Some Greenville places you measure in years. This one you measure in generations. Carolina Drive In has been a fixture on Rutherford Street since 1954, still run by the same family that opened it, and it has fed the north side of town for the better part of seven decades.
The heart of it is honest Southern home cooking: an early breakfast, a meat-and-three lunch built around featured meats and vegetables that rotate day to day, and the burgers, hot dogs, and fried chicken that made the name. Nothing here is chasing a trend, and that is exactly why people keep coming.
Ask three longtime customers what to order and you'll get three different answers, which is the fun of a place that has had seventy years to build its favorites. Figuring out your own is the kind of thing you do one plate at a time.