Conastogas Restaurant

Went to this restaurant on Monday night as a part of an American Legion Rider’s meeting. Normally we meet at the legion hall and do our business there, but ’tis the season and all, and the president decided that the organization had enough money to treat us this time around by buying dinner for us all at the restaurant.

The American Legion Riders is a sub-organization of the American Legion, and we ride motorcycles, do charity work, and represent the Legion and Veterans. You know, that sort of thing.

So how many members (there were about twenty of us that showed up) actually rode in for this event?

Me. Just me. It wasn’t even really raining! (It had rained earlier, and there was still wetness on the roads, which is why I showed up with wet jeans, and it did rain while we were inside again, but still…)

Our group was seated in a large private room that still has a view on the street. Un-shelled peanuts in a bowl greeted us as we made small talk and the waitress got our drink orders. More small talk as we waited for the drinks to arrive and then our meal orders were taken.

I ordered the “Stogie” Burger with Bacon and cajun fries. We then proceeded to talk for about another half hour before our food started to trickle out of the kitchen. It seems that their kitchen is not designed to handle a twenty seat order at once. Nor does the restaurant appear to realize that for a group of twenty, you really need more than one waitress to handle everything. I really do mean everything in this case. She had no help when it came time to deliver the food, when it came time to fill up the glasses of iced tea, which pretty much everyone had, etc.

Finally, our food did start to arrive, oddly enough in reverse order of the sequence that it was ordered… oh well, no big deal in that regard. The Stogie burger is a 16oz patty on a decent sized bun with all of the usual accoutrements for a burger… lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese, bacon. I passed on the pickle, because American pickles are crap. The burger was done to specification, and was a good burger. I mean, there was nothing spectacular about it, nor was it bad. It was a large burger that comes from a Western themed restaurant… so it was what I would expect.

Really, you are getting what you would expect from a restaurant such as this, and the value is there for the money. The one niggly little thing that I would bitch about would be their claim that they have the largest burger in the country, referring to some place in Oregon that serves a 36 ounce burger. So apparently this place one-upped them with a 48oz burger (basically three Stogie burgers stacked on one another). Whoo! Sounds like no one would be topping that, right?

Wrong.

Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Pennsylvania has a number of different challenges… their 48 oz challenge is there, just like Conestoga’s, but they also have a 96 oz challenge (yes, that is SIX pounds). There are a number of other challenges that they have which are just scary to even look at.

Anyway, that is my quick review of Conestogas Restaurant. I would recommend it if you want a typical Western style restaurant that serves burgers and steaks, as they do a decent job, but be aware that you are going to be swamped with a bit of kitchy western stuff along the way.

http://www.conestogasrestaurant.com/