For Father’s Day weekend my wife asked me if there was any sort of celebrating I wanted to do. I had two things in mind, fishing and root beer. Luckily for me I knew of a place I could accomplish both (so I thought). Just 15 minutes south of where I live I had discovered the Minnetonka Drive-In in Spring Park, nearly smack in the middle of Lake Minnetonka. They make their own root beer, and surely there’d be some public fishing pier. So we set off to fish and found the only fishing pier on the map (that I could find in Google) was completely inundated with duckweed, lily pads, and other weeds making fishing entirely impossible. But at least we could get to the drive in. The Minnetonka Drive-In was opened in 1961 as a family business. The classic root beer stand is still owned and operated by one of the children of the original founder. He started working there at age 9, washing glass gallon jugs for root beer. I love a family business root beer stand story. They have random mugs to serve their root beer, some unmarked, some A&W, according to the server, they just acquired them wherever they could. There’s lots of picnic tables and they have car service as well. Since I don’t eat in my Model 3, I just ordered inside and went to a table in the shade, since it was a beautiful day.
The Body has that classic root beer flavor with a hint of vanilla. It’s plenty sweet, but it is also just a bit mild, like it could use to be a bit stronger. The Bite is a little spicy while low on the carbonation side. The Head is short and foams away too quickly. The Aftertaste is some sweet vanilla.
It’s overall tasty, but just kind of lacking in all departments, but the core flavors are still really good, so I still give it an above average, high 3. I almost want to go a little higher, but reading my own review doesn’t justify. Three is good from The Root Beer Gourmet after all. The food there is quality. I had their signature Minnetonka Twin burger with onion rings and slaw and cheese curds. I forgot to order bacon with it sadly. Some of the family got some ribs and other fish and chips. It was all really good. I recommend dropping by if you’re in the area.
The Minnetonka Drive In
A Minnetonka Twin burger with onion rings and root beer. Quite the delicious meal.
This past Saturday I had to get out. This lockdown stuff since March, I’m going a little crazy not having the life of travel adventures anymore. At the same time, I recognize that I need to be safe about things and stay away from people as much as possible. I know restaurants are starting to open but only for take-out, and I thought, there’s gotta be some root beer stand out there where you can just grab your food, eat on a picnic table or something. A little searching and sure enough, an hour an a half south of me, in the town of Waseca, I found Barney’s Drive-In. They still do car hops and have some picnic tables out in the sun for those who don’t want to eat in their cars (I for one am not eating in my new Tesla). Plus they make their own root beer and serve in frosty mugs. Exactly what I was looking for. So after walking around some lakeside parks in Waseca for a bit, I pulled into the drive-in and ordered root beer and a Coney dog. Now they have three sizes of root beer, but only the medium comes in a glass pint mug, the small and large come in plastic mugs, for some reason. They also let you order half gallons and gallons to take home. This is a root beer stand in every sense of the word. I, of course, got the medium glass mug. 
