Fast Food Rankings: Roy Rogers

3/9 brought the second day of Big East Tournament games. After getting to the Madison Square Garden area early, this blog set out to find some food. Pun City had sighted a Roy Rogers the day before, and set out to eat there (having never been to any of the chain's locations before).

What's this mean? Fast Food Rankings are Back!

Roy Rogers is a fast food chain based in Frederick, MD. Their first restaurant opened in 1968. This blog really doesn't know too much about them. A brief Google search shows that at least some locations do have drive thrus, so they meet Pun City criteria. One caveat is that Pun City has only been to one Roy Rogers. This particular Roy Rogers is combined with a Nathan's Hot Dogs, and is run by Riese Restaurants. This particular Roy Rogers was terrible.

Pros: Tough one here. One recalls there was plenty of seating available in the upstairs section. Seating is hard to come by in the Madison Square Garden area, so that was a bonus. Being in a location that offers other food options (in this case Nathan's) is good too. Pepsi products on tap was unusual, but a nice change of pace.

Cons: First, there was only one guy working at the Roy Rogers. This is surmountable in and of itself. Pun City ordered the Double Cheeseburger combo. The guy said, "Just move down to the register, they'll get you a drink." Pun City moved down to the register. No employee there. One minute passed by. No sign of another employee. Not even any noise eminating from the back of the restaurant to indicate there might be another employee. Pun City went back to the initial fry cook guy and was about to ask about his co-worker's absence, when the guy noticed this blog and said "No one there? I'll get him....MAX! CUSTOMER!" (muffled sound from back room). Fry cook, now turning to Pun City: "He'll be right there." Another minute or two passed by, no sign of Max. At this point, Pun City was seriously considering reaching around the machine and getting the soda for itself, but there was still the matter of paying for the food. Another minute passed and finally a Nathan's employee came around their counter and walked over to the Roy Rogers counter, getting the drink and taking this blog's payment. The cashier asked Pun City if it got the cheeseburger combo. Pun City said, "the double cheeseburger combo." At this point, the cashier charged this blog for the Double Bacon Cheeseburger. This wasn't noticed until later, but this blog figured it didn't have another half hour to kill to save 50 cents. Pun City believes the overall service falls under the category "horrible service."

Pun City moved upstairs to eat. They were in the middle of some remodeling or something, and there were giant tarps over one upstairs wall. The place has a huge open space without any tables, but there was plenty of seating available. Two police officers were upstairs, no one else was up there. Generally the place looked unkempt, but Pun City didn't really mind that much, and sat next to the tarp since that was the best spot for a backed chair. Nothing really too notable as far as atmosphere.

The double cheeseburger was terrible. The meat was too thick to really be palateable, and it was low quality meat as well. The fries were way too doughy, and too many had been punctured, which resulted in being saturated with grease to the point of inedibility. The bun wasn't even particularly good, although it was probably the best part of the meal. Well, except for the long-awaited Pepsi, of which there were no free refills.

Prices were very high, Pun City thinks it was around $7.00 for the combo. Granted, this was in New York City, so that's not as bad as in other markets, but this blog can only go on what it knows. Lack of free refills also a major strike against Roy Rogers, although other locations might not have this issue. Not particularly convenient to get to, unless you're in downtown New York or on the east coast.

Cripes, even their website stinks. Using the restaurant locator generally will freeze up their site.

Burger-Only Ranking: 2 out of 10 Fryers. This is being pretty generous. It is a lot of meat, so theoretically you get a lot of sustenance. The cheese and bun combo were alright, that might have carried the ranking above the minimum.

Overall Ranking: 1 out of 10 Fryers. Bad. Bad service, bad food, bad atmosphere, bad refill policy, bad cleanliness. Reasonably good location?

Pun City didn't give Roy Rogers a lifetime ban, because the employees seemed more apathetic than intentionally trying to mess with this blog, but Pun City definitely isn't going to be rushing back. Hopefully their other locations are better.

Want to see how Roy Rogers stacks up against the competition? Check out these other fast-food reviews courtesy of Pun City:

Bullets
Burger King
Culver's
Dairy Queen
In-N-Out Burger
Jack In The Box
McDonald's
Rally's
Sonic Drive-In
Wendy's
White Castle

Pun City's gotta get A&W in there too. Once this Big East trip wraps up, Pun City will post that.