Many Americans routinely skip breakfast, and many restaurants don't open for it. Those that do serve eggs, toast, pancakes, waffles, hot and cold cereals, sausages, coffee, etc. Most restaurants stop serving breakfast between 10 and 11AM, while others simply switch to lunch service, but some, especially diners, offer an "all-day breakfast" menu alongside their lunch and dinner menus.

Eggs are popular, and are most often seen in two basic versions: "eggs with" something and "eggs in" something. Eggs with potatoes are usually seen in diners or roadside restaurants, and eggs in some kind of bread are usually seen in fast-food or take-away places. In the first category, the eggs with potatoes can usually be had fried, scrambled, poached, or as an omelet, and the potatoes will usually be the regional interpretation of hash browns or home fries (pan-fried sliced potatoes). Alternatively, especially in the South, eggs with grits are quite common. You'll be able to choose whether you want to add meat (often bacon, sausage, hot ham, and sometimes a beef steak). In the second category, an egg may be fried and in an English muffin, a bagel, or a croissant, or scrambled and inside a taco or burrito.

As an alternative to a restaurant breakfast, you can grab breakfast food such as doughnuts, muffins (the cupcake-style muffins, not English muffins), fruits, coffee, and packaged drinks at almost any gas station, coffee shop, or convenience store.

Continental breakfast is a term primarily used by hotels, especially smaller hotels and establishments on the lower end of the price/luxury scale, to describe a cold breakfast that commonly includes cold cereal, fruit, yogurt, and various pastries and baked goods along with milk, fruit juices, and coffee to drink. These are usually offered as a buffet, or perhaps delivered to your room.

Many restaurants serve Sunday brunch, served morning through early afternoon (and sometimes on Saturdays), with both breakfast and lunch items. There is often a buffet, or you might order from a menu. Sunday brunch is the stereotypical family event for Mother's Day in May, and restaurants open for brunch that morning will be crowded.

Buffets are generally a cheap way to get a large amount of food, and it's a common way for hotels to handle breakfast. For a single price, you can have as many servings of whatever foods are set out. Mid-range and upscale hotels usually offer a breakfast buffet that includes a variety of breads, breakfast cereals, pastries, eggs, sausage and/or bacon, and waffles. At mid-range hotels, the breakfast buffet may be included in the price for your hotel room. At business-class and luxury hotels, breakfast is likely to cost extra – frequently $25 per person or more – and contain an even larger variety of foods. Usually, buffets are self-serve, but some items, such as a large piece of roasted meat or a made-to-order omelet station, might have a staff person to serve you. Since food can be sitting out in the heat for hours, the quality can be poorer than what you would normally be served at a restaurant that cooks food to order. If you go back for a second helping of something, you are expected to get a clean plate every time.

If you are staying at someone's home, then most Americans eat some kind of toast or cereal for breakfast at home, or perhaps you will be offered eggs, fruit, or yogurt.

Lunch prices are typically cheaper at restaurants than dinner prices, often as little as half per item, although portions are usually smaller. Lunch is most often eaten around noon; it's uncommon to eat as late as 2PM in much of the country, with some exceptions, including the New York City area. Most restaurants that have separate lunch and dinner menus stop serving lunch around 2 or 3PM, and some restaurants to close for a few hours in the late afternoon to prepare for dinner service.

Common lunch options include fast-food restaurants, sandwich shops, ethnic specialty restaurants (e.g., Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Thai), hamburgers, and pizza.

Lunch buffets usually serve American or Chinese food, but other cuisines, such as Indian, are sometimes served this way. Salad bars, baked potato bars, and taco bars are specific versions of buffets, geared towards building your ideal salad, flavored potato, or faux-Mexican dish.

Dinner, also called supper in some regions, is the main meal. Depending on culture, region, and personal preference, is usually eaten between 5 and 10PM, although it can be much earlier in the day on Sundays and holidays. Making reservations is a good idea if the restaurant is popular, upscale, or you are dining in a large group. Around certain holidays, especially Valentine's Day (February 14), Mother's Day (Second Sunday in May), and Father's Day (Third Sunday in June), it will be near-impossible to find space at most restaurants without having made a reservation in advance.

Restaurants that serve American cuisine in the evening will usually serve at least one pasta dish (macaroni and spaghetti are common); some steaks and similar meat dishes that are served with vegetables and/or french fries; and maybe some salads or vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free items.

• Pawpaws (Asimina triloba) are a fruit native to America, with a pale-yellow, custard-like flesh and a flavor that might be described as a cross between banana and pineapple. They spoil quickly, but are enjoyed locally in the areas where they grow. You can eat them raw or make them into jam, but prepared foods made with pawpaw are hard to find on store shelves.
• Okra is used in southern cuisine, either fresh, fried, cooked down as a thickener in gumbo, or pickled.
• Artichoke – widely popular in California (where they're grown) – something of an expensive rarity in many other parts of the country.

