We Day Trip East for Dairy Palace’s 'World-Famous' Hamburgers

Take Interstate 20 east from Dallas for an hour, and you’ll run into the East Texas town of Canton (population 5,000), best known for its sprawling First Monday Trade Days flea market that draws thousands to the area preceding the first Monday of every month. And as if that wasn’t enough of an attraction for this small but bustling town, there’s also Canton’s “world-famous” burger and ice cream mecca, Dairy Palace, which you may have seen on Chet Garner’s Emmy Award-winning Texas travel show, The Daytripper.
Family-operated Dairy Palace has been serving droves of customers for 41 years with no visible signs of slowing down. It’s open 24 hours a day, six days a week (the only time Dairy Palace closes is midnight on Tuesdays), and on the menu, you’ll find everything from elk and venison burgers to steak fingers and barbecue brisket sandwiches.

Did we mention the 30-plus flavors of Blue Bell ice cream?

We’ve heard about Dairy Palace for years, and finally, we’re here. A massive Dairy Palace sign towers over the restaurant, with another large sign nearby touting its self-proclaimed world-famous burgers. When you come through this area, you can’t miss it. It’s impossible.
The biggest seller at Dairy Palace is its third-pound classic beef burger ($6.89), which comes with mustard, onions, pickles, lettuce and tomato on a white bun. Simple but highly effective. If you want to go smaller, you can always downsize to the fifth-pound classic ($5.39), or if your appetite is up for it, we suggest the half-pound classic for $8.69. The burgers are à la carte, so sides will cost extra. And there’s a plethora of sides to choose from: regular fries (or curly or sweet potato), homemade onion rings, tots, cheese sticks, fried mushrooms, fried green beans and fried okra are among your choices.

Everything here is cooked to order.

One of our dining partners, a Dairy Palace regular, ordered the Texas Sunrise (as seen on The Daytripper). It’s a behemoth of a burger with an entire breakfast on it: bacon, a fried egg and hashbrowns. Sheesh. While we didn’t try it, we couldn’t help but envy it. We were a little jealous.
Petty jealousy aside, one of the aspects of Dairy Palace we were most interested in was its exotic portion of the menu, which features game burgers such as bison, turkey, venison, elk and duck. There are even catfish and salmon burgers.

Doing our part to reduce East Texas’ out-of-control wild hog population (they’re everywhere out here, and they cause A LOT of damage), we tried Dairy Palace’s Wild Hog Burger ($9.99). And no, it wasn’t from a wild hog running around someone’s backyard that morning. It’s farm-raised boar (like the boar found here), and it comes topped with the same ingredients as the classic burger (except it comes on a lightly grilled wheat bun). It was damn good, and we’d have no problem ordering it again when we find ourselves back here.
Dairy Palace also offers breakfast. There are biscuits and gravy, breakfast burritos, chili-topped eggs, chicken fried steak and eggs, omelets, French toast and pancake stacks (and more). So, next time you’re in Canton for Trade Days, make sure to set aside an hour for a Dairy Palace detour.
Dairy Palace, 2301 N Trade Days Blvd, Canton. Thursday – Tuesday, open 24 hours; Wednesday, 8 a.m. – midnight.