Fat Albert's — Restaurant in Greeley

My father and I had lunch at Fat Alberts today. We both thoroughly enjoyed the food. I had the Hawaiian croissant. Dad had the Ruben. They were both extremely filling and quite delicious. We each had the New England clam chowder as our side dish. Fat Albert’s makes it the way we expect it to be made-smooth, creamy, and with enough clams to get at least one in every bite. We also ordered a slice of the peanut butter cheesecake to take home with us. Dad paid the bill, so I have no idea how much it cost, but it was more cheesecake than one person should eat in one sitting. The texture was fluffier than the average cheesecake, and it was quite a bit sweeter than cheesecake one might purchase in the grocery store, but we enjoyed it. Whenever we eat out, we have to remind ourselves that Mom did not do the cooking, so we can’t expect it to be 100% what were used to. There are a ton of good cooks in the world, and at least one of them works at Fat Albert’s.

We also both enjoyed the atmosphere. The weather was beautiful, so we ate outdoors. There was a brick wall protecting us from passersby staring at our food. There were large planters with attractive foliage. There were tables set for four. Not too many and not too few. The indoors looked quite inviting, also. Having a little bit of Irish in my heritage, I appreciated the Irish motif. The stuffed bear dressed in St. Patrick’s Day garb advertising pumpkin cheesecake seemed a bit odd, but I am discovering, since moving to Colorado, that everybody has a stuffed bear somewhere on the premises. I can dig it.

The only criticism I might have, and this is certainly not to be held against the owners, is that the restaurant was a little bit difficult to find. GPS got me to the correct parking lot, but the building is somewhat obscured located behind some trees and adjacent to the bank. All the other quaint stores in the area are more easily seen from the parking lot. But there was a nice gentleman on the sidewalk who pointed us in the...

Nearly all of the reviews here rave about the Monte Cristo. I guess I'm missing something.

The famous Monte Cristo is made by assembling small triangles of sliced turkey, swiss cheese, ham, and another slice of turkey... the menu says the meat and cheese assembly is sandwiched between slices of bread which we had a hard time finding.

The meat and cheese are held together with a wooden skewer and then coated with a tempura batter more suited to 'fish and chips' than to a classic sandwich. It is then deep fried in oil that I'm guessing was not entirely fresh.

A classic Monte Cristo on the other hand...'Mount of Christ'.... is made with ham, turkey and swiss slices, dipped in an egg/milk mixture and fried to a golden brown.

Needless to say we were very disappointed having driven nearly 2 hours for the famous sandwich.

I've been supporting local businesses since COVID hit but I'm sorry to say some businesses seem to have just given up. Where did American pride go? We show our pride in the things we do for one another...and we shouldn't just praise someone because they've been around since the 80's. Praise has to be earned.

We also ordered a few slices of pie. Unfortunately no passion here either. Just a shell of an idea that has seen better days.

I do wish the owners good luck though and hope the spark comes back..because clearly the spark was there at one point, else decent hard working folks wouldn't be coming back time and again for the famous Monte Cristo.

The photos I'm sharing are how the sandwich is served. Gordon Ramsey would...

We had a family meal at Fat Albert's recently and we like that it is locally owned and has been around for a long time. While it was okay, I don't think this is a place we will visit very often. We're vegetarian so there are only a few items on the menu that we can eat but they do have a few options. The food tasted okay but not awesome or anything and it seemed overpriced for what you got.

We ate there on a weeknight when it wasn't very busy but there were a few people at the bar and they were pretty loud. We could hear their conversations of the two people at the bar and employee blow by blow and they were much louder than you'd think someone would be when they know they are a few feet from families trying to enjoy a dinner together. So we weren't thrilled about the atmosphere either.

Since they are supposed to be known locally for their homemade pies, we all tried a slice. One of us had Key Lime Pie, one had Blueberry Cobbler and one had Pecan Pie. The pie was good but not something you'd go out of your way to get and it was $6 a slice which we thought was a little steep. Anyway, like I said, it was not the best and not the worst we ever had just not real memorable or a place we would seek out very frequently. I'm sure for the meat eaters there are probably a lot of good options but I can't speak to that since I'm a vegetarian and didn't try any of...