Hot Rod Cafe — Restaurant in Washington

So lunch was rather interesting. The young man working the register was super nice and was pretty helpful. The atmosphere was a little stale. The fry sauce was incredible (and honestly the only thing keeping this from being a 1-star review). The food came out quick, the quality of the food was good, but if you're gonna put a whole jalapeno on a chicken sandwich. You can't just cut it in half and barely warm it. It was still crispy, but you could see where it had been tossed on the flat top. Next, the stacking of the extras was.... Interesting. Bun, lettuce, pickles, onion, tomato, chicken, cheese, and bun. That's not from top to bottom. That's bottom to top. I had to completely dismantle my sandwich and re-stack it, just so I could eat it without it tipping over like a poorly constructed rock stack.

The icing on the cake, near the end of our meal, the nice and helpful young man behind the register came out from behind and was talking to someone, it started getting heated and they were both pretty much yelling. Based on what I heard of the conversation the man sitting and eating was also an employee. As he stormed thru the door back to the kitchen he yelled "It's my damn day off, I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here."

Not a pleasant experience for the child that was with us having to listen to grown men argue from across the restaurant while trying to eat. Not sure that I'll be back anytime soon, if ever. And I'll definitely not be putting this on the list of places I recommend to...

We had heard that this cafe was really good for both their burgers and their milkshakes, so on a recent Friday evening we decided to give it a try. Both of us felt the same about our experience with the food. The burgers were nothing special at all and quite expensive for the very small beef patty on them. The large fries we got were the in-house cut ones and for the price and size of "large", they were really greasy and a pretty small portion for as cheap as potatoes are! The milkshake didn't impress me either, as there were small pieces of ice in it and that kind of put me off, as I certainly don't want ice in my milkshake! The person who took our order was very friendly and she did say when we ordered that if we didn't like the fries, we could get the crispy ones instead. We chose not to do so based on the rest of the meal! Sure wish it would have been as good as what we were lead to believe!

Update to my last review; We decided perhaps we hit the Hotrod last time on an off night, so recently, on a Friday when classic cars show up, we tried this place again and what a difference. The burger and the Chicken Bacon Wrap that we ordered, both with the crispy fries was excellent! The milkshake was very good as well, with no ice it it like it should be! We will...

Great food, awesome pictures, and thick milkshakes is how I would describe this place. The food is all named after different generational hot rod cars from the roadrunner (chicken burger) to a mustang (hamburger). They even have a prius burger (veggie burger) to stay up with the times. Although I live on the west side of the state, when I travel to the east side, I always get tater tots and those are always available from the Hot Rod Cafe. They have there own fry sauce blend of Bbq with Mayo which is a unique flavor to enjoy with every meal. The pictures and antique service displays are awesome if you like that era of American cars, and although I have never seen the car show there, I see a great location and would assume this place is always busy when there in town. They have good selections of milkshakes. The one thing I can say is do not throw away the spoon, you may need it when the chunks of cheesecake or other yummy treats won't make it...