On 06 Jun 2012 in rec.travel.usa-canada, Neville MADDEN wrote:

My wife and I are planning a three month driving tour in the US,
mainly in a big loop from Los Angeles to Seattle to Niagara to NY to
Florida, New Orleans, GC, Las Vegas and back to LA.

Last time, about 10 years ago, we used to eat at the "eat all you
can for $5.99" restaurants for the main meal of the day. Reasonable
quality food and helped keep the travel budget reasonable.

Looking at Denny's and Wendy's web site this option no longer seems
available.

Any suggestions as what is the best option nowadays.

I didn't think to mention Chinese buffets in my last response, and in a
general sense they're probably your best bet. The better ones serve much
more than Chinese food, too. The last one we went to had some normally
pricey clam dishes (including clams on the half shell), shrimp (prawns) done
several ways, southern fried chicken and a lot of other non-Chinese things,
including sushi and some Thai items. Normal price for the buffet was $12 +
beverage cost. We happened on a 2 for $20 deal. Sodas were $2 with free
refills.

If you're staying in hotels and motels, many now serve some kind of
breakfast that's included in the rate. Some of those offer full hot
American breakfast while at most it's 'continental' or something meager like
a muffin and coffee. A handful (Embassy Suites comes to mind) have a
complimentary cocktail hour in the late afternoon.

Another thing I didn't think of are the big truck stops along the
Interstates. Many of those offer buffet meals all day and all night long,
but not for 5.99. I'm not really sure how you go about finding those -
there may be a locator on the Internet.

Keith