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What is a Garbage Plate?

It is the dish this channel is named after, and if you have never had one, here is the whole thing. A Garbage Plate is two sides on the bottom, meat on top of them, a spiced meat sauce poured over the lot, then raw onions and mustard, with bread and butter on the side. It comes from one restaurant in Rochester, New York, it has a federal trademark, and that trademark is why everywhere else in this city sells you a trash plate instead. Nobody eats one with a plan.

Everything on this page names where it came from and the day it was read, which is how the rest of this site handles a price and is the only honest way to handle a history. Where we could not source something, it is not here, and there is a list further down of exactly what that means.

A Garbage Plate at Nick Tahou Hots: two split white hot dogs lying across home fries and macaroni salad, buried under a layer of crumbled brown meat sauce with chopped raw onion and a line of yellow mustard through it. Two slices of white Italian bread lie on the rim of the plate and a fork rests on the right.
This is the thing itself, photographed at Nick Tahou Hots on June 28, 2025. Two white hots on home fries and macaroni salad, hot sauce poured over the lot, raw onion and mustard on top, bread and butter on the side. Photograph by Paul Lowry, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

What is actually on one

There is no fixed recipe, which is the first thing to understand about it. A plate is assembled to order out of a short list of parts, and the list below is Nick Tahou Hots' own: every item on it is a box you tick on the order form the restaurant publishes for phone and fax orders.

1 2 3 4 5 6

  1. Two sides, on the bottom

    Macaroni salad, home fries, french fries or baked beans. Those four are the whole list on Nick Tahou Hots' order form and you tick the ones you want. Two is the number, and two Rochester, NY kitchens say so in writing: Steve T. Hots & Potatoes prints "Choice of 2 with plates", and Bill Gray's describes its plates as served over 2 side orders. Macaroni salad and home fries is the pair most people mean when they say a plate.

  2. The meat, on top of the sides

    Cheeseburger, hamburger, red hot dog, white hot dog, italian sausage, chicken tender, fried ham, fish fry, grilled cheese, or the veggie plate. Ten choices on the order form, and the red and white hots are a Rochester, NY distinction rather than a typo: a white hot is a pale pork, beef and veal dog that is a local thing in its own right.

  3. Hot sauce, poured over the lot

    The order form calls it Nick's Hot Sauce and it is the thing that makes the plate a plate rather than a tray of sides. It is a loose spiced ground meat sauce, and it goes over the whole plate rather than on one part of it. Fairport Hots is famous, in its own words, for its "Homemade Meat Hot Sauce", which tells you where the argument is around here.

  4. Chopped raw onions

    A tick box on Nick Tahou Hots' order form, and standard unless you say otherwise. Steve T. Hots & Potatoes puts it beyond doubt on its own menu: "On plates, everything includes: Hot Sauce, Mustard, Onions".

  5. Mustard

    The other tick box, and the other third of that same Steve T. line. Yellow mustard, striped over the top.

  6. Bread and butter, on the side

    Italian bread, buttered. Steve T. Hots & Potatoes says its plates are "Served with Italian Bread or Rolls", and Visit Rochester says a plate is usually served with a side of buttered bread. Alex Tahou's account of the original hots and potatoes has two pieces of Italian bread and butter on it as well, so this is the part of the dish that never changed.

Drawn rather than photographed, because a drawing can be cut open and labeled and a photograph cannot. The order is bottom to top and it matters: the sauce goes over everything, which is what makes it a plate and not a tray of sides. Read off Nick Tahou Hots' own printable order form on August 20, 2026, plus Visit Rochester's description of what a traditional plate is.
A Garbage Plate seen from above on a plate whose blue rim reads NICK TAHOU and, along the bottom, HOME OF THE GARBAGE PLATE. Baked beans, macaroni salad and chunky home fries are arranged around the edge; a mound of crumbled meat sauce and chopped onion sits in the middle over a split red hot dog.
Three of the four sides in one frame, photographed in 2007: home fries, macaroni salad and baked beans. The order form lists those three and french fries, and you tick two. Photograph by Eugene Peretz, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Two Garbage Plates on a red cafeteria tray, one behind the other. The plate at the back carries split red hot dogs under the meat sauce; the one at the front carries pale white hots. Both sit on the same home fries and macaroni salad. A slice of Italian bread on its own plate and a cup of water stand beside them.
Two plates on one tray, which is the quickest way to see that the meat is a choice and not part of the recipe: red hots at the back, white hots at the front, everything underneath them the same. Photograph by Paul Lowry, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Where it came from

Told in the order it happened, with the source for every claim on the claim itself. Two of these are primary: a federal trademark file, and the restaurant's own order form.

