There is a certain simple elegance to a hamburger with fries. No one is looking for a revelation between the bun or Balm of Gilead in the greasy french fry bag. Just have ketchup, mustard, salt, and napkins available, and I can enjoy myself on a basic, earthy level. But somehow the Rocky Mountain Drive Inn in Provo has managed to bollox up that simple equation terribly.
Their booths are designed for midgets. I couldn’t slide into any of them. The don’t even bring you your tray; you have to go up and get it yourself. A small thing, surely; but it’s the little details that add the right soupcon to a meal eaten out. Their decor is a puzzling, not to say disconcerting, blend of picture window and photos of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Ella Fitzgerald. What those three have to do with burgers and fries I cannot figure out. Unless it’s the fact that I’m pretty sure none of the three ever set foot in this forsaken burgery.
As for the food. Suffice it to say that the ketchup was the only part I found palatable. The french fries were wishy-washy; some were hard and stiff as an ironing board while other slices were spongy and starchy. My quarter cheese burger . . . well, it there was a quarter pound of meat in there, I’m a Baptist! And it leaked a goopy orange sauce with every bite until my table swam in it like kindergarten finger paint. It came lukewarm and by the time I was halfway done it had started to congeal into a cold and heartless piece of wreckage that Caligula would not feed to his prisoners. For the first, and I fervently hope the last, time in my adult life I couldn't finish either the burger or the fries. And I hadn't had any breakfast. Even my fountain drink tasted off, and there was no ice in their ice machine.
On the off chance I might be mistaken in my opinion, I asked the guy sitting in the next booth how he liked his corn dog and fries. He was wearing a black hoodie with Provo Law stenciled on the front.
"It was okay" he said grudgingly, as if aware if he perjured himself too badly he might be out of a job.
If you’re into culinary self-flagellation, by all means stop by the Rocky Mountain Drive Inn. Otherwise, fuhgeddaboudit.
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