The Haystack - the ultimate breakfast/drunken food

Although covered briefly in this lth post, I feel that the Haystack deserves it's own thread.

The Haystack originated at a restaurant called the Homestretch, which was located near the intersection of Bloomington and Prospect in Champaign, IL. Every year, they would have a contest to see which group could eat the most Haystacks. Most of these groups were fraternities from the University of Illinois but not all. The Daily Illini, the campus newspaper, would publish weekly updates and standings in a section called "Stackwars." Because of the popularity of the Haystack and also the annual contest, more people knew the Homestretch as "Haystacks," rather than by it's actual name. This tradition at the Homestretch stood until 1998 when, sadly, fire damage caused it to close, and they never re-opened. Needless to say, students and townees in Champaign are much skinnier, and have lower cholesterol today than in the 90's because of that damn fire.

I had a college buddy come over this past weekend for brunch, and I used that as an excuse to try and re-create this tasty breakfast, hangover, and drunken treat. Although the Haystack is briefly discussed in the aforementioned lth thread, there are options that one had when ordering a Haystack which rarely get much attention. I've tried to cover the options [including pics of the one(s) I made this past weekend] here.

A Haystack consisted first of pan-fried potatoes similar to these:

Buttery, oniony, tender, and crispy.

Now, this is where the "options" come into play. You could choose to top your potatoes with

• sausage gravy;
• brown gravy;
• OR chili.

The most popular version--and best IMHO--was the sausage gravy. If you chose the sausage gravy, this next step in the Haystack construction looked something like this:


The next layer [and next decision] is your choice of eggs. Back in the day I prefered scrambled on my Haystack. This past weekend, I decided to go with 1 sunnyside up and 1 fried. I added a little touch of my own blend of bbq rub which I've been sprinkling lately on eggs whenever I make them. My version of this next step pictured here:

Obivously, no bbq rub on Homestretch stack.

AND FINALLY,
The last decision is the meat. Your choices were as follows:

• bacon (on top)
• sausage links (on top)
• or a hamburger patty (buried in the middle of potatoes)

The hamburger patty was by far the most popular, mainly because it was the default option. Actually, unless you asked, you'd probably just get the burger patty. Regardless, if you did choose a different meat, it would still be tallied as an eaten Haystack under your team's total so it was still a legit Haystack. Oh, and if you chose the bacon, you would certainly get more than the one piece I have pictured here. With that, we have a completed Haystack:


Another signature component to this meal was the bread. When you sat down at the Homestretch, you would be served warm bread and pats of butter. The best way to describe the bread would be unsliced White Castle buns similar to these:

(thanks Google image search!)

The Haystack you'd get at the Homestretch was much bigger than the one pictured above. To give you an idea, with the one at the Homestetch you'd still be able to see the gravy-smothered potatoes underneath [and around] the eggs and bacon/sausage topping. Frankly, I don't know if the metabolism I have now would allow my body to digest the original sized Haystack in less than a week.

Although the Homestretch is no longer in existence you can still get a slightly different version of a Haystack in Champaign at a restaurant called Mary Anne's Diner. Mary Anne's actually offered their version of the Haystack back when the Homestretch was still around, but the more popular stack was at the Homestretch.

I can't believe my college buddies and I used to go to sleep soon after eating these things.

I - L - L . . .

Beautiful.

i actually preferred the version at mary anne's when i was in champaign ('87-'91), because i thought their sausage gravy was far superior to the other place. i will note, though, that i don't think i ever ate at mary anne's while drunk and don't think i ever ate at homestretch while sober.

mary anne's was our go-to pre-football game spot. great stuff.

thanks for the memories!

HOMESTRETCH!
THAT WAS THE PLACE!!!!!
In the thread linked above, I was drawing a blank when someone told me the place was called Mary Anne's because it was THE HOMESTRETCH that I went to!! I also remember the novelty of the place calling grilled cheese sammiches "cheese tosties." We'd go in, totally inebriated, or, ahem, under some other form of intoxication, order up a round of haystacks, and a platter of cheese toasties. I barely had any recollection of the actual name of the place - we just called it "Haystacks."

What, no cheese?? No self-respecting Quebecker is going to eat it without cheese!!

'Man, that looks goood!' I can hear the remnant 20-yr-old part of my soul saying as I gaze upon those lovely photos...

Tnx for the fun....

Geo

Cool.

I moved to Champaign in 2001, so I didn't know the origin of this. I assumed it was a breakfast-mutation of the Horseshoe (maybe it is), but didn't know where it came from.

I saw Sean Flood eat two Haystacks in under five minutes.

I never finished one.

Hello all My name is Mike in the 1980's I worked as a meat cutter and delivery driver for Miller meat company in Urbana Illinois. I delivered the food the Homestrech so I know exactly what went into one by brand!! As a local from the Champaign area let me tell you where the original Haystack developed. It was first made as a breakfast dish at Ott's Drive in in Rantoul Illinois. This fed the Appetite of Farmers and Airmen from nearby Chanute Air Force base. The original haystack was a breakfast dish with Biscuit, Hashbrowns Sausage gravy egg and meat of your choice. The dinner haystack was developed later to just be a order of potatoes either hashbrowns or home fries style with a Hamburger patty on top and brown gravy on it This is what they used https://www.walmart.com/ip/Trio-Brown-G ... /115412021 They would save stock from roasting beef and mix it with this gravy mix. The beauty of the Homestrech was they capitalized on adding so many options on the dish. Choose your potatoes, Choose your meat, choose your gravy/sauce, Add egg or not the more you added the more you paid!! My favorite was the Dinner haystack just potatoes a burger patty and cheese your choice of American or swiss all covered in brown gravy. Yummy I still make them to this day and added them to the menu of the restaurant I just opened in National City California. So if you want to get a Hay Stack come to Not Your Momma's at 213 Highland in National City CA.