  1. 1918

    A hot dog stand on West Main Street

    Nick Tahou Hots dates itself to 1918, and it is the restaurant itself saying so: the front page of its own site carries the line "A Rochester tradition since 1918!" and not much else. The shop was called West Main Texas Hots before it was called anything else.

    A large painted sign on the brick wall inside Nick Tahou Hots. It reads NICK TAHOU HOTS in blue over a drawing of a steaming plate of hot dogs, beans and bread, then in script "Home of the Garbage Plate", then Established 1918 in red. A red LED display on the left reads 5 MILLION.
    The 1918 date, on the restaurant's own wall in 2007. This page dates the shop and not the dish, and this is one of the two places the business states the shop's date about itself. Photograph by Eugene Peretz, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Source: Nick Tahou Hots, garbageplate.com. Read August 20, 2026.

  2. Who founded it

    The one fact the sources disagree about

    Nick Tahou Hots' own site quotes Wikipedia saying the restaurant "was founded by its namesake, Nick Tahou, who died in 1997 after running the establishment for over 50 years". Wikipedia's article today says something different: that Alexander Tahou, a Greek immigrant, founded it in 1918 and named it for his son Nick. Both cannot be right, and a business quoting an encyclopedia about its own founder is not the same as a business stating it. This page prints the disagreement rather than picking a winner.

    Source: Nick Tahou Hots, garbageplate.com. Read August 20, 2026.

  3. The original

    It was hots and potatoes, and the beans were cold

    The dish did not start as a Garbage Plate and did not start with most of what is on one now. Alex Tahou, the founder's grandson, described the original to Tasting Table in 2024.

    The original plate was hot dogs called hots and potatoes. It was hot dogs, home fries, cold beans, not hot, and two pieces of Italian bread and butter

    Alex Tahou

    Source: Tasting Table, "The Rochester Garbage Plate Is A Delicious Hot Mess", Robyn Song, March 9, 2024. Read August 20, 2026.

  4. 1963 and 1968

    The restaurant moved into a railroad station

    The building at 320 West Main Street was never built to be a restaurant. The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum records that its oldest part went up in 1877 as offices for the Pitkin Building and Monumental Steam Stone Works, that the railroad bought it in 1881 and expanded it into a passenger terminal, and that the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh became part of the Baltimore & Ohio system in 1932. Tahou bought the station in September 1963 for $43,000, and the move down the block waited until the original shop was demolished in 1968.

    Looking east along West Main Street in Rochester, NY on an overcast day. On the left stands a long red brick building with steep gables and tall arched windows, a hanging sign on it reading NICK TAHOU. A green railroad bridge crosses the road ahead and downtown towers stand behind it.
    The building from the street in 2008. The brick block on the left is the old passenger terminal the restaurant moved into, gables and arched windows and all, and the railroad bridge beyond it is the rest of the reason it is there. Photograph by Doug Kerr, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Source: Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum, "Nick Tahou and the BR&P Connection", Otto M. Vondrak, March 4, 2021. Read August 20, 2026.

  5. The name

    College kids named it, and the family fought it

    Nobody at the restaurant chose the word. Students coming out of the bars would point at somebody else's dinner and order it by description, and the description stuck hard enough that the family gave up and put it on the sign.

    Guys would come in after drinking, and they'd see somebody that had a plate, have no idea what it was, and just say, give me a plate with all that garbage on it

    Alex Tahou
    Inside Nick Tahou Hots in 2025. Two customers stand with their backs to the camera at a long blue counter under strip lighting; a member of staff faces them across it. A yellow menu board hangs overhead and a sign on the left wall reads NICK TAHOU HOTS above a drawing of a plate.
    The counter, in 2025. Every order here is said out loud across it, which is how a description of somebody else's dinner ended up being the name of the dish. Photograph by Paul Lowry, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Source: Tasting Table, "The Rochester Garbage Plate Is A Delicious Hot Mess", Robyn Song, March 9, 2024. Read August 20, 2026.