• Huckleberries (most commonly black huckleberries, Latin name Vaccinium membranaceum) are widely gathered from forests in the Pacific Northwest and some other Western states and are often used in pies and other desserts. A jar of huckleberry jam is a common souvenir if you visit places where they grow.
• Wild rice — a grain with a very distinctive, complex, nutty flavor that's not in fact closely related to ordinary rice. Cultivated varieties exist, but they're far inferior to what's gathered in the wild by Native Americans, particularly in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, where it grows in shallow lakes. Unless you're visiting that area, expect the genuine article to be expensive.
• Abalone — a delicious, flat marine snail found off the California coast. It grows very slowly, so to ensure its survival, it legally must be harvested by free divers, i.e. no scuba gear is allowed, and only larger and older specimens can be taken. It can be surprisingly hard to find because much of the catch is exported to China, where it commands much higher prices. Your best bet for trying it is to become friends with an abalone diver, though if you've got the cash, it may show up in high-end Japanese and Chinese restaurants from time to time.
• Lobster — two species of lobster are commercially harvested in the United States; the California spiny lobster, and the American lobster from Maine. While the latter is highly celebrated and widely available in seafood restaurants, the former is difficult to find this side of the Pacific, even in California, with most of the catch being exported to China.
• Alligator — you may encounter alligator meat in the traditional cuisines of some parts of the South, such as Louisiana and Florida.
• Turtle — Turtle meat is used to make turtle soup, which is a traditional dish in the Cajun and Creole cuisines of Louisiana. Turtle was once considered a delicacy throughout America, but it's largely associated with Louisiana cooking nowadays.
• Crawfish — something like a miniature, freshwater lobster; it's common around the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and particularly featured in the cuisines of Louisiana.
• Frog legs — the muscular hind legs of frogs are a feature of Louisiana cooking, especially Cajun style.

• Hamburger – often considered the quintessential American food, this ground beef patty on a bun needs little introduction. While it's a fast food classic, it often shows up on high-end menus as well, with better quality meat and bread and often with creative toppings.

• Steak – while Americans don't have the highest per-capita beef consumption in the world (that honor belongs to Argentina), many of them do love their steak, and every American city has high-end "steakhouses." There are a wide variety of cuts: New York Strip and London Broil are popular lower cost options; Ribeye, Porterhouse, and Filet Mignon are at the higher end. Flatiron steak is a tougher but very flavorful cut that's become increasingly popular. "Chicken-fried" or "country-fried" steak is a more downmarket offering often available in diners. It's a thin, breaded, fried steak, like schnitzel or milanesa, usually topped with gravy. The US Department of Agriculture grades beef based on "marbling" i.e. fat distribution and hence tenderness. USDA Prime is the highest grade and steakhouses will usually advertise that they serve it. Most commercially sold steak is USDA Choice, the next highest grade, or USDA Select.
• Omelette – unlike in their home country, France, omelettes (also spelled omelets) are mainly seen as a hearty breakfast or brunch food in the US. They're a thin disk of fried beaten egg folded over with a filling inside. Two common types are the Denver omelette, with green bell peppers, onions, and ham, and the Spanish omelette (not actually a Spanish dish), with sausage, tomato, and cheese. There will commonly be other types available, often including a "house special," or you will be asked to choose a combination of fillings. Crawfish omelette is a specialty of New Orleans.
• Eggs — besides the omelette mentioned above, the traditional American full breakfast typically involves eggs, and many Americans are very particular about how they like their eggs cooked. As a result there are numerous terms for cooking eggs. If you see on a menu, "eggs, any style," these are some terms to use.
  • Scrambled — the white and the yolk are mixed together, and rapidly fried.
  • Poached — a shelled egg is dropped into boiling water, the white curdles and the yolk is warm but still liquid. The lightly poached "coddled egg" that's popular in Britain is mostly unknown in America.
  • Hard-boiled — boiled in the shell until the white and the yolk are thoroughly cooked.
  • Soft-boiled — boiled in the shell for a slightly shorter time so the yolk is still gooey
  • Sunny side up — a pan-fried egg with a solid white and a liquid yolk in the center. British tourists will find this to be their traditional fried egg.
  • Over easy — probably the most popular American fried egg, where the egg is flipped once so the white coats both sides of the yolk, which is still liquid.
  • Over hard — a fried egg cooked longer so the yolk is cooked through.
• Eggs Benedict — common classy breakfast and particularly brunch dish: a halved English muffin with ham or Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce. Usually served in pairs. "Eggs Florentine" is a vegetarian version that substitutes spinach for the ham. Smoked salmon is sometimes also substituted for ham.

