A grand slam: Time to update the best eats in the ACC guide

Oneof the most popular concepts ever executed on this blog was the Best Eats in the ACC guide from three years ago. The idea: Piece together a list of restaurants (cheap is a plus, but local is paramount) for each outpost in the conference and bring it together in one place.

Well, the ACC formally adds Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse today.

And as a result, that guide needs a revision. I've hemmed and hawed about updating the last two years, but this time I really mean it.

So between the comments from the old guide, my own visits in recent years and comments both here and on Twitter, I hope to crank another one of these out by the first week of football season.

One place that will not be on the best eats guide, by virtue of it being both a national chain and not really fitting the criteria: Denny's.

You might recall that Denny's is the first restaurant Jim Boeheim associates with the ACC, and not exactly in a flattering manner. And so to build off the fine work of the Fayetteville Observer's Bret Strelow, here is a list of the number of Denny's within 25 miles of each ACC town thanks to Denny's own restaurant finder:

30: Coral Gables (Miami) --- only two in Coral Gables proper

14: Pittsburgh (Pitt)

10: College Park (Maryland)

7: Syracuse! (Syracuse)

3: Tallahassee (Florida State)

2: Blacksburg (Virginia Tech)
2: Chapel Hill (North Carolina)
2: Chestnut Hill (Boston College)
2: Durham (Duke)
2: Raleigh (N.C. State)
2: Winston-Salem (Wake Forest)

1: Atlanta (Georgia Tech)
1: Clemson (Um, Clemson)

0: Charlottesville (Virginia)
0: South Bend (Notre Dame)

So enjoy those trips to the U, conference newcomers. Not only is it the sunniest place in the league, it's also owns the undisputed title as the Denny's metropolis of choice in the ACC.

--- Patrick Stevens

Comments

[AParker]

The Denny's is in Anderson. Like a half hour drive from Clemson. I'd rather see a Waffle House lineup...

[Nick]

C'mon, gotta smarten these stats up. Need to divide the amount of Denny's with each cities population in the area covered. Syracuse area has almost 150,000 people in it - triple the totals of Chapel Hill, Clemson and College Park.

And if you did this list including "The Southern Denny's" (Waffle House) it would be even more accurate since there aren't any Waffle Houses in Syracuse.