Bill Brasky knows what's up. This is a weird thing in Northeast Texas, and it's absolutely fucking awful. I once had a hearing in Gilmer, and @Brisketexan told me to go to Gilmer's after my hearing and grab some hot links for lunch. I think I finished two before deciding I'd prefer just to drive through a McDonald's off I-30 on my way back to Dallas. I only just made it to I-30 before I had to have the most unholy out-both-ends experience of my life. That poor McDonald's bathroom.
Fucking never again.*
But that raises a bigger issue: food in small or medium-sized Texas towns sucks ass. Perhaps there was a time when there were restaurants in small towns that used fresh ingredients that were locally sourced in traditional recipes to come up with some fantastic shit. But those days are in the past. Now, it's much cheaper/easier to used canned or frozen ingredients, and everyone in small-town restaurants does. And absolutely none of the recipes are any good when you use inferior ingredients.
It has to be noted, too, that our palettes have changed. Stuff that we thought was good 40 years ago now seems bland, uninteresting, and mundane. It's even worse when you use canned green beans rather than fresh, or when you use pre-formed frozen hamburger patties. But that's all you're going to get outside the major metropolitan areas.
* Speaking here both of eating Pittsburg hot links and of taking Brisket's advise on eateries.