Red Rooster Drive In

1566 Route 22, Brewster, NY - (845) 279-8046

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Posted By Michael Stern on December 20, 2009 7:33 PM

Lovely cheeseburgers, heaped with fried onions and sided by a genuine New York egg cream: drive-in life doesn’t get much better than this blast-from-the-past eatery just north of I-684 in New York's Putnam County.

Although a roadside archeologist would definitely categorize Brewster's Red Rooster as a drive-in, there is no car service and there are no car hops. Still, there is a spacious parking lot and plenty of people eat in their cars (or in one of three improbably small two-person booths opposite the order counter inside. Happy service, ingenuous cuisine, and car-culture ambience are pure mid-century America.

The hamburgers are not too big, not odd in any way, just fine handfuls fashioned by grill chefs from never-frozen beef and sizzled on a smoky charcoal grill in such a way that despite their thinness, a little pink remains inside. Burgers come plain or deluxe (the latter with lettuce and tomato), and side dishes include fat-bodied battered onion rings and crisp French fries. To drink, there are milk shakes and floats made from the Rooster's soft-serve ice cream as well as well as egg creams that are well made but served in paper cups that obscure the cloudy chocolate patterns offered by a classic egg cream glass.

We are particularly fond of the cheeseburgers gilded by an extra-cost order of onions that are grilled until limp and slippery and radiant with sweet onion perfume. The menu also lists all-beef hot dogs and fried chicken.

In nice weather, customers can choose to eat at one of several picnic tables spread across the lawn in back. Adjacent to the open-air dining room is a modest miniature golf course where kids and carefree adults wile away pleasant evenings in the Red Rooster’s afterglow.

Overall Rating

Cheeseburger Deluxe

Egg Cream

Onion Rings

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