The Root Beer Stande — Restaurant in Dayton

September 2025 update:

The Root Beer Stande is out here being nasty to people asking simple questions about their "bucket" sundaes and deleting comments when customers point out that they're overreacting and being rude.

Their food isn't that good either. Way too large of a menu and only a couple of items that they make just okay.

On my last visit, I ordered their noodles and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were dry and flavorless. I actually had to add some milk to them and doctor them up once I got home to even make them somewhat edible. The noodles were over salted. I have hyponatremia, so I add salt to EVERYTHING. I couldn't have added salt to these noodles if I wanted to. Oh, and my root beer float was only half full.

It was a great place when I was a kid. It's a shame what the new owners have done to the place!

Original review from January 2024:

Finally made it to the root beer stande this past weekend to try their chicken and noodles. It's unfortunate that I don't have a glowing review to post. They weren't bad, by any means, but they also weren't great.

I didn't realize until after the fact that it appears that they are actually making their own noodles now and not getting them from granny franners like they used to. Or maybe that's just because of the winter, I'm not sure. But I think the hype is over granny franners and not the root beer stande's version.

I have hyponatremia, (low blood sodium), so I eat a LOT of salty foods. I add some form of salt to almost everything I eat. I did not need to add salt to these noodles. Again, they weren't bad, but if salt isn't your thing, I don't think you would like these.

The mashed potatoes were super dry. I added some milk to them and popped them in the microwave to try to doctor them up a bit. I also got a root beer float, which ended up only being about half full once the foam settled.

I don't think that I've been to the root beer stande since I was a kid, so maybe it appeals to a certain group , and I'm not it. This definitely isn't something that I would travel out of my way for again. I'll keep an eye out for granny franners, but the root beer stande noodles didn't leave me...

I leave a star off because there's always room for improvement. But everything was awesome. I probably won't be back for another year, since the prices are not for the faint of heart.

But the customer service was very good. The waitress that served me was awesome. Food was better than I expected. Since it was a slight heat wave that day, they were able to place the tray on my window, when the food was ready.

The hotdog was enough. The circumference was that of a 50 cent piece. A smidgen bigger than a quarter. The brownies were good, but any future buyers of that kind of snack, make sure to notify staff/waitress you want to order that after you're done eating.

I know that was what was agreed upon to have the snack delivered later, but it all came in one bag. By the time I got to thr brownies, the sugar clumped together on the brownies big time on the bottom. The moisture made the powder sugar stick/clump a lot. But brownies were still awesome.

Like others have said, come hungry. But also make sure to bring cash if you'd rather not have to work around and use PayPal or the other cashless options that might incur a fee on your end.

I came here in a uhaul van moving stuff in transition. I believe the height of the van was under 7' clearance. I thought the parking in the lot were for smaller vehicles only. I saw a huge (as in taller) Sprinter van in the back. So, the smaller cars can park under the canopy, out of the weather, but larger vehicles with a higher clearance can park in the back just fine. I wouldn't do anything bigger than a sprinter through there.

Glad for the...

I really wanted to like this place. We travelled all the way from Cincinnati on my birthday and kayaked in the Mad River. We had one restaurant to choose in all of dayton and I chose this one. Why? It looked local, the burgers looked delicious and juicy and AI told me that locals ate here. I’ll start with the positives: the root beer was good. That’s it.

For starters we waited more than 30 minutes for our food waiting in a hot parking lot. We ordered root beer and cream soda and they don’t bring it out right away to we waited for our drinks the entire 30+ minutes. The burgers were crunchy burnt. In the middle you could get one moist bite because of the sauce but that was it. The cheese curds were undercooked. Not cold but still hard cheese. The fried pickles were good but we only one order and they gave us and tried to charge us for two. When I tried to explain to the lady we only ordered one her response was “did you eat them” which we didn’t and we had just left on our table but even if we had this was their mistake and you shouldn’t make the customer pay for it just throw food away for your mistake. The dessert sounded good and we ordered three of them because the lady said it would be quick but after waiting an additional 20 minutes we decided we were done with the hot parking lot, told them to cancel our order...