• Corned beef hash — not as common as it once was, but still a diner breakfast mainstay: chopped corned (i.e. cured) beef mixed with diced potatoes and fried.
• Spaghetti and meatballs – an Italian-American classic but widely available at standard American restaurants. Meatballs are made of beef, pork, or a mixture of the two, flavored with traditional Italian herbs such as oregano, served over spaghetti noodles with a tomato based "red sauce," and usually topped with powdered or grated Parmesan cheese (the domestic U.S. version of the Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano)
• Cornbread — a common side dish for a wide variety of American cuisine, at its most basic level it's ground corn flour and butter (though it's usually more complex), baked in a skillet until it forms a sort of dense cake, often with a touch of sweetness. Sometimes associated with the South, or cowboys "out West," it's now common in most parts of the country, particularly among African-American communities. The "hushpuppy" common in Southern cuisine, and also regularly offered with fried fish nationwide, is deep-fried cornbread (often flavored with onions, peppers, and/or various spices).
• Chili con carne — typically just called "chili," this was originally a specialty of the Texas-Mexico border but is now standard American food, found in diners everywhere, but not typically found on Tex-Mex restaurant menus. It usually involves either ground or finely chopped beef, though venison is sometimes used in areas where hunting is common. The meat is browned and then slow cooked with tomatoes, onions, herbs, and chili peppers. Its spiciness level varies from quite mild to screamingly hot, though what you get in restaurants will usually be on the milder end unless stated otherwise. Authentic Texas chili does not have beans, but outside of Texas and its immediate environs pinto beans or red beans are fairly common additions. Cornbread is a very common side dish.
• Baked potato — a large, whole, brown, thick-skinned "russet" potato, baked with skin on until soft. The most basic version is just served with a pat of butter, but sour cream, chives, bacon bits, cheese, etc. are common add-ons. "Potato skins" have much of the potato scooped out and emphasize the toppings. "Twice-baked" potatoes are baked, then have the interior scooped out, mashed with butter, stuffed back inside the skin, usually topped with paprika, and then oven-browned.
• Macaroni & cheese — Elbow pasta baked in a cheese sauce. Varies from the very basic instant variety where a package of pasta is mixed with powdered cheese and milk to much more authentic versions where a complex mix of cheeses is added to pasta and slowly baked. More modern variants, which are often sold in modern gastronomic pubs, can include other ingredients such as lobster, crab, bacon, ham and sausage. Many southerners, especially African-Americans, take Mac & Cheese very seriously, and exact recipes are closely guarded family secrets.
• Donuts (or doughnuts), although very sweet, are usually considered a main breakfast food or a snack rather than dessert. They come in two distinct styles: yeast donuts, as the name suggests, use yeast to leaven the dough, while cake donuts use baking soda instead. An old-fashioned donut is a cake donut with a cracked surface and tapered edges.

The US has a variety of traditional salads that are often eaten as a full meal. While traditional American food is often stereotyped as "meat and potatoes," Americans have long taken salad fairly seriously. Most American salads are lettuce-based; traditionally, this would be the crunchy but rather bland iceberg lettuce (except in Caesar salad), but mixed lettuces, often described as "mixed greens" or "spring mix," are becoming more standard.

• Caesar – Although actually invented by an Italian man in Tijuana, Mexico, this is often seen as quintessentially American. It's a fairly simple salad of romaine lettuce and croutons with a dressing made of beaten eggs, Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, and anchovies (originally, though nowadays Worcestershire sauce is usually used as a substitute in restaurants that are not either high end or very traditional). Often chicken or shrimp are available as an option to make it more substantial.
• Chef – the chef salad is somewhat variable, but a typical version will have turkey, ham, hard-boiled eggs, some sort of cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber.
• Cobb – Invented at the long-defunct Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles. Bacon or ham, chicken, blue cheese, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, lettuce, and tomato.
• Greek – Based loosely on the horiatiki salad served in Greece. Feta cheese, black olives, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, pepperoncini. Like the Caesar salad, chicken is often an option.

• Waldorf – Invented at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Lettuce, apples, grapes, celery, and toasted walnuts, with a mayonnaise-based dressing.
• Wedge – a somewhat oddball salad that had a resurgence in popularity in the early 2000s, especially at BBQ restaurants, but seems to be waning. Literally just a wedge chopped out of a head of iceberg lettuce, drizzled with ranch or blue cheese dressing and usually accompanied by garnishes such as bacon bits.
• Taco salad – A fried flour tortilla shell stuffed with lettuce, diced tomatoes, and shredded Cheddar cheese. The dressing is one or more among salsa, guacamole, and sour cream, most often all three. The creation is then topped with ground beef, chicken, or (for vegetarians) beans and/or Spanish rice.

You'll often be asked for your choice of salad dressing, common choices being:

