Review: Roy Rogers (The Restaurant)

 

As suggested earlier, I have visited a Roy Rogers Restaurant in 2023 and I've come back to tell the tale. Gather 'round.

First off a word about fast food. When did fast food get so expensive? When I ordered 1 cheeseburger and one side of macaroni and cheese, I expected the burger to be about $5 and the side to be about $1, and maybe the total with tax and change would be around $7. No, it's actually $14. If it's simply that I'm out of touch with the world, I apologize but I was shocked.

A second thing I expect from fast food is for the food to be ready right after I'm done paying. That's the "fast" part! Instead here, I gave my order and them to call my name after it was prepared. Seems like the two main advantages of fast food are deteriorating quickly and I'm seeing the point of it less and less.

So for the purposes of getting a good sense of the place and creating a good review I ordered much more food than I could eat and I brought some home. But keep in mind the flaws of this methodology: for the food that I ate right away, my adrenaline was going from the highway driving and from eating in a restaurant by myself; for the food that I took home, well, we all know that fast food that is allowed to sit for a few hours is not ideal.

The Fried Chicken

Starting with the headliner. The fried chicken is what I would get as a kid and it's the main thing I was looking for.

It's good, it's quite good. The crust is thinner and less crunchy than KFC and the chicken is super moist. The spices are not amazing or terrible, but average to above average. I have no complaints and the fact that it beats KFC says a lot. If you're a fried chicken junky like me, I recommend.

The Biscuit

The fried chicken came with a biscuit. There's not much to say about a biscuit - they're never terrible and they're never life-changing. I would say the Roy Rogers biscuits are above average.

French Fries

Let's establish an objective baseline. There are fries that are on the "crunchy/heavily fried" end of the spectrum and on the other end is fries that are soft and potatoey. These are very light, very much on the potatoey end of the spectrum. As someone who prefers this type of fries, these are excellent.

The Cheeseburger

I saw that Roy Rogers also had roast beef sandwiches and some chicken sandwiches which looked pretty interesting but I went with the burger.

This is pretty much your bog-standard fast food hamburger - it's small, it's thin, it's fairly dry - with one twist: the bun. The bun is doughy and powdery, to get a sense of it, imagine an Egg McMuffin muffin with a burger in it. It's kind of like that. It sounds weird, but I love those muffins and like this. Still, the burger is the main thing and that's nothing special. As fast food burgers go, this is on par with the rest.

Mac and Cheese

Fast food mac and cheese is always disappointing. In fact, in my case, I think all mac and cheese is disappointing. The difference between the idea and the reality of mac and cheese, for me, is so great that I should have admitted I don't care for it long ago. But somehow I keep holding on.

On the other hand, let's go to a relative scale... This mac and cheese is at least better than the other ones I can think of in the space: Popeye's and Boston Market. It's slightly thicker and slightly cheesier.

Mashed Potatoes & Gravy

Fast food mashed potatoes are also a bad idea. For some reason, fast food places have decided the best way to mass produce mashed potatoes is to simulate them in a lab with only the most chemically chemicals. You eat them and you have to trick yourself into thinking of it as actual mashed potatoes and actual gravy. But again, on the relative scale, I would say these are better than Boston Market's mashed potatoes AND KFC's mashed potatoes. They're all pretty similar but these are just slightly better, I think.

Conclusion

I don't think Roy Rogers is revolutionizing fast food, I don't think they're going to take the world by storm and dominate the market. However, I judge the food to be better than the major fast food chains I have around me. The big thing is: the fried chicken is better than KFC. I don't know if it's better than Popeye's, that would take a head-to-head, which would be tough. But that being said, the sides are way better than Popeye's... And the quality of those fries are a nice bonus.

Roy Rogers Restaurants Still Exist

 

Driving on the highway on Saturday, I see a sign saying that there was a "Roy Rogers in X Miles." I says, "There's an old sign that needs to be taken down." But once I reached my destination, I looked it up. It is real. Roy Rogers Restaurants still exist and there is one within 45 minutes driving.

I am a lazy man, by nature, but I'm saying now that I'm going to try to go there and report back.

When I was a kid we went to Roy Rogers all the time but I considered it an extinct franchise. It made me think, what other franchises might also be available. Here are some of the ones that came to mind.

• Roy Rogers - Still exists, in a fraction of the country. They have a store if you want to buy shirts or hats.
• Orange Julius - Also still exists! They were bought by Dairy Queen. The locations page on their website just yields an error but you can try google maps.
• Little Caesar's - Still around, I think they're trying to make a comeback by making the cheapest pizza in the world. Not sure if it'll work. I was a huge fan but tried it recently and didn't real feel the old feelings.
• Boston Market - Still hanging on. I was a fan and tried to support them and every time I do there are definite problems with quality and consistency. If they're not good enough to keep a hardcore fan like me, I don't think they'll last much longer.
• Cinnabon - Still appears to be going strong. You have to figure their reliance on malls is putting a squeeze on their business. I have a plan that the next time I have something to celebrate, I'm going to do the most decadent thing I can think of: order Cinnabon delivery. Any day now...
• Chi-Chi's - Fully extinct as a restaurant but they sell a line of food products online. I loved Chi-Chi's.
• Ground Round - Went bankrupt, name was bought and trying to make a comeback. Only a few locations exist.
• Pizza Hut - Of course it still exists, what I mean is: perhaps the most "of its time" restaurant I can think of is the sit down/dine-in Pizza Hut. Are those still around? They still exist but the closest to me is about an hour away and it's not the same without the old decor anyway.
• The Sizzler - Still exists but only on the West Coast.
• Ponderosa/Bonanza - They're the same company and they still exist. None around me.
• Friendly's - They're still around. Similar situation to Boston Market - I love them, would gladly be a regular customer but I think the quality has slipped and it's hard to keep going back. Plus, I can't find anyone who wants to go to Friendly's with me and I don't want to go alone.

A few more recent notes. I was a huge Quiznos fan. Those are still around but I suppose the franchise is on the decrease. There isn't one anywhere close to me. I was also a huge fan of Moe's Southwest Grill, I think those are decreasing also but I'm not sure. Bennigan's is down to 12 locations in the U.S. and Applebee's is still around though I don't understand how.