can take the lid off and put it in this well back here. And reveal my creation. It's so thick, you can flip it upside down and it won't fall out. How many times are you able to flip it? I don't know. But it depends on how thick it is.
Well, you could edit that. Did I get it on my hat, too? Oh my gosh. You know what? I could be here 50 years, I still make a mess. When Ted Drewes first opened, it didn't serve concretes. And it wasn't on Route 66. The founder, Ted Drewes Sr., played tennis and started selling frozen custard to support his family and career. And so he knew a friend that had a frozen custard recipe and he tweaked it. The business took off and he opened this location in 1941. They said, "Teddy, Teddy, you won't believe it. We found a property right on Route 66."
It became his busiest spot. The police had to come almost every weekend to move the crowds in. In the winter, when ice cream sales dropped, they used the lot to sell Christmas trees as traffic flew by. And 66 still brings them customers today. We have probably one bus a day average comes by with travelers. They could be from Australia, England, Japan. How did you get to come to Ted's Drew? Well, that's just one of the icons of the Mother Road, right? T.A. Brown is biking the whole stretch of 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica.
Reality is this is a ride of a lifetime. It's pure freedom knowing that I have to rely on myself and my machine and you're going that way. He keeps a journal of his trips. What are you excited to see along Route 66? More of a feeling than what to see. It's the sense of adventure. You're going to run into rain? Of course you are. But to do it, you understand intrinsically why people write songs and books about doing it. But unlike T.A., many Americans today have forgotten about the road.
This is a big deal to people outside our country and that's really what's kind of sad is we take it for granted. So how did a highway that's neither the longest nor the oldest become so popular in the first place? In 1900, before Route 66, most roads outside cities were unpaved and disjointed and lacked clear signage. It took months to travel cross-country by automobile for the few daring enough to try it. Then in 1926, the US government implemented the first federal highway system. It drew routes by connecting local, state, and national roads, which were originally based on trails carved out by Native Americans.
It was the beginning of the nation's numbered highway system. Odd digits marked north to south, while even signaled east to west. The longest cross-country highways usually ended in zero or one. But Route 66 broke that rule. It connected rural communities across America to cities, enabling farmers to bring their goods to larger markets. In the 1930s, farmers traveled the route to escape the devastating Dust Bowl, heading west in search of jobs. During World War II, California factories used it to transport munitions. As traffic grew, motels and restaurants popped up to cater to visitors.
The route helped small towns grow into bustling communities. Then in 1945, World War II ended and travel restrictions were lifted. Families reunited and had more time and money to spend. Car sales spiked and millions of Americans took to the road. Road tripping in America came into fashion, transforming Route 66 from an immigration and cargo roadway to a highway of thrills. Hundreds of small towns along the route opened auto shops, restaurants, cafes, saloons, and motor courts to attract business from passing drivers.
You needed these small towns. You needed uh to take a break and you needed a good night's sleep. Here in Tucumcari, New Mexico, Rob Federico and his wife, Dawn, own the Blue Swallow Motel. It's one of the last standing motor courts on 66, in business since 1940. This rotary phone is from the 1940s, and there's still a dial tone. The tile, the toilet, the porcelain sink, all of it's from 1930. Look, you can tell because your hot and your cold water are split.
These type of motels were everywhere. Tucumcari boasted at one time 3,500 rooms. The cars of the '40s and '50s were not the efficient beasts we have today. You didn't get 400 mi to the gallon. You had to watch your water intake. You had to watch the tires and the air level your car. When's the last time you had to take your wheels off your car, pack the bearings full of grease, and put it back on? A 4-hour job. Because these cars broke down all the time and needed so much maintenance, there were a dozen auto shops in this one small town.