• Ranch – widely popular in the US and pretty much nowhere else, it's a mild, creamy mixture of buttermilk, mayonnaise, sour cream, dill, and chives.
• Italian – this is basically what's called "vinaigrette" in the rest of the English-speaking world - vinegar and oil with herbs - though you'll notice that compared to its analogue in Italy, the American version is quite a bit thicker in texture (due to the use of grated Parmesan as an ingredient; in Italy, cheese is often used as a salad topping but never in the dressing per se) and sweeter to the taste (thanks to added corn syrup). You also can often ask for "vinegar and oil" in which case you'll be given red vinegar and olive oil, and you can mix it yourself.
  • Greek dressing is similar to Italian, but generally a bit less thick and sweet, and with a distinct flavor owing to the use of different herbs (oregano predominates in Greek, as opposed to the basil, parsley, bell pepper, and garlic of Italian).
  • Balsamic – a vinaigrette made with balsamic vinegar, dark brown in color. Its flavor is less sweet and more acidic than the Balsamic vinegar you find in Italy.
• Blue Cheese – made mostly of blue cheese and cream.
• Russian – a creamy and mildly spicy dressing of ketchup and mayonnaise seasoned with horseradish, paprika, pimento, and mustard seed. Bears little resemblance to anything actually served in Russia: its name comes from the fact that its original recipe included caviar as an ingredient.
  • Thousand Island – Russian dressing with the added ingredient of finely diced dill pickles. Thousand Island dressing is also sometimes used on hamburgers (it serves as the "special sauce" on a McDonald's Big Mac) and as a dip (Utah's "fry sauce" is an essentially identical product).
• French – also known as "Catalina dressing", it's an orange or red, variably creamy dressing that's ketchup- and mayonnaise-based like Russian and Thousand Island, but much sweeter than either of those, with almost no vinegary tang at all. As with Russian dressing, it's an entirely American concoction that bears little resemblance to anything served in the country that bears its name.

Small cold salads are often served as side dishes. A few common ones are:

• Coleslaw – chopped cabbage and (usually) carrots, mixed with a vinegar and (usually) mayonnaise based dressing.
• Potato salad – chopped boiled potatoes. The dressing varies by region, though it's usually mayonnaise or mustard-based, or a mixture of the two.
• Macaroni salad – similar to potato salad, but made with elbow pasta instead of potatoes.
• Pasta salad – not the same thing as macaroni salad, usually rotini served cold with a vinaigrette and sometimes chopped vegetables and herbs.

Americans love sandwiches. Delis and fast food outlets typically allow you to customize your sandwich as much as you please, but there are a number of traditional sandwiches widely eaten for lunch.

• BLT – Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato, usually dressed with mayonnaise. Sometimes avocado is added.
• Club – usually a double-decker BLT with thin-sliced turkey and sometimes cheese added in.
• Reuben – Pastrami or corned beef, sauerkraut, cheese and Russian or thousand island dressing, on rye bread. A variant of the pastrami on rye, a Jewish deli classic, but it is not kosher as it violates the Jewish prohibition on mixing meat and dairy.
• French dip – a warm sandwich with roast beef, it comes with a ramekin of salty beef broth that you dip the sandwich into.

• Philly steak – a Philadelphia classic, but available in most of the US. Thinly sliced grilled beef on a roll with cheese. The processed spread Cheez Whiz is most traditional in Philly, with provolone the second most popular option, but in the rest of the country some mild cheese like American or jack is usually used.
• Tuna salad – the basic ingredients are shredded canned tuna and mayonnaise, but any deli worth its salt will add all manner of other ingredients such as chopped celery and/or apples, chives, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, etc. Chicken salad, egg salad (made of chopped hard boiled eggs) and potato salad are also common.
• Italian subs/heroes/hoagies/grinders, etc. – there is a large number of regional names, but they all basically refer to an oval-shaped sliced roll with a mixture of thin sliced spiced dry sausages (typically salami and mortadella, but sometimes pepperoni, etc.), usually cheese, typically provolone, usually tomato and iceberg lettuce, and often pepperoncini. The most common dressing is "Italian" salad dressing (see above), but most delis will allow extensive customization, and most will have a house special version. Many pizzerias that serve heroes offer hot chicken or eggplant parmigiana heroes and tomato sauce-based meatball and/or sausage heroes topped with mozzarella, in addition to the ones made with cold cuts described above.
• Peanut butter and jelly – more likely to be encountered at someone's home, for children.
• Grilled cheese — most commonly cheddar or American cheese between two slices of white bread, cooked till crispy in a buttered pan. Often paired with a small bowl of tomato soup. Fancier versions using other types of cheese, more exotic breads, and additions like bacon and tomatoes are often seen.
• Tuna melt — a grilled cheese with tuna salad added.
• Patty melt — a grilled cheese with a hamburger patty.

See also: Bread and confectionery#United States of America

Americans often skip dessert. The traditionally huge portions given in main courses probably contribute to this. But there are several American desserts that visitors should try if they get the chance.

Apple pie is an American classic. The best apple pie is made from tart apples seasoned with a generous amount of sugar, along with cinnamon, nutmeg and sometimes cloves, giving it a complex, subtle flavor, and all baked in a pastry crust. Pie à la mode means that it will be served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Other fruit pies include blueberry pie, blackberry pie, cherry pie, rhubarb pie, etc. If you run into them on a rural diner menu, there's a good chance they will be excellent. Georgia is famous for peach pie, but it's not too common elsewhere. Pecan pie is predominantly Southern in origin, but widely available in the US. It involves a lot of molasses and sugar and is extremely sweet, but with a nutty undertone. Pumpkin pie is a custard pie with a combination of spices so popular that pumpkin pie spice flavoring (usually cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and sometimes allspice) can be found in the autumn months in cookies, flavored coffee, and breakfast foods. Sweet potato pie and squash pies are very similar; most people can't tell them apart.

