Workers at Macon Pies in Washington, northeast Kansas, produce 250 to 1,000 fresh homemade pies a day, delivering their “Little Slice of Heaven” to restaurants throughout the region.

One of the best things about going on vacation is the chance to eat at unique restaurants. Fortunately for Kansans, there is plenty of variety to be found right here in the state.

• MarCon Pies Inc. has been a state favorite since it opened more than 20 years ago in Washington, in northeast Kansas. The shop offers 60 varieties of fresh and frozen pies and delivers to a 125-mile radius Tuesday through Saturday to more than 100 locations. The shop’s Web site claims MarCon Pies bakes between 200 and 600 pies daily. Though the bakery offers the usual fare, it also makes unique creations such as pineapple pie and potato crunch pie.

• Brant’s Meat Market in Lucas has been operating for 87 years. The market is famous for its fresh meat, homemade Czech bologna, which owner Doug Brant said is the best-seller, and smoked link sausages.

“We make things here you just can’t find anywhere else,” he said.

• Salina’s The Cozy Inn has also reached a nationwide audience for its famous sack of burgers, which comes with six, 12 or 24 burgers.

Owner Steve Howard said he loves his job because of the people he gets to meet every day from across the country.

“Every day we get first-timers,” he said. “You never know who’s going to stop in. It’s so awesome.”

Howard said the restaurant makes an average of 1,150 patties a day.

• If you have problems making up your mind at a restaurant, let the Brookville Hotel restaurant do it for you. The restaurant has no menu as it offers only one meal: some of the state’s best skillet-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cream-style corn and baking-powder biscuits. And it’s all for under $14.

Though the 76-year-old restaurant isn’t in Brookville anymore — it moved to Abilene seven years ago — it still offers the same great food and service.

• The Hays House in Council Grove is famous for being the oldest continually operating restaurant west of the Mississippi River. And it’s no surprise the restaurant has survived more than 150 years — its reputation for great prices and fantastic food make the place an excellent choice as a stop along a tour of Kansas restaurants.

• Cottonwood Falls’ Emma Chase Cafe is one of those restaurants that is unequivocally tied to the community it serves, and thereby of a dying breed of restaurants across the country.

Lyle Burkhart, a resident of Cottonwood Falls, said he visits the restaurant two to three times a week for the “conversation, politics and gossip.”

On Fridays, the cafe offers a catfish dinner special while customers listen to a different band each week. Owner Sue Smith said the bands play on the sidewalk while residents of the small town gather to listen and relax in the middle of Main Street.

“I’m part of this community,” Smith said. “I grew up here. It’s kind of giving back.”

• The Bunker Hill Cafe opened in 1974 and is famous as a steakhouse, though it also offers buffalo and elk. It is also known for its honey-baked bread. The restaurant has only 12 tables, so call ahead to make reservations.

• Though it started as a stagecoach and railroad stop in 1879, the Beaumont Hotel has become one of Kansas’ more famous hotels and restaurants. Aside from the Saturday night prime rib and Sunday breakfasts, the hotel has many other attractions, bringing tourists from all over the world.

One of the restaurant’s main attractions, said manager Linda Pechin, happens the second Saturday of every month: the fly-in. Pechin said pilots land their planes on the airstrip nearby almost every day, but between 30 and 50 planes land on those special Saturday afternoons.

• We all know Kansas has a lot of farmers. As the billboards along Interstate 70 say, “One Kansas farmer feeds 129 people, plus you!”

But when’s the last time you’ve seen “grown in Kansas” on a food label?

One Lawrence restaurant hopes to change the usual detachment from food raised and grown right here in Kansas. Local Burger, 714 Vt., serves meat and vegetables only from farmers within 100 miles.

“Not many people are serving organic, healthy, local food that everybody should get to eat for cheap prices around here,” said manager Brady Lewis.

Lewis said the most popular item on the restaurant’s menu is the buffalo burger, made from the meat of local, grass-fed buffalo.

• For a truly unique escape from American cuisine, take a drive to Hartford and visit The European BakeShop.

The shop is owned and operated by Evelyne O’Connor, a French native who met her husband, John, in New York City in 1982. The couple married a year later.

O’Connor opened her shop in 2005 and serves homemade cream puffs, chocolate croissants and dozens of other delectable desserts.

“I’m not a really business person, so I’ve never really advertised,” she said in her heavy French accent. “I started this business because I like baking, and it’s a nice way to meet people here.”

O’Connor said the shop keeps a guest book, which she said has signatures from people who have dropped in from all over the world.

“People are still really surprised to see a European bakery in this tiny, little town,” she said.

She added that her accent probably catches people off guard, too.