You dropped your car off at the garage, you got a night at a hotel, you got a nice meal, and you were on the road the next day traveling. Rob and Dawn moved here from Chicago and took over the motel in 2020, determined to keep it exactly like it was in the olden days. Why did you want to buy it? Being in Chicago, it is the home of uh the sky rise, the high rise. Burnham, Sullivan, home of the original American architecture. We all know a French provincial and Italian Renaissance. What about American
architecture? This is one that fits the bill. So, it was to own a piece of Americana that I'm going to run, maintain, live at, and try to keep the neon alive. Was it sacrilegious for a couple of Illinoisans to move here? No. Yeah. We just went down old Route 66 till we ran out of gas. Right here? Right in front of the Blue Swallow How ironic. The creative director of Cars, Jay Ward and his team, drove down 66 while working on the movie. And based many of the characters and locations on communities they encountered.
Yeah, he came by here on the uh anniversary of the Cars movie. And they've been back a couple times since. We are used as inspiration for Sally's in the movie Cars. 100% refrigerated air. Coral color. Along Tucumcari streets, you can see old gas stations, restaurants, and motels that were built on the road. Much of it is abandoned today. After dark, only some of the town still glows. I was just about to head back inside when we spotted a car all lit up.
Come back. We waved down the driver. See, this is a '66, and that's the year I was born. See, that's the reason I bought this car. And he ended up bringing his whole crew with him. Oh my god, there's so many. Oh my gosh, ask and you shall receive. Oh my god. They customize their rides with embroidered naming, colorful piping, and the swankiest paint jobs I've ever seen. Mine's a 1966 Chevy Impala, and the only thing I've done to it is put the tires, the rims, and the lights underneath it.
Oh my gosh. And why are you out here tonight? Um because we do this every night. We usually all get together, all these old cars, you know, and we just drive around and have a good time. Brings back memories, you know, of our childhood, when we were in high school. Rocky Chavez invited me to join them. Got it. Okay. Can I sit in the front with you? Sure. And I was thrilled. I'm going cruising with Rocky. I'm so excited. Rocky has lived in Tucumcari his whole life and remembers when all these signs were lit up.
Back in his heyday, this whole town was nothing but neon lights. It was so beautiful. I mean, every business was open. We had 2,000 motel rooms. We had 36 gas stations. We had like 32 restaurants. This used to be one of our theaters here. This was the Vista Tire. This was an old steakhouse. That was an old steakhouse. That was a drugstore. This used to be the big bank. There was almost 20,000 people at one time here. We had the railroad, the trucking companies. Levi Strauss used to be here. Driving down this boulevard when I grew up here was so full of life and now you pass
here all the buildings are boarded up. It just There's nothing left, you know? So, what happened to Route 66? In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which funded the construction of interstate highways. Instead of winding roads like 66 that connected towns and allowed businesses to pop up right along them, interstates bypassed communities completely, slicing as directly as possible across states. Some towns didn't even get an exit. So, unless a business could afford a billboard, drivers sped by, not even knowing it was there.
You have to build your infrastructure away from where it's been for 60, 100 years. 10 miles outside of town. Only corporations can do that. They can afford to build a new motel. The small mom-and-pop restaurants, hotels were they felt forgotten. By 1960, much of Route 66 was replaced by I-40, stretching from Oklahoma to California. So, in 1956, St. Louis built this highway, Interstate 44, and this road completely bypassed Route 66. Interstate 44 also notoriously used eminent domain to cut entire communities in half, mostly black communities in St. Louis.
Communities protested the final stretch of Route 66 was bypassed in 1984. But, a year later, 66 was decommissioned. The government took away its federal highway signs and left it up to local towns and counties to maintain and keep its legacy alive. Hundreds of independent motels, diners, and gas stations closed as the route faded from memory. Now, ghost towns stand as fossils of the highway's golden era. I decided to visit one on the border of Texas and New Mexico. But, getting there on a decommissioned road has its challenges.
Drive down Route 66, they said. Some places it gets kind of convoluted. There's some discussion about which routes to follow to really be on the true Mother Road. Parts of it are unpaved, and on other stretches, I haven't seen a speed limit sign. I have no idea what the speed limit is along here. So, we just got to Glen Rio here along Route 66, and there's not much left to it. It's largely abandoned, and it looks like this. This is Route 66 right here. And on one side of the sign it says last stop in Texas. And on the other side of the sign it says first stop in Texas.
