The Varsity in Atlanta, GA

I recently went on a weekend roadtrip up to Atlanta. When I put up a request on Twitter for restaurant recommendations in the city, the consensus seemed to be that I needed to try The Varsity.

The Varsity was opened in 1928 and is currently the world's largest drive-in restaurant. Instead of eating in our car, we went inside to get our Varsity food. Once inside of the huge restaurant, we made our way to the very long counter to place our orders. A constant chorus of "What'll ya have?" echoed over this part of the restaurant as the employees called for their next customer.

 

I saw posters advertising The Varsity's Orange Drink hanging on the wall as I entered the restaurant. I guess the posters worked since I ordered the orange drink. It tasted like orange soda without the carbonation.

I had one of the combos on the menu consisting of a grilled chicken sandwich and onion rings. The sandwich was actually a little surprising. It was pretty simple and tasted okay, with a piece of chicken with lettuce and tomato. What surprised me was the size. It was almost the size of a slider, similar in size to what White Castle or Krystal serves. For some reason I was expecting a larger sandwich.

The onion rings were definitely the star of the food I tried here. Each of the rings were huge with a really good batter around the onions. They were horribly greasy, but they also put the onion rings at most other restaurants to shame.

Now that I've been, I guess I can cross The Varsity off my list of the top places to eat in Atlanta. The food here was alright, but I think the retro atmosphere is the real reason to go to The Varsity. It is the world's largest drive-in after all. The view of downtown Atlanta is pretty nice too...

Green Tea Chinese Drive Thru in Palm Bay, FL

I had lunch in Palm Bay at a place called Green Tea Chinese Drive Thru. The restaurant was located inside an old Checkers building and the sign out front advertized $3.75 lunch specials. The place looked really run down from the road, but there was a line of cars waiting for food. This either meant American's are too lazy to exit their cars at a non drive in Chinese restaurant, or it meant the food was good...

I ordered the shrimp with broccoli lunch. The large shrimp were served with broccoli and carrots in a brown sauce, alongside pork fried rice and an egg roll. The food was pretty standard as far as Chinese take out places go, but regardless, I'd go back.

Free Sonic Root Beer Float

On June 2, from 8:00 pm until midnight, all Sonic Drive-in stores gave out free root beer floats. I don't like root beer very much, but for free, I'd gladly try a float.

I went to the Sonic in Longwood, FL at 9:30pm and there were probably a few hundred people waiting for the free food. The parking was overflowing out into the neighboring bank and Walgreens, so I decided it wasn't worth the wait. About 11:30, I returned to Sonic and most of the crowds had disappeared. I got my float which consisted of soft serve vanilla ice cream and root beer in a styrofoam cup filled 3/4 of the way from the top. It was okay, but I really don't like the aftertaste that root beer leaves.

Unrelated to free root beer, I recently took a trip to Oklahoma and visited the History Center in Oklahoma City. While I was there, I learned some interesting trivia about Sonic. The chain started in Oklahoma and it seems every small town in the state has a Sonic rather than a Mcdonalds or Burger King. One one of their original menus, Sonic once sold a sandwich called The Whopper. It was a fish sandwich rather than a burger, but everyone knows who owns the copyright to that sandwich name now. Sonic official stopped the employees from riding roller skates in the 1990s, but yet the Sonic employees at the Longwood location are always on skates. From what I overheard another museum visitor, roller skates no longer happen in Oklahoma.

Hollywood Studios and the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater

Disney gives you a free ticket to one of their parks on your birthday. It was recently someone's birthday, so I went along to Hollywood Studios (or MGM as many people still call the park). Eating happened at the Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater Restaurant in the park.

I ordered the Shrimp Pasta, which consisted of bow-tie pasta, shrimp, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, Spinach, sun dried tomatoes, capers, and Feta. I liked the pasta a whole lot. Feta and olives always seem to go well in pasta. At $20, the pasta was a bit overpriced, but it's in a theme park so that's expected.


The restaurant is set up like a drive-in movie theater. There is a screen up front that shows old science fiction movie clips while everyone eats in tables shaped like cars. Our waiter kept on asking to borrow my camera, and he would then run off elsewhere in the restaurant and take these "postcard" quality pictures of the screen.




Besides from eating, we rode rides and watched shows such as the Great Movie Ride:

Star Tours:

Rock N Roller Coaster:


The new Lights, Motors, Action Stunt Show:

Muppet Vision 3D:

And one of my personal favorites, Tower of Terror:


The biggest surprise of the day was the newest ride at the park, Midway Mania. I really wasn't expecting much from this ride, based on the fact that it's a dark ride that consists entirely of watching movie screens and also because Disney's other shooting dark ride isn't very good. I wasn't expecting much, but this ride was very cool. I was ready to go back on for a second ride, but the park had closed for the night.