Cheesecake is usually in the New York style, and available all over the country, and is another American classic. This is a dense, custard-like pie made from cream cheese, eggs, and sour cream, with a crust made out of crumbled graham crackers, baked but served either at room temperature or cold, and typically topped with some type of fruit preserves, often cherry.

Frosted layer cakes, now appearing at birthday parties all over the globe, are an American invention. Most restaurants above the fast-food level offer at least one kind of cake. Look for tall slices of chocolate cake, spiced carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting in restaurants, and rows of cupcakes in bakeries.

For less formal treats, brownies (a bit like a flat, dense chocolate cake) and cookies are popular available at grocery stores, bakeries, and sometimes fast-food restaurants. Chocolate chip cookies are the most characteristically American cookies, although frosted sugar cookies are also very popular. For UK visitors, what you call a "biscuit" is generally referred to as a "cookie" in America; an American "biscuit" is a round, buttery, savory pastry something like a cross between a croissant and a scone.

Ice Cream is common throughout America. The most popular flavors are chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but a large number of other flavors are also available (the Baskin Robbins chain famously advertises "31 flavors"). In areas with large Asian-American populations, Asian flavors like Thai tea, lychee, black sesame, green tea and durian are often available at Asian-American-owned ice cream shops. Ice cream which incorporates nuts and candy is popular: Rocky road, a classic flavor, contains small marshmallows and nuts embedded in chocolate ice cream; mint chocolate chip is very popular and embeds small chocolate bits in mint-flavored ice cream. "Neapolitan" ice cream has layers of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, and its more authentically Italian basis, Spumoni, usually has layers of pistachio, cherry, and chocolate. Both are particularly popular in parts of the country with large Italian-American populations. A basic ice cream sundae is a scoop of vanilla ice cream covered with chocolate syrup, usually with a sweet, marinated maraschino cherry on top, but other common additions include caramel syrup, whipped cream, and chopped nuts. A banana split is a type of large sundae for which a banana is cut in half lengthwise, and usually topped with 3 scoops of ice cream and sundae toppings. In areas with large Italian-American populations, Italian-style gelato is popular, though some shops may also make their gelato with uniquely American flavors. Italian-Americans are also known for Italian ice, an Americanized variant of the Sicilian dessert granita, comprising of finely granulated ice mixed with fruit juice (or in modern times, concentrate or artificial flavoring). In the Northeast and the Midwest, frozen custard is a popular variation on ice cream, with many cities having their own local establishments serving this dessert. Frozen custard uses more egg yolks and less butterfat than regular ice cream in the mixing process, thus giving it a smoother texture. Frozen yogurt originated in New England in the 1970s, but is now available throughout the country. It is similar to ice cream, but has live bacterial cultures just like yogurt.

A glass of water is almost always free, regardless of the type of restaurant. At restaurants with table service, it is quite common for the server to bring a pitcher of tap water (usually with copious amounts of ice, and sometimes with a slice of lemon) for free even before you order, and for it to be replaced with a new one when it even appears it might near emptiness. At other restaurants, including fast food places, just ask for "a cup of water" when you place your order. But beware if you are asked for "still or sparkling water" when you are seated, because you will be charged for either one and need to specifically ask for "tap water" in that situation, unless you want to pay for bottled water. In some states, bars and nightclubs are required to serve tap water for free.

If there's a drought in a particular part of the United States, they will sometimes make a temporary local law against providing the free glasses of water – unless you ask for water. They hope that by only providing glasses of water when you ask for it, that they'll save water.

You'll still get charged for bottled water and fizzy water, if either of these are available at that restaurant. Also, in parts of California, you may be given the water for free, but charged 25¢ for a disposable cup.

If you're thirsty between meals, there are often many water fountains in major cities. Look for these near the restrooms in any large store or transit center, as well as in parks, government buildings, and other public places.

Traditional American coffee is relatively weak compared to what's typical in Europe and is often drunk "black," though it's common to add sugar, cream, milk, or "non-dairy creamer." Prior to the introduction of the drip coffeemaker in the 1970s, most American coffee was either boiled or made in big percolators. In fact, the classic drink "Americano" was developed by French and Italian coffee shop owners during WWII in an attempt to replicate the type of coffee American soldiers preferred, by diluting espresso with hot water. In parts of the US, especially the northeast, "regular coffee" refers to coffee with 1 pre-packaged container of cream and 1 packet of sugar added in, but this isn't universal and will either be met with puzzlement or a cup of plain black coffee in other parts of the country, where you're expected to add cream and sugar yourself.

New Orleans is known for café au lait, literally coffee with milk, but with the addition of chicory to give it a unique flavor.