This was a motel and now it's completely abandoned. I knew we would come across some places that were abandoned, but very eerie to be in a town that it seems was given up on. The only remnants of Glenrio are one resident and a new smoke shop opened up 3 years ago. This is our little dispensary of a home away from home, I guess. Is it trippy for you to be working in a place that doesn't exist? Kind of. Oh, yeah. Well, time doesn't exist either. Because it's like Texas is in central and New Mexico is in mountain. So, it's a hour difference depending on where you are.
You know, and then it's exit zero. So, it's kind of like it's really just its own entity, its own energy, its own everything. And do you think that you could revitalize the town beyond just one person and one shop? I think so, yeah. I do. Yeah. I'm a part of something that's really amazing. Back in the day, Glenrio grew in popularity as an important stop on the railroad and right by the state line. People from New Mexico crossed over to buy cheaper gas in Texas and travelers from Texas, with many dry counties at the time, drove here to buy alcohol. So, there's a rumor that when I-40 bypassed Glenrio, highway planners chose not to give this town an
exit because they didn't like that people crossed over to drink. This bar here is where the state Bar used to sit. But in 1973, the owner was stabbed and died and uh that's sort of noted as a pivotal point in history for this town because the Stateline Bar never reopened after the killing. Over time, the town's population disappeared. But some places refuse to be cut off. Like the Big Texan, an Amarillo steakhouse that originally opened on the Mother Road in 1960. When Route 66 was bypassed, my dad's business went from a full dining room to two people for the whole day. So they relocated the restaurant to I-40.
And the pivot worked. Now it's one of the busiest steakhouses in America, serving more than 1,500 customers a day. I betrayed Route 66 and hopped on the interstate to see how they pulled it off. Oh my god, there it is. The first thing that stood out to me was just the sheer size of this place. Lives up to the name. This place is huge. And so is the kitchen. They whip up gallons of mashed potatoes, thousands of rolls, vats of homemade steak sauce, and cow balls. We're closer to a circus than we are a restaurant.
Hannah Weeks has worked here for 2 years, and she showed me how they get it done down here in Texas. We do so much volume that we require that we have people here that can fix problems on demand. What are you working on today? Ovens, an ice machine, uh air conditioner. Air conditioner, that's a big one. In this room, they cut hundreds of steaks a day. 8 and 36 oz T-bones and Tomahawks, all sourced from Texas. I just want you to see this rack here. This is all steak. The star of the show is this 4-lb slab of beef, the cut that contenders try to conquer in their famous steak challenge.
The competition has been a staple here since the restaurant's beginning. Back when the Big Texan was founded, motorists traveling through Texas wanted to see cowboys. If you go to Hawaii, you want to see girls in grass skirts. If you want to go to Texas, you expect to see cowboys eating big steaks. So, Bobby Lee's dad put the cowboys from the ranch across the street on full display on a platform in the middle of the dining room. They were rowdy and they were hungry. I can eat more than you. I'm stronger than you. It was the show. It was the real western show that they wanted to see and it was genuine. To keep them there, he gave them 1-lb steaks and dared them to eat as many as they
could. And the place was just a circus, total circus of people packed in there to watch these cowboys to see who's going to eat the most steaks. The steak challenge was born. But when I-40 cut through town, the motorists and the cowboys stopped showing up. Route 66 disintegrates and things got really, really, really tough. My dad's position, he had eight kids. He had, you know, 50 employees. By a stroke of luck, the founder owned a plot of land along I-40 where he sold alcohol outside the dry county. So, he moved his restaurant there.
It's one of the coolest stories. My grandfather shut the doors down at 10:30 at night on Route 66, moved all the restaurant equipment, all the tables, all the salt and pepper shakers into the new restaurant. It was open in the morning on I-40. And the show hasn't stopped since. You are about to witness the greatest steakhouse CHALLENGE IN ALL OF HISTORY. Without fail, every evening contestants show up. Tonight, four guys took a seat at the cowboy table. They cannot stand up, they cannot get up, they cannot throw up or they will be disqualified.