  6. 1991 to 1992

    GARBAGE PLATE became a federal trademark

    This is the part of the story that is written down in a government file rather than retold, and the dates in that file are worth having exactly right. Nick Tahou Hots, Inc. of 320 West Main Street filed for the mark GARBAGE PLATE on July 29, 1991. It registered on August 18, 1992 as registration number 1,708,448 on the Principal Register, in class 029, and it is still live: the record shows the registration has been renewed.

    prepared entrees consisting primarily of one of the following, hot dogs without buns, hamburgers without buns, steak, pork chops, sausage, ham, fish or eggs and processed potatoes and processed beans

    the registration's own description of the goods
    A Garbage Plate held on somebody's lap outdoors on grass. The plate's blue rim reads NICK TAHOU HOTS along the top and, along the bottom, HOME OF THE GARBAGE PLATE. On it are a split red hot dog, home fries, macaroni salad, meat sauce, chopped onion and a heavy pour of ketchup.
    The mark, printed around the rim of the plate it belongs to, in May 2005. The photographer released this one into the public domain, so it is the only picture on this page that carries no conditions at all. Photograph by Wikimedia Commons user Evadb, released into the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office, TSDR record for serial 74189085. Read August 20, 2026.

  7. Ever since

    Which is why everybody else sells a trash plate

    One restaurant owns the name, so every other kitchen in Rochester, NY serving the same idea calls it something else. Trash plate, Rochester plate, sloppy plate, junkyard plate at dogTown, and at the vegan place, a compost plate. The dish is nobody's property and the two words are, which is the whole reason the menus around here read like a thesaurus. Alex Tahou put the position plainly in 2024.

    We're trademarked, and we're still the only garbage plate

    Alex Tahou

    Sources: Tasting Table, "The Rochester Garbage Plate Is A Delicious Hot Mess", Robyn Song, March 9, 2024; United States Patent and Trademark Office, TSDR record for serial 74189085; dogTown Hots, its own menu. Read August 20, 2026.

  8. 2017

    The baseball team renamed itself after it

    For one home game on August 10, 2017 the Rochester Red Wings played as the Rochester Plates, in caps and jerseys with a Garbage Plate on them. 13WHAM carried the announcement five weeks out and Spectrum News NY1 filed from the ballpark on the night, which is how this page knows the game was played and not just planned. Their general manager Dan Mason told 13WHAM why, and it is as good a one line summary of the dish's standing in this city as anybody has managed.

    There is nothing more Rochester than the Garbage Plate. There isn't another food item that Rochesterians are more proud of or that is more celebrated in our city than the Garbage Plate and we can't wait to take the field as the Plates!

    Dan Mason, Red Wings general manager

    Sources: 13WHAM, "Rochester Red Wings to become the Rochester Plates to honor the Garbage Plate", July 4, 2017; Spectrum News NY1, "Red Wings serve up history as Rochester Plates", August 10, 2017. Read August 20, 2026.

What this page does not know

A short sourced history beats a long plausible one. These are the things that get repeated about the Garbage Plate that could not be sourced on August 20, 2026, so they are not stated above. They are written down here rather than left out silently, so nobody has to research them twice.

Where to eat one

This is a list and not a ranking. Nick Tahou Hots is first because it is where the dish comes from and it holds the trademark, which is a matter of record rather than an opinion about dinner; everything after it is in alphabetical order. Nobody here paid to be on it and there are no affiliate links on this site.

A place goes on this list only if its OWN site or its OWN online menu says it serves a plate. Being called great on a food blog is not evidence that a kitchen still makes one, and a listing site saying so is worth even less.

  1. The corner of Nick Tahou Hots' red brick building. A hand-painted board high on the wall carries a Coca-Cola logo and reads NICK TAHOU, PARKING IN REAR OF BUILDING, with a green arrow. Below it a boarded-up window carries a LOTTO sign. A Rochester Heritage Trail marker stands at the curb on the left.
    320 West Main Street, June 2025. Photograph by Paul Lowry, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Nick Tahou Hots

    The original

    Calls it: Garbage Plate

    Where it comes from and the only kitchen on earth entitled to those two words. It is in the old Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh railroad terminal, a block from Frontier Field, and it has been on this street since 1918.

    Where
    320 W. Main St., Rochester, NY 14608
    Phone
    585-436-0184
    Open
    Not confirmed. Their own site publishes none, and it has not been updated since 2021. Call before you go.

