Knoebel's Amusement Park in Elysburg PA

We've been going there for years (we live about an hour away), and I realized last night that we go there as much for the food as we do for the great rides and the super relaxed atmosphere.

Traveling Tacos: a one serving sized bag of crushed Fritos with taco ingredients shovelled on top and served with a spoon; great! Excellent pulled pork bbq sandwiches, chili cheese dogs, fries, pizza, soft or hard ice cream (Leichtman's), pierogies, potato pancakes, fried chicken, and on and on. The only flat spot is the burgers, which are the standard frozen patty found everywhere.

Knoebel's has no admission charge, you pay by the ride; so if you want to go there and walk around, channel the park's energy and atmosphere, watch the shows featuring local talent (good wedding/high school level, generally), and maybe move your teeth a bit, then it won't cost you more than $1.50 for the funnel cake. And Knoebel's is not a sea of asphalt with rides plunked down on it; it's dirt, gravel, trees, streams, and ponds. It's a nice place.

I'll save you the seat next to me at the Derby Race.


Tom

McDonald's Hash Brown Potatoes remind me of the potato pancakes at Knoebel's except that Knoebel's version are twice as good!!

Knoebel's is a GREAT small town amusement park. They stay competitive among the regional parks (Hershey, Dorney in Allentown and Six Flags in Jackson NJ) by adding a cool coaster or modern thrill ride every few years, but it's really the overall charm that keeps families coming back summer after summer. We're guests of a company picnic later in the month, but this time I'll have to save some room for park food. It's always rated high...and it's VERY affordable. I remember seeing lemonade for something like 75 cents last year. At any other park, it'd be at least $4.

Haven't been there in over 20 years, but I remember the Dodgem Cars as the best I've ever ridden. They were still original without lots of safety features and were fast, making for great bumpin.

I only wish we'd had the Roadfood Forum about 10 years ago when my kids were younger. We made 2 trips back then from NJ to visit Knoebels, but because of my general impression of amusemnt park food, we made a point to seek out a local place to eat before going there. And both times we were disapointed. Had I known the food was that good I would have waited til we got to Knoebels.

I forget the names of the places, but one was a truly awful small BBQ place about 10 miles from the park on a recommendation from some guy at a gas station. Served me right.

I did know enough, however, to stop at Coney Island lunch in Shamokin on the way home the next day on the second trip. --Ken

Just got back from Knoebel's...and had a great time!!!

If you like roller coasters---both the Phoenix (wooden---lots of dips) and Twister (wooden--lots of turns) are recommended. The small town charm of this family run (in this day and age!?!!?) park is infectious!!!

Oh yeah...and we ate too!!! The "tri"-something potato cakes (3 for $1.75) were much better than any sort of McDonald's or Arby's hash browns. The pulled pork BBQ ($3.75) surpasses nearly anything similar that you can order in these parts---wonderful!! The PA Dutch Funnel Cake, topped with powdered sugar ($2.50) and a shaker or two of the cinnamon/sugar was exceptional!!! Not as enjoyable were the Southern Style Ice Tea ($1.75) over a ton of ice or Cesari's "award winning" pizza, but we have an enormous amount of great pizza in this region and, it's so-so New York Style which might just be my predilection.

Again...if you're going---plan on eating here!!! It's very good for park standards and, as you can see above, extremely affordable!!!

Went to Knoebels yesterday. Had a great time on a nice warm day! We had a total of 7 people, with the youngest being 16. Ate lunch at the food stand near the Phoenix coaster. Was pretty good and reasonable. Did notice one thing there: The fryer appeared to be backed up for anything but french fries. So people ordering Chicken strips, Shrimp, fish, vegetables, the wait was pretty long at one point.

We snacked on funnel cake, ice cream, and an amazingly good and reasonable soda slurpee/smoothie. The drink was the consistency of something between the two, and was available in Orange Crush and IBC Rootbeer float. Was only $2.25 for a similar size at Dunkin Donuts would be close to $4.

For dinner, we ate at the Alamo, which is their sit down restaurant. Food was good and reasonable, but we had a problem with getting seated. When I requested a table, I was told 20-30 minutes and that we needed a table due to two people having limited mobility. 50 minutes later we were seated at table with steps. They did let my wife park her scooter inside. The prices were comparable to the stands where they served the same food, i.e. hot dogs, sandwiches, etc. It was also a better deal to make your platter a "meal" which added an appetizer (soup or fruit cup) and a salad for around $2. For a party of 7 we got out of there for under seventy dollars, which is quite reasonable for an amusement park.

I'll be going to Knoebel's in a couple of weeks to eat, ride rides, and eat. I have two sets of directions: 15N to Harrisburg, then either 581E/83N to 81N to 901 to 54 to 487 OR 581W (581W/11N) to 81N to 11N to 61 to 487.

Can anyone give opinions if either way is better. I've gone the 83 to 81 route going to Scranton, but don't know if the other way is better/faster, or if 11N is highway or a road with lights.

I'd also be grateful for any food/ride/food recs for Knoebel's.

Thanks very much,

Kevin

Hmmmm, Kevin. I go there from the other direction, from northeast of the park. I'll look it up on a map when I get home and try to advise you a bit.


Tom

I live in Philly and my family and I have been going to Knoebel's every summer for the past ten years. As a previous poster stated, I go up there for the food as much as I do for the log flume. The potato pancakes, honey dipped fried chicken, pierogies and ice cream are excellent. I'm looking forward to taking my three year old niece there this summer.

That sounds like a really neat place.

If I'm not mistaken, I belive the Knoebel's family or Corp. just purchased Story Land in N. Conway N.H. within the past year.
Hopefully they will bring some of those good features to this region.
Chow Jim

Knoebels is the most reasonably priced amusement park I have ever been to.It might be too tame for many teenagers, but for my under 12 gang it is perfect.In fact,they preferred Knoebels to Disney World and Six Flags Great Adventure because it wasnt as crowded.

Holy crap, Knoebels Grove! We used to go camping up there all the time. Glad to see it's around!

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

That sounds like a really neat place.

Lots of trees and very little asphalt makes it a real pleasure as well. You can buy tickets by the book, and they are good forever, so leftovers carry from year to year.

Menus: http://www.knoebels.com/food.asp

And, here are some pictures to show the setting; it's the fact that it's really out in the middle of the woods that makes it so cool.










And an aerial view, this is of a new (wooden!) coaster they are building:

Sounds like we need to have a Roadfood Round-up at this park. I'm sure Ava would love to come along and sample the rides.

Anyone else?

I visited it for a few hours the other week.  What a gorgeous place for a family with kids, especially young kids.  We will definitely go back.

The pizza at Cesari's there is better than 95% of the pizza in Richmond VA lol.  And the shade in the eating areas is awesome.  I can hardly wait to sample some of the other  stuff.


Seems lemonade has gone up a lot  2.50 at one place, and wasn't that good.  But still much cheaper than the big places.   The other drinks , for example, at Cesari's, were very reasonable.