They have to finish 72 oz of beef, plus a baked potato, a roll, three fried shrimp, and a salad, all within an hour. If they do not, they owe the Big Texan 72 buckaroos. The restaurant live streams the event, and people tune in from around the world. If one of our cameras in the dining room gets a little off kilter, all of a sudden we start getting calls from New Zealand or Australia or England saying, "You know, we wager in our pub and one of your camera's off and we can't see the eaters. Can you please fix it? We got a lot of bets running on this thing."
I've learned that the winners of the 72-oz steak challenge eat a ton in the week before to literally like expand their stomachs. And I've seen some interesting strategies. He showed up hungry. He hasn't eaten anything in 17 hours. He's eating it with his hands, so we've got all sorts of strategies here. Tonight, Van Tran lost the bet. This is as far as I go. Tapping out. What's happening? I'm full. You're full? I'm full. With 40 minutes left on the clock, we had ourselves another fallen soldier.
He's sweating over there. He's sweating. But just as things were looking down, right around the halfway mark, Ramon Badilla finished his final bite. Ladies and gentlemen, WE HAVE A WINNER! HE IS THE 10,734th person to finish the 72-oz steak. Do you feel bad? Not really. You can't think too hard about it. If you start thinking, no one would ever do this. all the strategy, but I'm never going to do it.
I didn't have the stomach for the challenge, but I still wanted to try the food myself. I've actually never had Rocky Mountain Oysters, so I can't believe I'm going to eat some cow balls. They're kind of chewy. They kind of just taste like fried something. I'm going to try Bobby's steak, the center cut. And uh this ribeye. Look at the size of this thing. And just tons of sides. My favorite side was definitely the mac and cheese. Yeah. Since Big Texan's lucky move to I-40, the Lee family has worked to avoid relying on a single road for their success.
Well, we'll try this. 6 months ago, Bobby's son, Patrick, started advertising their steaks on social media to draw in customers beyond the Interstate. I posted like one video of like the 72-oz steak hitting the plate or getting in front of somebody. And the video just went super viral. Ever since, he's been filming himself out front, grilling, flipping, and juggling. Breaks up the enzymes in them, makes them a little bit more tender, kind of gets the air flowing around them. Gives them like, "What kind of steakhouse is this? This circus."
Building an online audience beyond the road has helped the Big Texan do better than ever. Over the years, they've added all kinds of attractions, a Longhorn Ranch, the Slug Bug Ranch, and a motel complete with a Texas-shaped pool. Is this really what the West used to look like, or is this Disney version of the West? Disney version. And I don't mind us saying that, because you know, people enjoy it either way. Some Route 66 purists don't love that the Big Texan isn't on the Mother Road anymore. Others say that Bobby, his son, and the 4-lb steaks have kept Amarillo on the map.
They bring busloads of travelers to the town just like the original highway did. It's very American. I'm enjoying it. Culture shock coming from Australia, but I love it. You mean you don't have 72-oz meat challenges in Australia? Probably not. For those that did not pivot away from Route 66, how hard is it to have a business on that road now? It's real hard. You're not going to get rich in one of those small towns. Get off I-40, go on Route 66, and discover what you see the historic Route 66.
Those people are sincere, their product is good, and they represent the old world that way. And it's it makes for a better road trip because it's not about the destination, you know, it's about the trip getting there. And we did exactly that. We avoided I-40 as we traveled to the MidPoint Cafe, located, you guessed it, right at the halfway point of Route 66. This place looks straight out of the 1950s with its checkered tablecloths, old Coke bottles, and pies. Lots and lots of pies. I don't eat pie. I make enough pie that Brenda Bradley started running the cafe in 2018. I come down here, and then I married a different gentleman, and so he died, and I married another gentleman that's from here.
I'm just on my first one, so. Well, I'm 65. I got time to catch up. a pup. But you're a beautiful one at that. Thank you. This year her business has tripled thanks to the road's centennial. They're standing out the line 20 minutes out the door. Wow. That's busy. She's best known for her pies and makes about 20 a day. This is my Elvis, which is chocolate peanut butter and banana, and then this is my chocolate peanut butter.
