Peter's Drive-In

219 16th Ave. NE, Calgary,Alberta,Canada, XX - (403) 277-2747

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Posted By Michael Stern on 9/17/2002 3:58:00 PM

When we put out a call here at www.roadfood.com for suggestions of where to eat in Calgary, several people – including a few homesick Albertans – said that we had to go to Peter’s Drive-In.

We went, and we and found the place charming in an old-fashioned way. You drive through (or if on foot, walk up) and place your order, which is handed to you out a window in a bag and in paper cups. You then park your car and occupy one of several happy, sunlit picnic tables around the building or in an adjacent lot and have a classic drive-in meal.

While the setting is nice, most of what we ate was less compelling. A double cheeseburger was built upon two tidy patties of machine-pressed beef that had neither the luxury of a plump hand-formed burger nor the appetizing raunch of a greasy little griddle-cooked slider. They were more like school lunch. We did enjoy the sweet barbecue sauce with which the double-decker was dressed – a supercharged ketchup. And the French fries were crisp and generously apportioned.

As for Peter’s famous milk shakes, available in a rainbow of flavors from banana and blackberry to root beer and rum & butter, we won’t inscribe them in our book of groovy culinary memories, either. The maple shake is a true-Canada experience, but like the other flavors we sampled, its thickness seemed more the result of chemical suspension than of creamy dairy richness.

Still, if it’s a sunny day in Alberta and you are cruising through town along the old Trans-Canada Highway, burgers and shakes at a Peter’s picnic table are the makings of a roadside experience that is hard not to like.

Scorecard

Overall: One of the Best - Worth a Trip

hamburger	milk shake
French fries

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"Peter's Double Cheeseburger, loaded with sweet barbecue sauce"
Michael Stern

"Service is drive-through or walk-up. And the dining facilities are outdoors or in your car."
Michael Stern

"On a pleasant day, Peter's picnic tables are a nice place to sit and snack"
Michael Stern

"Peter's menu, as seen from the driver's seat. (The prices are Canadian dollars -- worth about 2/3rd USA currency.)"
Michael Stern