The 1970s and 80s found many Americans fascinated by European coffee culture and chains like Starbucks capitalized on this trend, though they often specialize in coffee drinks that are far sweeter and more caloric than what most Europeans drink. Some independent coffee shops adopt the European model, serving coffee in china cups and allowing you to linger, though Starbucks serves its drinks in paper cups. The Pacific Northwest is particularly famous for its abundance of European-inspired coffee shops, with Seattle (where Starbucks originated from) being widely regarded as America's unofficial coffee capital, and Portland not too far behind. Many Americans still prefer their older style of coffee, particularly in the Northeast where Dunkin' Donuts rules. Traditional America coffee is also served in diners throughout the country.

Tea is less popular in America, though available most anywhere coffee is sold. Diners will just have some type of mass-market black tea, though higher end coffee shops and restaurants may have more interesting choices. Asian-style green tea has become quite popular, and bergamot-infused Earl Grey is common. Restaurants associated with tea-drinking cultures will have whatever types of tea are common in the home country.

Iced tea is a popular American drink, and treated somewhat like a soft drink, usually brewed black tea served chilled over ice. In the South and parts of the Midwest and Northeast, "sweet tea" is the dominant variety, and if you don't want it heavily sweetened, ask for "unsweet" tea. In other parts of the country, sweet tea is very unusual.

Iced tea is also one of the two components of the Arnold Palmer, perhaps the only mixed non-alcoholic drink widely known in the U.S. A mixture of iced tea and lemonade, typically at least 50% tea, it got its name from the legendary golfer who preferred this beverage during rounds. In the U.S., "lemonade" refers to a non-carbonated, non-alcoholic mixture of lemon juice, sugar, and water. What the British call "lemonade" would generically be called a "lemon-lime soda" in the U.S.

Restaurants that sell fountain drinks are either "Pepsi" or "Coca-Cola" places. They buy all of their soft drinks from one company or the other. As a result, you'll find Pepsi at Pizza Hut, but never Coca-Cola, and the reverse is true for McDonald's. Each company offers a similar set of options, including lemon-lime sodas (Sprite, Starry, or 7-Up).

Many restaurants, especially those offering free refills, place the soda machine in the dining area. If you order a soda and later want water, there is often a small lever near the ice machine to dispense water, using the same nozzle as one of the sodas. Many newer machines use touch screens to make a selection, and will simply make water a separate listing. These touchscreen machines will often allow for various flavors to be added to the drink selected, such as adding cherry flavoring to cola.

Although the soft drink market is dominated by various versions of Coca-Cola, with Pepsi as the sweeter-tasting runner-up brand, there are some less common cola drinks, such as Dr Pepper, and a few old-fashioned options, notably root beer (which is non-alcoholic), that can be found in most of the country. There are also regional options worth trying, including Moxie in Maine, Cheerwine in North Carolina, and the Big Red drinks in the Southwest. "Cream soda" is something of a catch all term for a variety of old-fashioned fizzy drinks, only a few of which actually contain cream. They're especially popular in the Northeast. In the South, "coke" is often used as a generic name for any kind of cola drink, so if someone asks you if you want a coke, it's okay to answer "I'd love to try an RC Cola, if you've got it." There's also a famous linguistic divide between referring to carbonated drinks as either "soda" or "pop," but "soda" is making inroads on former "pop" areas.

Most cola is caffeinated, unless specifically labeled "caffeine free." Lemon-lime soda such as 7-Up and Sprite, as well as ginger ale, usually isn't, though Kentucky's cousin to ginger ale, Ale-8-One, contains so much caffeine that it's sometimes called "Kentucky coffee". Mountain Dew is a bright green Pepsi product known for its high caffeine content. Some brands of root beer are caffeinated, but the majority aren't. If you're sensitive to caffeine, check the label, ask, or go online to be sure whether or not what you're about to order is caffeinated.

"New American" or "Modern American" cuisine is something of a catch-all term for a style of American fine dining that's been growing in popularity since the 1980s. Inspired partly by French Nouvelle Cuisine, by way of California Cuisine, it tends to be a fusion of a wide variety of cooking techniques applied to traditional American food, and also often infuses flavors from other parts of the world like Latin America and Asia as homage to the diverse origins of modern-day Americans. In contemporary times, it's sometimes associated with the "local food" and "farm to table" movements, so expect to see a lot of seafood near the coasts, local beef, pork, and poultry in major agricultural areas, and whatever vegetables are common to the local region and season. Quality of ingredients is emphasized: expect wild-caught fish, grass fed beef, free-range poultry, wild-gathered mushrooms, and organically grown, "heirloom" varieties of vegetables. In some cases this has caused controversy, for example, Appalachian residents quietly enjoyed a species of wild leeks known as "ramps" for decades, until they suddenly became popular among trendsetting big-city chefs and now can be hard to find in their native range.

See also: Fast food in the United States and Canada

Fast food has spread around the world, largely through McDonald's, and while it has a poor reputation, that does not mean that it is not worth getting fast food while you are in the United States. Fast food is, basically, American cuisine modified so it can be cooked and served very quickly.