    The second location on West Henrietta Road is gone. Their own site lists West Main and nothing else.

    garbageplate.com Order form

  2. A Bill Gray's restaurant photographed from its own parking lot under a clear blue sky. The building is painted dark green and deep red and has two corner towers, each carrying a raised black steam locomotive with a puff of smoke and a curved BILL GRAY'S sign over the top of it. A long BILL GRAY'S sign in deep red letters runs along the right-hand wall beside a blue script Abbott's Frozen Custard sign, and red panels under the awnings read HOME OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST CHEESEBURGER. Young trees and shrubs stand along the front of the building and the marked spaces of an empty parking lot run across the foreground.
    Bill Gray's in Henrietta, June 2011, and the only one of the thirteen anybody has photographed under a free license. The photographer's own description on Commons calls it the chain's flagship; their locations page lists thirteen shops and singles out none of them, so that is his word rather than theirs. Photograph by DanielPenfield, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Bill Gray's

    Calls it: Great Plate • price not published

    The local chain, and the one you can get to from anywhere in the county. Their own gluten free menu describes a Great Plate as a cheeseburger or hot dog served over 2 side orders, which is the plate build in nine words.

    Open
    Not confirmed. Their locations page lists thirteen addresses and no hours for any of them. Call before you go.

    No single address here on purpose: it is thirteen shops and picking one would send you past two others.

    billgrays.com All locations

  3. Chili Hots

    Calls it: Cheeseburger Plate and twelve more • $10.00 to $18.50

    The most complete priced plate menu anybody in this city publishes: thirteen of them, from a $10 Jr Plate up to an $18.50 Shaved Steak Plate, counting a meatless plate, a half plate and a split plate for anyone who has been sensibly warned.

    Where
    3774 Chili Ave, Rochester, NY 14624
    Phone
    (585) 534-8649
    Open
    Mon to Sat 11am to 10pm, Sun noon to 10pmconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    chilihots.com Menu

  4. A plate on a mosaic table top: two split red hot dogs lying on chunky home fries and macaroni salad, covered with crumbled brown meat sauce, a scatter of diced raw onion and a zigzag of yellow mustard.
    A plate from dogTown, April 9, 2024. Photograph by BanjoZebra, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    dogTown Hots

    Calls it: Dog Plate, Cheeseburger Plate, Split Plate

    The Monroe Avenue hot dog shop, and the one with a vegetarian and vegan plate that people order on purpose rather than as a compromise. Their own site claims a Best Rochester Plate run of more than ten years.

    Where
    691 Monroe Ave, Rochester, NY 14607
    Phone
    585-271-6620
    Open
    Not confirmed. Their own site reads "Open 11AM to 10:45pm Daily Closed Sundays", which cannot be both, so this page will not pick one for you. Call before you go.

    Their own menu files the dish under two headings that both say Junkyard: Junkyard Plates and Junkyard Dog Plates. The individual plates on those lists are named for the meat, and they publish no prices.

    dogtownhots.com Menu

  5. Empire Hots

    Calls it: Trash Plate • $13.39 to $17.79

    Calls itself Home of the Trash Plate on its own front page, and backs it with eleven of them on the menu. This is the clearest example anywhere of what the trademark actually does to a menu: same dish, different two words.

    Where
    2209 Empire Boulevard, Webster, NY 14580
    Phone
    (585) 787-2110
    Open
    Sun to Thu 11am to 10pm, Fri and Sat 11am to midnightconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    empirehots.com Menu

  6. Fairport Hots

    Calls it: Godfather Plate, Varsity Plate, Jr. Varsity • $12.99 to $19.79

    East side, open late, and the only place on this list that sizes its plates like a football roster. The Godfather is four hots or burgers. Their own words are famous for our Hot Plates, Fish Fry's, and Homemade Meat Hot Sauce.

    Where
    1226 Fairport Rd, Fairport, NY 14450
    Phone
    (585) 586-4540
    Open
    Sun to Wed 10:30am to 11:30pm, Thu 10:30am to midnight, Fri and Sat 10:30am to 1amconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    fairporthots.com Menu

  7. Henrietta Hots

    Calls it: Cheeseburger plate, and the Junker

    The one nearest RIT, which is most of the explanation. Zweigle's hots, a Friday fish fry, and a plate their own site names but does not price.

