Arby’s (9th Street)
5035 S. 9th StreetContinuing my trend of cheap lunches and writing blogs about chain restaurants that we’ve all eaten at and already have an opinion about.
I had to make a quick stop at Wings West one day last week to drop of L’s skates. She was getting a ride from school straight to the rink so J asked me to lock her skates in the office and she would get them when she got there.
I had a couple of things to do at work in the morning before I could take my lunch break and run over there so I threw her skates in my car and took care of that stuff first.
I dropped her stuff off around 11:30 and started to head back to work.
Of course, I was hungry and I thought it was just going to be easier to stop at one of the many fast food options on South 9th Street.
I picked the Arby’s on the corner of 9th Street and N Avenue in Texas Township. The restaurant on the corner has access from both 9th and N. I was coming from the east so I just pulled in off N Avenue. I’d typically do the drive thru but that makes for a boring blog. I got out of my car and went inside to order.
I haven’t been inside an Arby’s in a really long time so not sure if they’ve really caught up on all the technology most fast food joints are employing but this location looks like an Arby’s that hasn’t change much in the past decade or so.
There’s an order counter to the left as you walk in along with the queue that used to be a necessity at fast food joints when you had to go inside and there was no Door Dash. Now it just seems like an outdated relic of the past.
There’s also a large dining room that would never be built like this today. Again, something from the 90’s when people used to sit down in fast food restaurants and not eat as much while driving down the highway doing 80 mph.
My family always went to Arby’s growing up. It was a treat at the time to get 5 Roast Beef Sandwiches for $5. Not kidding, we’d get like 15 of them. My brother and I would each eat two or three while we were sitting there and we took the rest home for leftovers. Even in 1994, that was a good deal.
That’s not a deal they offer anymore and I don’t want to eat 3 full sandwiches. I do want the meat of three sandwiches though so I ordered the half pound roast beef as a combo meal with crinkle cut fries and a large drink. The cost was a little over $12.
It really took only about five minutes for the lady who took my order to call my name and hand me a bag of food. I headed back to the office to eat.
Well, to be fair, I ate the fries in the car.
I know everyone love the curly fries at Arby’s, and I don’t mind them, but I really miss the homestyle fries. I have never had the crinkle cut so I decided to go with those. It’s definitely something different. The fries are what I expect from a fast food joint. They’re frozen crinkle cuts with almost but not quite too much salt. I snacked on them as I headed back my office downtown. They were fine but still not as good as the old homestyle fries.
I am one of those people who is not afraid to admit that I always have and still do like Arby’s roast beef sandwiches. They’re really not much. It’s just thinly sliced roast beef which they slice fresh in store…and really, that’s all of it. Meat and bread. What’s not to like about that? Sure, you can get a beef and cheddar or you can add on Arby’s Sauce or Horsey Sauce….but the classic meat and bread has always been the thing I’ve liked about Arby’s and it will always be the thing I order.
I feel like Arby’s always gets such a bad rap because it really is just simple. Meat and bread. It’s a place that will always hold nostalgic significance to me. My family now doesn’t really like anything there so we don’t go often. There are shakes they like and sometimes B likes the chicken tenders but there are other options around this particular location that they like better. I’d always take a Roast Beef and have stopped a few times on my own on my way to Wings West.
SW Michigan Dining 