See also: Overseas Chinese cuisine

Chinese food in America tends to be quite distinct from food actually served in China. It is generally based on Cantonese cuisine, but has been heavily modified to suit the dominant Anglo-Celtic palate. Chinese restaurants are known for often being open during holidays, and for allowing takeout and delivery. General Tso's Chicken, Fried Cream Cheese Wontons, Lo Mein Noodles, Chop Suey, dumplings (often referred to as potstickers), egg rolls and crabs Rangoon are among the well-known dishes. Many Chinese restaurants in America offer fortune cookies with each meal.

American Chinese food has a fairly long history. It's generally reckoned to have started with "chop suey" houses, but the origins of chop suey, a simple dish of pork and/or chicken, vegetables, and soy sauce, are mysterious, although one common origin story traces it back to the California gold rush, when laborers of all ethnic backgrounds liked it because it was filling, nutritious, and very cheap. From those humble beginnings, the more elaborate types of American Chinese food were developed, and "going out for Chinese" became an American tradition. Chinese chefs reined in some of the more exotic and spicy ingredients, partly because some of them were hard to obtain in the US, and made the food generally sweeter and starchier. Chinese restaurants also developed a bond with Jewish communities since they were typically open on Christian holidays — going to the movies and then getting Chinese food is a typical American Jewish Christmas Day activity — as a result you'll see kosher Chinese restaurants (no pork, dairy, or shellfish) in cities such as New York and LA that have both a large Chinese and a large Jewish population.

American Chinese restaurants range from small "hole in the wall"-style places that primarily offer takeout and/or delivery, with at most a few small tables in an ersatz dining room, to lavish all-you-can-eat buffets. Parts of the US with large Chinese populations typically have Dim Sum restaurants. These are often huge dining rooms where the servers roll carts around with small plates and you can order right off the cart. Doughy, steamed, meat filled buns are the most classic dish, but dumplings, noodle dishes, and various steamed mixtures of rice, meat, and vegetables are also common, and you'll occasionally find stir-fried vegetables such as Chinese broccoli. This is most popular for a mid-day meal on weekends although they're usually open throughout the week.

If you're looking for the authentic cuisine of China, it's fairly easy to find in large cities (Chinatowns, obviously, are a good place to start your search) and in college towns which often contain large populations of international students from China. Many such restaurants offer dual menus of American Chinese and "homestyle" cuisine respectively. If you don't look Asian, it may be assumed that you want the former and not the latter, with the latter menu options sometimes written only in Chinese. If you don't speak the language, you can try just bluntly asking to sample some authentic Chinese dishes that aren't on the English menu, but depending on your tolerance for exotic food you may have to just roll with it when you're given chicken feet, snake soup, stinky tofu, etc. In some restaurants, the authentic Chinese dishes have to be ordered in advance, and may only be available for larger parties.

Another curiosity of American Chinese restaurants is that in many cases the Chinese and English names of the restaurants bear no resemblance to each other. So in Chinese a restaurant's name may be an elaborate, flowery reference to a famous poem or to mythology, but, rightly assuming that hardly any Americans would understand it, the English name will be something basic like "Hunan Palace."

"Mongolian Barbecue" (it's a Taiwanese invention, only notionally related to Mongolia) is another form of Chinese food you might come across in America. You pick out a combination of thinly sliced meat, vegetables, and sauce, and the chef will cook it for you, together with noodles, on a large, flat iron cooking surface.

Although authentic Japanese sushi is available at fancier restaurants in New York City and major cities on the West Coast, for the most part, sushi in the United States has been localized to the point of being hardly recognizable to the Japanese themselves; a common refrain from Japanese people trying American sushi for the first time is that "it's delicious but it's not sushi". While Japanese sushi emphasizes simplicity, subtlety and the freshness of the ingredients, American sushi often makes heavy use of various sauces, mayonnaise, American ingredients such as crab sticks, soft shell crabs and avocado, and even Japanese ingredients not typically used in sushi such as shrimp tempura and wagyu beef, making it "heavier" on the taste buds than traditional Japanese sushi. Uniquely American variations of sushi include the spam musubi, which is a local specialty of Hawaii; the sushi burrito, a hybrid between a sushi and a burrito that was invented in San Francisco; California rolls, spider rolls, volcano rolls and numerous other unique and creative combinations.

Most Japanese restaurant in the U.S. are operated by Thais, so you can often find Thai-influenced sushi flavours such as tom yum.

Native American food is delicious and nutritious, but you're very unlikely to find it in any restaurants. If you're curious to sample it, a better idea is to seek out local powwows. Many dishes use ingredients from the Three Sisters: squash, corn, and beans. Frybread and succotash are two fairly well known dishes. As Native Americans are not a homogeneous group, cuisines differ significantly between tribes. Beware if you are a picky eater, as many Native American cuisines make use of ingredients that most other people would consider exotic.

Many reservations, among them the Navajo Nation, prohibit alcoholic drinks.

