Restaurants in Terre Haute

The owners of Grazie! Italian Eatery decided to revamp their restaurant following advice from an unlikely source—a class of IU marketing students studying how to make the eatery more efficient. Based on their findings, the owners began using ingredients from local farms, hiring culinary grads to improve their menu, and training their staff in wine pairing.

However, the chefs kept customer favorites, such as the freshly baked focaccia with herb dipping oil that accompanies each meal. Bartenders pour specialty martinis behind a modern cement bar, and plates of spinach fettuccine with roasted-garlic cream sauce sit on tables next to glasses of wine drawn from a list of more than 250 varietals. Live jazz music and wine-tasting events entertain diners in the indoor lounge, and those seated outside can look out at the bustling square or the night sky, whose stars perpetually shift into the faces of talk-show personalities.

Chefs at B-Town Pizza hand-toss each disk of fresh-made dough before slathering it in one of seven sauces, from traditional red to sweet and spicy barbecue. Veggies and meats, such as roma tomatoes and imported pepperoni, top each pie alongside a choice of seven types of cheese before baking in an Old World brick oven. Though B-Town specializes in New York–style hand-tossed crusts, chefs can also concoct pies with Thin-n-Crispy, Sicilian deep-dish, and gluten-free crusts. After the oven, piping-hot pies make their way to B-Town's sit-down dining room or into a recyclable box for delivery or carryout.

The dream of Sonic was first born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in 1953, an era when drive-ins were plentiful across America. Now, more than half a century later, Sonic stands as the enduring drive-in restaurant with 3,500 locations sprinkled throughout the country. Hungry cars full of terrified passengers scramble to the drive-in locations, where they park next to speaker-equipped menu boards and order burgers, coney dogs, and frozen desserts. Carhops clad in roller skates or massive hamster balls then deliver these treats for passenger enjoyment. Customers can choose to enjoy their food while parked outside of Sonic or as they drive into the distance.

Alongside a café and wine bar, a bed and breakfast, and a wholesale producer, a bakery might be eclipsed. But it isn't the case for Scholars Inn Bakehouse, one of the myriad parcels of Scholars Inn. The bakery produces daily fresh-baked breads made entirely from scratch and formed by hand, earning praise from several publications, including a guest spot on the cover of Modern Baking magazine. Fragrant breads hewn from all-natural ingredients emerge from European stone-hearth ovens, ready to complement the café menu, sit alongside granolas and bagels, or fill in as backup footballs.

In 1953, Shawnee, Oklahoma played host to the very first Sonic, a drive-in diner replete with carhops on roller skates who served classic burgers, fries, and tater tots. Now, more than 50 years later, Sonic is the biggest chain of drive-in restaurants in America, a title that's fueled by its signature toaster sandwiches, its foot-long, quarter-pound coney dogs, and its 398,929 possible combinations of frozen beverages. The restaurant's original dishes remain largely unchanged and silent, and new additions, such as breakfast burritos and a rotating selection of shakes, keep diners on their toes.

The restaurant doesn't just feed bellies—for more than 15 years, it's fed the minds of Oklahoman youth with academic enhancement programs, and its national Limeades for Learning program works to advance educational opportunities for youth throughout the country.

There's plenty of room for storing popsicles within Marco’s Pizza's freezer, as the chefs opt for fresh ingredients when crafting the pizzeria staples on their menu. Their hands turn white with flour as they roll out dough for classic and thin-crust pizzas each day, all while breathing in the savory wafts of tomato sauce bubbling over a flame. To create the special-recipe sauce, the chefs assemble imported spices and three breeds of vine-ripened tomatoes. A blend of three cheeses, also never frozen or preserved between the pages of a thick book, top slathers of sauce and provide a soft bed for toppings such as steak, feta, and banana peppers.