Mel's Drive-In — Restaurant in Orlando

Only the name is the same.

Get your standard American diner fare here for an astronomical price. The limited menu keeps you to mostly burgers and fries and there are no refills on the fountain drinks. It will do the trick if you're hungry but I wouldn't set your heart on eating here.

Typical of most burger joints, you get served a burger made from a frozen patty and slapped on a bun from the local FSA type distributors. Add your condiments and a side of fries and lunch is served. For most people, this seems to be just fine and the food did fill us up. I really can't compare it to much. It wasn't horrible and it wasn't amazing and sometimes, you're just too hungry to even care. I think they bet on the latter.

The restaurant is air conditioned but good luck finding a table inside. The inside of the diner has no memorabilia from the show nor does it even resemble the tv show diner. It is more of a cafeteria style establishment where you approach a cashier and place your order and then stand in a line waiting for your number to be called. An order here and pick up here type place. I was really hoping that it was more like a diner with a counter and tables and chairs where you can interact with the staff but I guess I had my hopes up.

There are so many places to choose from when you're hungry at Universal that I would say to do your research before picking a place to spend good money on bad food.

Thanks...

Uffda, this is a rough one. You know it’s bad when I gotta break out an “uffda”. (my Northern Midwesterners will understand)

I’ve always thought the exterior of Mel’s was one of the best presentations and aesthetics in the entire Universal Studios park. From the neon teal and pink colors, with shiny and fancy old school cars sitting out front, along with the blinking sign, the mood is spot on.

Finally I tried eating there several weeks ago, and with zero dramatization I seriously say the magic all ends there. I’m almost a little upset that I tried to eat here.

It’s a classic burger, shake and fries set up. It is an American Diner style, after all. And that’s great. But the inside of the restaurant looks like it’s cleaned every few months- I felt dirty just walking in.

We tried some burgers of course, and what a joke! The brisket burger was literally pink, like it was barely cooked. How does that happen? Also, a warning- if you want a real strawberry shake, this ain’t it. What they call a “strawberry shake” here is actually just vanilla ice cream with some strawberry sauce drizzled around the cup. Way, way off. I felt worse after eating here than I would’ve just skipping the meal. It’s quite sad, but I’m going to just stick to my old ways of admiring the outside of Mel’s...

I had an extremely bad experience choosing to eat at Mel’s dinner. I went on Labor Day the park was not that busy. I waited outside in a line maybe 15 minutes. That was not that bad once inside it took 5 min to order. My sister was at one register and I at the second one we ordered at the same time. Unfortunately they hade only 4 employees in the back preparing the food and 2 in the front serving. The workers in the front had a disaster with all the food tickets.At some point I saw a manager try to help employees on the floor but this made it worse, sine she look like she had no idea what she was doing.. After waiting 20 minutes my sister received her food and went to sit down to eat I waited a total of 35 minutes to receive my food at this point I was upset since they served 7 people after my sister and again we order at the same time. I ask the server and his response was your next I was so upset I told him how could it be since I was waiting for more than 30 minutes and explained that they pass 7 orders after I ordered and he just turned away got my food and gave it to me with no explanation. My food was cold. This place...