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| Behold: The largest lit Plexiglas sign in the Western United States (for reals). |
(Issaquah, September 2015)
So the Missus and I were ostensibly in the Seattle area for a wedding, but as you may have already gathered from my previous 2
posts, I had ulterior motives (well, I did want to go to the wedding, too. ...honest...). Having missed earlier opportunities
to ostensibly visit family in Lafayette, IN, home of one of the last 2
remaining Triple XXX establishments, we made sure to take a drive through the (fantastic,
big, majestic) woods (Douglas firs, Diane) to find the other one – which just
so happens to be the only one that still has the traditional root beer barrel
storefront.
The first Triple XXX Drive-In in the Pacific Northwest actually
opened further southwest in 1930, but was demolished to make way for a car
dealership. Its current home in Issaquah
was built in 1968, and had traditional car-hop service until 1996, when the
drive-up portion was demolished to make way for an office building. Thankfully, the restaurant portion still
remains, and its current owners – the Jose Enciso family – don’t seem to want
to remove anything else to make way for anything else (source).
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| …and perhaps have a serious case of horror vacui… |
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| Evidently we were seated in the Elvis corner. |
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A fountain barrel from days gone by – with separate spigots for syrup
and soda.
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Truth.
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| Triple the X, double the root beer, Porta the Pooj. |
These days, the Encisos get their root beer syrup from the
Coca-Cola Company, but I’m not entirely sure whether it’s Triple XXX syrup or just
Barq’s. I’m inclined to think the
former, given that it has a more licorice-heavy flavor than Barq’s typically
has. On the whole, it has a
sarsaparilla-like taste, though less vegetal, and not much of an aftertaste
(although it’s a little hard to distinguish much past the lingering smell of
hot grease – not a bad thing, per se, but it does dull the senses a bit). Texture is on the thinner side as well, so
it’s hard to tell whether its made with sugar or HFCS.
At the end of the day, I have no complaints (just a very
full stomach). I think I still like the
bottled Triple XXX better (and I really should still try the IN version at some
point for comparison), but I’m nevertheless enjoying the whole experience here. Triple XXX Drive-In gets a low 4.
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| ...and bonus points for commitment to the theme, even down to the picnic tables… |
