Nick Tahou Hots

The originator of the Garbage Plate, Rochester's most famous culinary contribution: a styrofoam plate loaded with macaroni salad, home fries, and your choice of protein (hot dogs, hamburgers, white hots), blanketed in Nick's proprietary meat sauce and finished with mustard, onions, and hot sauce. It is excessive, it is filling, it costs under ten dollars, and it tastes exactly as good at 2am after a night out as you'd expect. Nick Tahou's opens at 6am and the kitchen runs all day and deep into the night, serving the same counter-service menu it has since 1918. Go at least once.

320 West Main Street. Open daily, long hours.

eating out restaurant
A story
The Garbage Plate was invented by Nick Tahou Sr. in 1918, when a group of late-night factory workers asked for "a plate with all the garbage on it." The name stuck, and so did the dish. Nick Tahou's trademarked the name "Garbage Plate" — other Rochester joints sell "Trash Plates" or similar — but the original remains the benchmark.

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