When I was a kid, I thought Peters' Drive-In was around foreeeeeever! Its been the go to place for huge hamburgers, cheeseburgers and killer milkshakes on every field trip down to Calgary and whenever we we able to wheedle our parents into going while we were in Calgary. Open since 1962 by a charismatic Gus Pieters - he was passionate about food quality, treated his staff like family and his simple little drive eventually became a quintessential and revered part of the Calgary food scene and is a must try place if you're in town. If you've never heard of it, you've been living under a rock! Though Pieters sadly passed away in 2008, this blast back to the past drive thru burger joint is still run the way Pieters would approved of - never frozen 100% beef chuck patties, Canadian cheese and icecream plus fresh fruit for the milkshakes... and the employees keep a tight running ship making countless burgers, shakes, onion rings and fries to the drive thru line-ups that loop around the building are always present, but its never a long wait to bite into your burger or sip on a delicious shake. Pieters had always paid his employees well above the average burger flipper wagers, and it shows in the consistency of the food and service.. yes, real service at a burger joint!!
My first memory of Peter's Drive in was of a school field trip down to the Calgary Zoo... our teacher was astounded as some of us had never tried it before... she leaned over to ask the bus driver "mind heading back a little late... Could we detour to Peters?" I swear, we there were quite a few.. fewer wheels contacting the road as the bus driver did an abrupt u-turn and zoomed to Peters lol!
And yes, rain, shine, snow, day or night, there is always a line up at the "stand in line" line ups at the front
... and plenty of cars coming in off the street, sneaking in from the alleys to get into the two drive thru line-ups. It was cash only for the longest time... but yes, they do take debit now too lol!
Though I gazed at their infamous triple burgers (very few folks can boast they can finish one!), both me and my boyfriend each got a cheeseburger and shared a milkshake and onion rings, knowing full well we'll likely not finish all the food as the portion sizes at Peters are generous. If you're ambitious, you can try the double (2 patties) or feeling crazy/stupid hungry, you can attempt to finish a triple (3 patty) burger or cheese burger. Here's the cheese burger baby!
The soft tender bun is freshly baked everyday.. the old fashioned slow-rising sponge dough recipe hasn't changed since they opened.. and it works!
It comes with not one, but one and a half patties the size of my outstretched hand.. the burger patties are grilled and have a springy texture characteristic to Peters, lots of melted cheddar cheese and a good slathering of their special BBQ sauce, mustard, and relish. You can ask for tomatoes, lettuce and onion rings to be added to your burger, but we had it the way its always been made.. just bun, cheese, sauce, burger and plant face into it! :D
We snacked on lightly crunchy battered onion rings that stayed crunchy even after the 3 hour drive up back to Edmonton.. mmm.. greasy oniony goodness!
And last but not least, there's about 20+ milkshake flavors, and you can combine any of the flavors if you're feeling inventive, which means there's a lot of flavor combinations and permutations! We went with an Oreo milkshake!
All the milkshakes is so thick you'll be making puckering fish faces at each other as you attempt to draw it up the straw. The Oreo milkshake.. is like drinking the oreo icing with little crunchy-mooshy bits of oreo cookie in it... awesome!
So if you haven't tried Peters' Drive-In, or haven't had it in a while... join the throngs of families, after hockey-soccer-baseball-lacrosse-basketball-softball etc kids, parents, teens, grandparents, aunts, uncles and anyone who wants to have a taste of tradition for some old school huge burgers and killer milkshakes.. because "Its the drive-in you can't drive by!"
Peters' Drive-In
Address 220 16 Ave NE, Calgary, AB
Phone (403) 277-2747
Hours Open daily 9:00AM - Midnight, Closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Open until 3pm on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve
Map
No comments:
Post a Comment