A new Roy Rogers opened in my old stomping grounds of Cleves, Ohio around a month and a half ago and we finally made a stop there last Saturday after doing our annual spring landscaping at my moms house.
I had heard rumors that it wasn’t the same Roy’s we had back in the 70’s / 80’s and had hoped they weren’t true.
But, alas - I was very disappointed to find out that this new place may have inherited the same name and decor, but the food was sorely lacking from its predecessor.
They have a burger which is called The Double R which is topped with a couple of slices of thin grilled ham.
But what made it was the burger flavour, the sesame seeded & butter toasted bun (like Arby’s) and most importantly, the barbecue sauce that was available as a condiment as opposed to ketchup.
First of all, the burger was not much bigger than your standard McD’s and its flavour was more charbroiled like Burger King.
The bun was standard (no sesame seed and not butter toasted) but the worst was the barbecue sauce, which somebody had told me was Sweet Baby Ray’s (decent, but not even in the same ballpark as Roy’s in-house made).
The fries were hot and not bad, but again, nowhere near the originals.
Lucky for me, there is STILL an original Roy’s within a 30 - 40 minute drive on the east side of the city.
It’s no longer part of the RR franchise and hasn’t been since they all closed locally several decades ago.
But the owner, Roney somehow made a deal with RR to keep all of the foods and menu items, including the BBQ sauce as well as the interior decor from the original RR restaurant.
It continued operating all these years at its original location in Eastgate (right across the street from a Frisch’s Big Boy, which I believe owned all of the area RR franchises back in the day as most of them were next door or across the street from those Big Boy’s).
Around a decade ago, both of them were closed for redevelopment, but Roney’s relocated to Milford and built a whole new restaurant there.
They brought along all of the photos & Roy memorabilia as well as the original neon ten gallon hat sign.
It’s a bit of a haul, but it’s WELL worth the additional time and distance as opposed to this new wannabe location.
I just hope it can continue to thrive in such a tight and viscous market. We already lost our favourite rib place a couple of years ago to Covid.
Roney’s MUST go on!!!
GO DODGERS!!!