While delicatessens with Jewish owners may or may not be kosher, those run by non-Jews typically are not. Classic Jewish deli items that are well-known to Americans include pastrami, corned beef, brisket or (beef) tongue on rye bread, latkes (potato pancakes) and matzo ball soup. Any restaurant that serves kosher food will be officially certified and will have a sticker of kosher supervision in its window. Traditional European-style kosher restaurants are found in cities with large Jewish populations: this is generally traditional Central and Eastern European food (schnitzel, potatoes, etc.) with no pork or shellfish, and dairy products eliminated or substituted. For example, schmaltz, i.e. clarified chicken fat, is a traditional butter substitute. In cities with large numbers of kosher-observant Jews, vegetarian restaurants are also frequently kosher certified. These cities also may have restaurants featuring kosher versions of other ethnic cuisines, such as Chinese and Mexican. As most American Jews are of Ashkenazi extraction, this is largely reflected in American Jewish cuisine; Levantine dishes such as falafel, shawarma and hummus that are part of the cuisines of Israel and neighboring Arab countries are popular, but specifically Sephardic and Mizrachi cuisine is uncommon in America.

Halal food is quite widely available in major cities. Middle Eastern places, especially if they're owned by Muslims, are often halal, but they don't always specifically advertise it; it never hurts to ask if it's important to you. The Halal Guys started as a New York City food truck and is now a nationwide chain of halal fast food restaurants. Most halal food will be Middle Eastern or Americanized Middle Eastern, but in large cities you may find other food such as Indonesian, Indian/Pakistani, North African, West African or Muslim Chinese that is also halal.

African-American cuisine is intertwined with the cuisine of the Deep South, with influences from African, European, and Native American cuisines. This style of cooking is known as "soul food". Some signature African-American dishes include sweet cornbread, black-eyed peas, macaroni and cheese, fried okra and fried chicken and waffles. Restaurants serving soul food can be found not only in the South but also in Northern cities with large African-American populations.

Diners are a classic piece of Americana, seen in countless films, TV shows, and even classic American art. They've somewhat fallen by the wayside in favor of fast food and fast-casual chains, but are still found in the middle of big cities, in the suburbs, and out in the country near well-traveled highways, a few still bearing the classic sign from a less literate era that simply says "EAT" in large letters. A few chains, particularly Denny's and Waffle House, have standardized the diner experience, but in most parts of the country independently owned diners are still common.

They're generally relatively inexpensive and specialize in classic American fare — hamburgers, sandwiches, steak & potatoes, etc. Typically they will have some pies and cakes available for dessert. Most have fairly extensive breakfast menus. If you want to sit at a table, the waitstaff will usually seat you, or there is usually a counter near the front where you can seat yourself.

Diners in the Northeast are very often run by Greek-Americans, so if there are Greek items on the menu, they are often good choices. While it's not universally true, Northeastern diners are also famous for having enormous menus with traditional American, Italian-American, Greek, and even Mexican food.

Tipping is customary in any restaurant that has table service. Remember that waitstaff are generally paid very low wages (well below the general minimum wage) and are expected to earn most of their income from tips. 15% of the bill was historically the typical tip, but 20% is more common nowadays. For very cheap meals, most people tip at least $2, even if that works out to more than 20%. Bartenders typically get 20% of the bill, or if you're paying per drink, $1-2 per drink (though if you order something very expensive, a commensurate tip is expected). Some restaurants will add a "service charge" to the bill, particularly for large parties. If one appears on your bill, you don't have to tip. In some more progressive areas, a handful of restaurants are experimenting with paying the staff a living wage and eliminating tips. You're unlikely to run into one, but if you do, it will generally be indicated on the menu that you don't need to tip.

Buffets are something of a gray area, since while staff doesn't take orders or bring out food, they still clean the tables and usually bring you drinks. 10% is a common tip amount at a buffet.

In any establishment where you order and receive your food at a counter (other than counter seating in a diner), tipping is entirely optional. Sometimes staff will be allowed to put out a tip jar, and while a buck or two in the tip jar is certainly appreciated, it's not required. Many customers will simply, if they receive coins with their change, put the coins in the tip jar. Likewise, you generally do not need to tip if ordering takeaway, even from a restaurant that otherwise provides table service to sit-down diners.

If you're ordering food for delivery, you're also expected to tip your driver. If the driver is employed by the restaurant itself, as with many pizzerias and Chinese takeouts, a couple of dollars cash upon delivery should suffice. However, if you're using one of the app-based food delivery services such as GrubHub, DoorDash, or Postmates that have proliferated in the U.S., the rules are a bit different. In those cases, the three most important things for you as a customer to remember are that tipping is done in advance, that drivers are free to decline to accept any order for any reason, and most importantly, that the app tells the driver in advance how much you've tipped him or her. In practice, this means that those who don't pre-promise an appropriate tip regularly experience long delays in receiving their food, or even outright cancellation of their order, due to lack of any driver willing to deliver it. Generally speaking, $3 is about the lowest you can go without worrying about problems with your delivery (GrubHub itself recommends $5 or 20% of the meal price, whichever is more). As usual, if you're in an expensive locale like New York City, round upward accordingly.