I Traveled 800 Miles To Eat Breakfast, Lunch, And Pizza At Criss Angel's Breakfast, Lunch, And Pizza | Defector

"When I was a very depressed British teenager, I had an unhealthy fascination with America. I found a way to love its contradictions, to explain away the obvious sins not by excusing them directly but by focusing on America's enormous size, its capacity to hold infinite different types of people, and its proliferation of true weirdos. From my cramped and cold British bedroom, I browsed the website Roadside America and dreamed about driving across the country,"

"To buy into that stuff is to value something that is odd and entirely itself above something that is good or otherwise defensible. Sure, this Museum of Long CVS Receipts sucks, but at least it sucks on its own terms; it's not trying to be anything else, and it's something that only this one guy who really loves receipts could create."

"He founded the restaurant in July 2021, buying a local place called Sugar's Home Plate and renovating it in a style befitting a freak of the mind. He told Nevada Public Radio in 2024 that he originally intended the restaurant to be just "one component to an escape camp for children with childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases," a cause that lies close to his heart, as his son Johnny Christopher has battled childhood leukemia (now in remission, thankfully)."

A British teenager developed an unhealthy fascination with America's contradictions and roadside oddities, valuing singular, idiosyncratic places over quality or defensibility. The fascination emphasized America's enormous size, diverse populations, and proliferation of true weirdos, inspiring dreams of cross-country drives to visit bizarre attractions. The narrator prized places that 'suck on their own terms' because they are uniquely created by devoted individuals. Criss Angel purchased Sugar's Home Plate in Overton, Nevada and reopened it as Cablp in July 2021, renovating it with a mindfreak aesthetic. Angel intended the restaurant to be part of an escape camp for children with life-threatening illnesses; that camp has not progressed significantly while his son has thankfully achieved remission from childhood leukemia.

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