New menu items at Upstate Tavern enable guests to take a multi-city road trip around Upstate New York, all without ever leaving the restaurant.

The items—part of a promotion dubbed “Upstate Tavern Road Trip”—spotlight different regional delicacies from cities across Upstate New York. Chef de Cuisine Yolanda Lee said that while the special dishes aren’t exact replicas of the regional delights they represent, they are loose interpretations designed to make diners feel transported for a night.

“Our name is ‘Upstate Tavern,’ so we really wanted to spotlight different foods from different regions around upstate,” Yolanda said. “There are so many dishes that are unique to one or two places, so we had plenty of material to choose from.”

The first stop on the road trip was Utica.

For that spotlight, Yolanda and her team incorporated their spin on Chicken Riggies into a hoagie sandwich, which they served with a side of Utica Greens (Upstate Tavern-style). Each road trip highlight lasts two months. 

The next special, which guests can order now through the end of May, spotlights Binghamton and the famous Spiedie Rod skewer. Instead of featuring chicken, which is how a Spiedie Rod is usually prepared, the Road Trip special features beef, and it comes with pita bread and a side of beer-cheese macaroni and cheese.

According to Yolanda, even the mac-and-cheese is a reference to regional culture; Binghamton is home to a mac-and-cheese festival every year.

The remaining Road Trip specials will spotlight cuisine from Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Albany.

Yolanda said she can’t reveal what these dishes will be just yet, but she noted that the Syracuse dish likely will revolve around Hofmann Hot Dogs, and the Rochester dish will be Upstate Tavern’s own version of a Garbage Plate.

The Upstate Tavern team is also working with the Opals team to come up with Road Trip desserts to accompany each dish. For Utica, the dessert was a Half-Moon Cookie sundae, a tribute to the popular half-moon cookie in and around the Utica area. For Binghamton, the dessert is a Nutella crepe—a nod to the local delicacy of crepes.

“The more creative we can be with these dishes, the better,” Yolanda said. “The way I see it, these kinds of culinary specials are exactly why working here is fun.”