    Where
    4018 West Henrietta Road, Rochester, NY 14623
    Phone
    (585) 424-4687
    Open
    Mon and Tue 11am to 11pm, Wed to Sat 11am to midnight, Sun 11am to 10pmconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    henriettahots.com Order online

  8. Jeremiah's Tavern

    Calls it: The 1104 Plate • $17.50

    A tavern rather than a hots counter, so this is the version you can sit down and have a beer with. The plate is named after the address: two cheeseburgers, macaroni salad and french fries under burger hot sauce, mustard and onions.

    Where
    1104 Monroe Ave, Rochester, NY 14620
    Phone
    585-461-1313
    Open
    Sun to Wed 11am to 11pm, Thu to Sat 11am to midnightconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    Three more at 1175 Jefferson Road, 300 Paddy Creek Circle and 2164 Fairport Nine Mile Road, all with their own hours on the locations page. The hours above are Monroe Avenue's.

    jeremiahstavern.com Menu

  9. A Compost Plate on a floral-rimmed china plate: a browned patty under a thick shredded sauce, sitting on a bed of macaroni salad, with a heap of green salad leaves, a slice of bread and a scoop of orange sweet potato around it.
    A Compost Plate at The Red Fern, July 27, 2024. Photograph by BanjoZebra, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

    The Red Fern

    Calls it: Compost Plate

    A hundred percent vegan restaurant whose own site calls the Compost Plate their healthy version of Rochester's infamous Garbage Plate. It is the best named plate in the city, and the only one on this list where the whole kitchen is vegan rather than one line of the menu.

    Where
    283 Oxford Street, Rochester, NY 14607
    Phone
    585-563-7633
    Open
    Tue to Thu 11am to 9pm, Fri and Sat 11am to 9:30pm, closed Sun and Monconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    Last seating is fifteen minutes before close, which their own contact page says and which is easy to lose an evening to.

    redfernrochester.com Menu

  10. Rohrbach Brewing Company

    Calls it: Rohrbach Classic Plate • $16.00

    A brewery that put a plate on the menu, which around here counts as civic duty. There is a Bourbon Fried Chicken Plate at $17 and a Das German Plate at $22 beside it.

    Where
    3859 Buffalo Road, Rochester, NY 14624
    Phone
    585-594-9800
    Open
    Mon 11am to 9pm, Tue to Thu 11am to 11pm, Fri 11am to midnight, Sat 11:30am to midnight, Sun noon to 9pmconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    The Buffalo Road brewpub only. Their Railroad Street beer hall is a different menu with no plate on it, and the kitchen closes an hour before the bar does.

    rohrbachs.com

  11. Steve T. Hots & Potatoes

    Calls it: Hots and Potatoes, and twelve more • $11.50 to $16.50

    The other Tahou counter, and the one still selling the dish under its original name: Hots and Potatoes, $15.00. Open until 3:30am on a Friday, which is the hour this whole dish was invented for.

    Where
    2260 Lyell Ave, Rochester, NY 14606
    Phone
    585-429-6388
    Open
    Sun to Thu 10am to midnight, Fri and Sat 10am to 3:30amconfirmed on their own site, August 20, 2026

    Their own site says the dining room stops seating at 1am every night, so past that it is a counter and a car.

    stevethots.com

Addresses and links were checked on August 20, 2026. Opening hours are only printed where the restaurant states them on its own site, and every other card says so instead of guessing. Restaurants move, change hands and change their hours, so call before you make a trip of it.

Places we checked and left off

Every one of these turns up on somebody's list of the best plates in Rochester, NY. None of them could be confirmed from the business itself, so none of them are above. They are written down here so nobody researches them again, and so you know the list is short on purpose.

Every source on this page

All of them were read on August 20, 2026.

Where the photographs came from

Every photograph on this page is somebody else's work under a free license, checked on that file's own page on Wikimedia Commons on August 20, 2026 and re-checked from Commons on every run of scripts/sync-plate-photos.py. Nothing here is hotlinked, cropped or taken from a restaurant, a review site or a search result. The photographer, the license and a link to the license are printed under every picture.

Hungry for the other local pages? The card shops around Rochester, NY are where this channel actually buys, the card show calendar has everything coming up around Rochester, NY, Buffalo and Syracuse, and about the channel explains what Garbage Rips 585 is and why it is named after dinner.

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