Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [94]
Best of all, Doumar’s delivers its classic drive-in fare in the classic drive-in manner—on trays that hang on the window of your car.
Goolrick’s Pharmacy
901 Caroline St.
540–373–9878
Fredericksburg, VA
L | $
A while ago when we were on a Washington, DC–based NPR program, Jane bemoaned the fact that good, honestly made milkshakes were getting hard to find, what with all the machines that spew out chemically stabilized shakes that are big on thick but short on taste. A handful of listeners wrote and e-mailed us to cheer Jane up with the recommendation of Goolrick’s, a vintage pharmacy lunch counter where shakes are still assembled from ice cream, syrup, and milk, whirred by wand, and served in the tall aluminum beaker in which they were mixed.
What a joy! Not only are the shakes great, so is the lemonade, which is freshly squeezed. And while nothing on the lunch menu will win huzzahs on the Food Network, we love a roster of nice, modest sandwiches such as BLT, chicken salad, grilled cheese, cream cheese and olive, and even peanut butter and jelly. If a shake or lemonade doesn’t suit your fancy, how about a cherry Coke, vanilla Coke, or chocolate Coke—each made the time-honored way, of course, by squirting fountain syrup into the bottom of the glass before the Coke is drawn.
Naturally, ice cream desserts are a big deal: hot fudge sundaes and individual scoops are available with wet walnuts (60 cents extra) and rainbow sprinkles (40 cents).
Accommodations are limited to counter stools and a handful of tables along the wall. In back, a compounding pharmacist can actually fill prescriptions the old-fashioned way, by customizing medicines to meet patients’ special needs.
Mrs. Rowe’s Restaurant & Bakery
74 Rowe Rd. (Exit 222 off I-81)
540–886–1833
Staunton, VA
BLD | $$
In all candor, we need to say that we have received a handful of notes from travelers who were disappointed with their meals at Mrs. Rowe’s over the last few years. On the other hand, we have heard from many happy customers, and our own experiences, which have included at least one visit per year, have been swell.
Of course it is not the same since Mrs. Rowe passed away, but we continue to love the biscuits and sticky buns, the crunchy fried chicken with mashed potatoes and/or mac ’n’ cheese on the side, the pork chop and stewed apple plate, and the creamy, meringue-crowned banana pudding.
Opened decades ago as a small mom-and-pop café, Mrs. Rowe’s has become a big roadside enterprise. Its fame and its location at the end of a highway exit ramp bring mobs on busy travel weekends (a million people per year!) and sometimes it can seem like an assembly-line eatery where customers are processed rather than served. But once you are seated—and more importantly, once the food starts coming—we are more than willing to forgive the ambience and eat hearty.
Philip’s Continental Lounge
5704 Grove Ave.
804–288–8687
Richmond, VA
LD | $
A favorite haunt of students at the University of Richmond for seventy years, Phil’s is famous for outsize sandwiches ranging from grilled cheese to Reubens and Reuben variants. The turkey club is tall and ravishing and the hamburgers, while not at all fancy, are diner delights, especially when topped with cheese and accompanied by an order of brittle-crusted beer-batter onion rings or French fries. Crunchy pickle wedges come alongside.
Beyond sandwiches, Phil’s offers a broad menu of hot suppers: fried chicken, fried shrimp, even steak. Among libations, adult and otherwise, are terrific milkshakes, tart limeade, and the house signature cocktail, vodka limeade.
Ambience