Eating From the Trash Can: Eat A Bag of Dick’s (Drive-In)
Imagine, if you will, a world where McDonald’s stayed exactly the same except for the price since 1955. Same simplified, no substitutions menu of technocratic burgers, fries, and shakes. No McChicken, no Quarter Pounder, and damn sure no healthy modern Millennial bait to “change with the times.”
Now imagine an America that loved McDonald’s for it, praising them as an icon of stability in a turbulent and ever-changing world, and oh by the way, referring to it as the best late night stoner/drunk food in the universe.
You just imagined (if you haven’t been to Seattle and seen it with your own eyes) Dick’s Drive-In.
Bear in mind, the restaurant’s name is a bit of a misnomer, since a drive-in implies car service and these are walk-up windows, but we’ll let that miscarriage of lexicon slide.
For this experiment in cheapitude, I took a hike up to Capitol Hill (115 E. Broadway, right next door to the new Capitol Hill Link light rail station) and got the Dick’s Special (a two-ounce burger patty, mayo, lettuce, and pickles for two bucks even; the Dick’s Deluxe is the same thing with an extra burger and a slice of cheese to bring it up to a quarter pound and an extra $1.10 tacked onto the price), with fries (one size fits all) and a medium root beer, which even with Seattle’s generous screw-you-poor-people 9.6% sales tax came in under six dollars — cash, since in order to keep prices down, Dick’s refuses to take any sort of credit card and passes the saved bank fees on to the customer.
This is not a lot of food, incidentally. One other thing that hasn’t changed at Dick’s since 1955 is their perception of the appetite of the average American. Which is OK. After all, you can always order more food; the only thing objectionable about doing it that way is getting too much bread. Then again, if you want gluttony, that’s what Wendy’s is for (and yes, we will be getting to them, keep your shirt on.)
On to the actual taste. This is…a bready-as-hell meat sandwich, where the paltry two ounces of beef gets hidden beneath the overpowering condiment assault of the mayonnaise, pickles, and lettuce. It’s like the love child of a McDonald’s Big Mac, if the Big Mac were one patty and came on the same bun they use for a regular cheeseburger. I’ve had the Deluxe; it runs into the same problem of too much bread and other stuff and not enough meat, but again, Wendy’s made an entire brand out of “where’s the beef”, so you know where to find that if that’s what you want.
Taken on its own merits, Dick’s benefits tremendously from lightning-fast turnover; this stuff is fresh with a capital Fresh despite a production method that’s right out of 1955 at McDonald’s. If they didn’t turn this stuff over so quickly, it’d be a stale, lifeless, depressing burger unworthy of feeding to the dog, but that’s what you get from technocracy. What a difference popularity makes.
The fries…well, the fries are both the best and the worst thing a french fry can be. Best, because they hang around in the oil long enough to get real damn well browned and develop a depth of flavor that’s exquisite. Worst, because they’re also soggy, limp, and lifeless, having none of the snap of literally any other fast food joint’s fry offering. This is basically In N’ Out North (minus some idiot talking your ear off about “Animal Style”). It presents you the question “do you like dark, rich potato flavor, and if so, do you care that they’re cooked in a way that leaves them with the texture of wet spaghetti?” If the answers are yes and no, in that order, these fries are actually damn good.
You may also find it objectionable (as no small few barking buffoons on Yelp do) that there are no substitutions, ever, don’t ask. This is the remaining relic of 1955 that Dick’s does either really well or “screw this, let’s go to Five Guys, this place sucks” depending on how picky you are. I’m not. I eat from the trash can, and I like this place just fine on its own merits.
Then again, you might have nostalgia for the old days when McDonald’s premade all of their burgers and other menu items and if you wanted a special order, everyone hated you for holding up the line (anyone old enough to remember when McDonald’s changed this in 1998 is likely nodding their head in agreement.) If so, this is what you’ve been missing in your life for nearly two decades.
PROS: As old-school as it gets, plus the fries are flavor bombs and the place is cheaper than cheap and so fast that it ought to bring back nostalgia for anyone old enough to remember when McDonald’s used to be like this.
CONS: The burgers are too small, the fries are limp, and I can’t let charging a nickel for ketchup pass without mentioning it. Enforced uniformity may not be your thing, in which case this place is not for you.
VERDICT: 4 out of 5 stars; Trash Can Seal of Approval.