I tried their New Mexico classic green chili apple pie. It was great. It's not bad at all, huh? It's not as spicy as I thought it would be. No, it's not. It has just a little bit of a kick at the end. This cafe is nearly a century old and Brenda told me keeping its legacy alive isn't easy. This is a day and night job and at the end of this year I'm going to sell though because I'm tired, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm I'm Who do you think's going to buy it?
I have no idea. Hopefully somebody. You can't let it close though. You got to make sure it goes to the right owner. close. I will make sure it stays running all the time, yeah. This is a struggle that mom and pop's off Route 66 face, keeping the neon lit. You're put in a position where if you mess up, the store may not be here anymore. You're a part of a history that predates you by 80 years. Still each of the places I visited continues to draw in crowds by staying true to its roots. I don't want it to ever be corporate and the franchises and chains and trying to be unique and genuine and honest and stick true to the
heritage. You can't do it once a big company comes in. These mom and pop's persistence is the reason why the road's legacy carries on today. There's a lot of folks that are enjoying themselves and living and making a prosperous life on a highway that they said died in the 1980s. Why do you think we should care about Route 66? It's a great chapter of American history. You know, you hear the old stop and smell the roses.
Spontaneity is the spice of life. Take the road. You're not traveling 80 miles an hour. Enjoy the journey. Isn't that what life's about? We live in a world where chain restaurants, chain hotels, and gas stations have taken over the road trip. Wherever you go, everything's the same. And maybe for some that's comforting. But when you come to a town like this, as disorienting as it might be that there aren't your familiar chains, it's very special. Every single restaurant, every single truck stop, every single gas station has a different owner. It's unique. It has a different theme. I think it's so special that still exists in America.
It feels more alive. You stop and really talk to someone. You make friends with strangers. Everything we saw on Route 66 was indicative of the creativity and the color that feels most American. I met an artist in Amarillo making jewelry out of old paint scraps from Cadillac Ranch. I was driving limousines and party buses for 4 years just to pay the rent. And now I don't have to do that. I met a restaurant owner making a name for Indian food down south. We wanted to do something on our own and we found this. I actually found this little place. If you look at our menu, we do like a fusion kind of thing. We do burgers, we
do burritos, we do pizzas, that kind of stuff, but with the Indian twist so that people who are like traveling on Route 66 to get them like in the door. I even got a motorcycle ride. Ready to go for a ride? I am. Thanks for taking me out. Longtime biker Dale Tyra, on a whim, invited me on the back of his Yamaha. I held on for dear life as we sped down Route 66. That was so much fun. She was a very good rider. I was impressed. She didn't fall off.
It's not good when your passenger falls off. You got to turn around and go get them. Even abandoned spots stood out because they felt special. Like this old gas station built from the windows of a World War II airstrip control tower. See, the door is bent to be at the same angle as the control tower windows. Uh, what I would give to see that open again. Why do you think people should care about Route 66? Oh, Route 66 holds so many generations. If you travel from Missouri and go all the way to California, can you imagine the different cultures you would experience?
It represents the freedom of being on the open road. Going where you wanted to go and just taking it all in, God's country kind of deal. There's still some awesome places. You need to go see it. The people that have kept it alive, you need to go meet them. They're They're all cool. I mean, people think it's just a road, but it's not. It's the path to people. If you decide to travel west, take this highway that runs my way, well, it's the best.
Whether it was the food, the businesses, or the people, everything along Route 66 was one-of-a-kind. Runs from Chicago to LA, 2,000 mi along the way. Even a century later, it continues to defy odds and remains, rightfully so, one of America's most legendary roadways. I actually grew up right along Route 66. Had my first job on Route 66. We went to the mall, like, on the road, so it wasn't really this abstract thing in history because we were right along it. So, it's been really fun to meet folks that are biking all the way down Route 66 and families that are
driving the whole thing cuz I think it's reminding me of the importance of this road for American history and that a lot of us forgot that. If you decide to travel west, take this highway that runs my way, well, it's the best. And you get your old kicks Route 66. Get your old kicks on Route 66. Thank you so much for So, somehow I ended up in a car with this lovely man named Rocky. I'm going cruising on Route 66.
