Barbecue Inn has changed very little since 1946, and it’s got the original menu on the wall to prove it (and from the looks of it, the original clientele, too). The carpet certainly hasn’t changed since the ’70s, and neither has the waitstaff, who will likely call you “Honey” and make you just so happy to be there.

So what do you order at the Barbecue Inn? Certainly not the barbecue. While it is decent, you can find better. What you’re here for is this: jumbo, fresh, juicy shrimp, nicely battered and deep fried, and served with homemade tartar sauce. These fry cooks really know how to walk the crispy line between too hard and soggy. Fried chicken is another plate for the record books, served piping hot alongside some of Houston’s best french fries, hand-cut and well seasoned, with a perfect texture for gravy-dipping. (Baked potatoes are also fun, if only because they come with three-cup serving carousels of cheese, sour cream, and bacon that seem to have disappeared everywhere else two decades ago.) And don’t forget the third element in the holy trinity: chicken-fried steak. This one sits pretty under a blanket of artery-clogging cream gravy. Man, if only Elvis were still alive to see this place. (Check under the carpet.)