A&W Restaurant

No draft root beer

I had a hard time finding an A&W when I wanted to have some root beer. Most of the ones in town have closed. This one is colocated with a Long John Silver’s, out in front of Northern Lights.
I have mixed feelings about this place, and wavered between two and three stars. It’s a little dirty inside, though I did come at the end of the lunch rush so maybe they hadn’t had a chance to clean up. And service was sloooow. Friendly, but slow. Again, lunch rush, but other people were waiting and grumbling too.
On to the food. Well, first things first: the drinks. The root beer is great, and better here than in a bottle. Creamy and sweet, with a nice sassafras flavor mixed with vanilla. And: all you can drink. They’ll make you a float if you want.
For lunch, I had a coney dog and cheese curds. Let me tell you about cheese curds. They are baby cheese, pure, unaged, salty. Bessie’s perfect snack food. Squeaky when fresh, hot and delicious when fried, curds used to be uncommon in Ohio even though we have plenty of dairies. Even when you can get them, they’re not fresh. I often crave them, and used to have to go to Wisconsin to satisfy that craving. For a long time, A&W was the only place you could get them here. And they sucked. Bland, soft, blah. Then Culver’s came, with good fast food ones, and now several restaurants have excellent versions, poutine, etc. But I figured I would give A&W another shot. Still bland cheese, pathetic coating, small portion for a high price. No thanks.
I also had a chili cheese coney dog. Meh. The dog itself was okay. The bun sucked, the cheese was just sauce, the chili had no flavor. Harumph.
Now I was still hungry, and unhappy with what I had already eaten. So I got a piece each of fish and chicken from the LJS menu. They were freshly made, and the usual LJS: fair quality fish, fantastic breading.
Maybe root beer isn’t the perfect pairing with fried fish, but you take what you can get. Come here for the root beer and maybe some fish. Come at an off time. Enjoy the root beer and skate.