I like old things. It is no surprise that I love the Frosty Drive N building, a post-war burger joint off 377 that looks like it came from the set of Hollywood Knights. It has the crazy-angles support beams, the flat sweep-wing roof, and a lunch counter replete with a few ancient soda taps and the kind of menu you peg letters to.
Diana and I have lived in this town for going on a decade now, and at intermittent times we’ve been told about how Frosty Drive N was incredible. We never went, for one reason or another. I think mostly we didn’t go because it was always on the opposite side of town from where we lived. We should learn by now that when several groups of people that know nothing about each other all agree and advise without prompt that a restaurant is good or that an album or a movie is really well done, you can usually trust it.
We also weren’t sure what the name of the place was, since everyone seems to call it something different. Mr. Frosty’s? Frosty Root Beer? For future reference: Frosty Drive N.
Frosty Drive N is hell of quaint and yes old dudes talk to one another over the lunch counter like one of them just bought a steamer trunk for good old George Bailey. The burgers are totally decent and anything fried is delicious. It also seems as if the last time they adjusted their prices was about 1989. At something like three bucks for burger combo, this stuff is priced to move.
Diana had some steak fingers the last time we went and they were way more well built than you normally find with an item like that. Even 20-30 minutes after we got our food, the steak fingers tender, not greasy, and still hot. The fries are good. The onion rings are terrific to the point of being unlike any onion rings I’ve ever had, and I eat an onion ring pretty much whenever I get the chance.
The real showstopper here is the root beer, though, and from what I can tell, they make their own. They serve it in frozen mugs made of thick glass, and everything involved gets so cold, the root beer freezes for a while. Not into a slush and not into a sheet. The root beer freezes into its own ice cubes.
Let me repeat that: The root beer freezes into its own ice cubes.
How the hell do you even do that? How do you plan the physics or the hydrodynamics of a process like that? Like it isn’t enough that this is bound to be the best root beer you’ve ever had. The family secret just happens to be some sort of delicious soft drink alchemy.
Diana tells me that when she went for the first time a few weeks ago, the owner told her about how his family has owned and operated the place for three generations. I think that’s cool. I like a meal with a narrative.
Score: Frosty Drive N gets a 4.5 out of 5.
Totally agree with everything you said. I’m just sitting here nodding my head along with everything you thought about Frosty’s (as I’ll probably keep calling it, for future reference). It is so good and so cheap. You should do another post on them just about their shakes, or maybe figure out the whole story on the root beer and report back.