Rice A Roni appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Rice-A-Roni · San Francisco
Rice-A-Roni is the boxed pilaf of rice and broken spaghetti born in 1958 in San Francisco's Mission, marketed as the San Francisco Treat across the United States.
The Italian American DeDomenico family ran the Golden Grain Macaroni Company on Bryant Street from 1912. In the 1950s, Tom DeDomenico's mother-in-law made an Armenian rice pilaf with broken spaghetti for a tenant; Tom's wife Lois adapted it, the family added a dehydrated chicken broth packet, and the product launched as Rice-A-Roni in 1958. The 1960s jingle, with the cable car bell, fixed San Francisco in American pantry memory more firmly than any tourism campaign. Quaker Oats bought the brand in 1986 and PepsiCo absorbed it in 2001, but the box is still produced and the recipe is still recognisable. It is not exactly cooked in San Francisco kitchens, but the city owns the invention.