Delgadillo's Snow Cap Drive-In

Seligman, Arizona

Travelers praise the Snow Cap's burgers, malts, and fish tacos, but the place is best-known as Ground Zero for Route 66 road food pranks. It opened in 1953, and the comedy developed over time thanks to owner Juan Delgadillo, a practical jokester who turned the eatery and its menu items into a running series of gags.

Signs advertise "Cheeseburger with Cheese," "Dead Chicken," and "Sorry, We're Open." There's a fake door to get inside, and another door with fake doorknobs. The Snow Cap's slightly used napkins and sucky straws are comedy staples, and customers are routinely sprayed with colored yarn from ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles. It's all from the "harmless joshing" school of comedy, and anyone who just wants a burrito should probably go somewhere else.

John, son of Juan, serves up another over-the-counter gag.

The Sno Cap is revered by Mother Road devotees for another reason: while sitting under its awning -- perhaps contemplating the air-conditioned comedy outhouse in the Snow Cap's garden -- Angel Delgadillo, Juan's younger brother, decided he would lead the fight to save Route 66.

Juan is long gone, but his jokes survive, carried on by condiment-squirting younger generations of the Delgadillo family.