Peters Drive In

Fries were disgusting. I don’t know what the taste was exactly but almost like I was eating styrofoam fingers. Needed the salt and ketchup. The burgers were okay. Milkshakes were the only good thing we had. We definitely won’t be going back. It’s a lot of money for mediocre food at best.

Mediocre at best. Our order was incorrect, one burger made wrong and they forgot our onion rings. When I approached the counter they said they were still cooking and we would be called. Still weren’t called by the time we finished eating. Burger meat is like frozen cardboard meat and fries are tasteless and not crispy at all. Got a strawberry milkshake and it was basically just vanilla ice cream, barely any strawberry flavor. My boyfriends cherry shake was great though. Should focus more on quality instead of quantity.

A Peter drive-​in in red deer!!! And I though us Calgarians we’re the lucky ones. I guess there now part of the fast food chain.
Located right on gasoline ally. Stop by on the way home from a work trip. Service was fast and the location was clean. I had the cheese burger it taste good with the basic toppings. My co-​worker order small fries with his burger and it was huge. He’s a big eater but couldn’t finish it.
It’s a good spot to swing by for a pit stop and a bite to eat.

Not a huge fan. Burger had a glorified DQ taste. Fries were far too big of a portion and very bland. Again, the onion rings were reminiscent of DQ. There are other burger joints I would choose instead.

Burgers and fries not that good. Milkshake was very good. Would give this 2.5 if that was possible.

It is true the burger meat ISN, T that good. and even though the portions are large the fries aren’t so good by the time you get to them.
Negs. I get sleepy after eating there.
Meat is spam like.
Fries not to good
Can’t hear the person taking order
Bill adds up.
Ice cream stuff not as good as Costco just around corner.
Pos.. Great onion rings
Lots of options with toppings
Lots of options with milkshake ect.
Big portions of fries and the extra half patty.
Picnic tables and lots of parking.

Ok milk shake, pretty good burger, terrible fries that were huge but I threw them out. I would only get the burger there again.

We went as a group after some Costco shopping to check this place out. Prior to this I had only ever eaten at the outdoor location in Calgary, but I much prefer that this has a nice big interior dining space. The burgers are delicious the way they’re dipped in BBQ sauce, and the milkshakes alone are enough to make us drive all the way back :)

@PetersDriveIn in Red Deer didn’t meet my expectations. First off I have to mention I was being very critical of this review by comparing this location to the Peter’s Drive In located in Calgary. That being said, the fact that they have converted into a chain with this location means they should act like one. A chain should have consistent quality and service throughout the organization.
This location has managed to capture the same flavour as the one in Calgary. However, it has failed miserably in the quality and speed of service. The «Drive In» is really no longer a «Drive In» but a walk-​in and sit down combined with a very very slow «drive-​through» window.
With only 8 cars in front of me I thought the 18 minutes wait to order was a bit too long. I got a double burger with a small fries ($ 9.10 total). 5 minutes later I get to the first window. As I’m paying I hear a lot of running around and barking orders in the kitchen. This is not how the Calgary location is run. People are speedy and know what they’re doing in the Calgary location. The Red Deer version appears to still be in the learning phase, months after opening. I paid in cash but still needed my receipt so I ask the lady for my receipt. She said that it would be taped to my bag.
So I get to the second window and the guy says my food will be ready in 30 seconds. As a joke to lighten the situation I said «OK, I’ll time you». He thought I was serious and so I explained to him I was joking. I feel like the employees here are wound up tight, possibly due to a lack of leadership. It certainly appears that way. As he hands me my food I notice the yellow tag attached to my bag isn’t really a receipt but a kitchen food ticket. So I asked him for a real receipt.
30 minutes later I’m finally out of there with my food. I may try them again, but only one more try. I don’t think it should take 30 minutes for a fast-​food joint should take 30 minutes, even with 7 – 9 cars ahead of you.

I have to say that I hadn’t eaten at Peter’s in a long time. It used to be a must stop on the way and back to the mountains, but the traffic in Calgary means that I regularly bypass the city on my way to the parks now.
I have great memories of the whole Peter’s experience, but I’m finding that my palate may have evolved since my twenties. Having a Peter’s burger is sort of trying it for the first time again.
First, this place is crowded… I mean way over-​capacity for how it’s designed and the ability of the staff to cope. There are times that the wait must be an hour or more for what should be a fast service meal. It’s so bad that I only got to it more than a month after opening when I decided to try my luck on a mid-​afternoon Costco run.
I can be understanding about being bombed with orders and customers, but I find that management and staff operate not like there’s a line out the door with cars backed onto the road in the drive-​thru, but more like it’s a slow Wednesday mid-​afternoon. There are clearly no training or systems to deal with the demand this place faces.
The burger is much like I remember, but I have to admit the sense of pleasure and satisfaction just isn’t there any more. It still comes with an extra half-​patty whether you order a single or a double, so it’s a meaty burger. I have to say that the sauce strikes me more like ketchup and thousand island dressing than anything else now. Other than that, you get processed cheese, there’s nothing in the way of lettuce, tomato or onions, so it’s a fairly bare burger. I also found that the bun has no tooth, it’s a very airy and light white bread bun, standard, which I feel doesn’t balance the meaty nature of the burger very well.
I think I felt disappointed, because since my last Peter’s experience, I’m used to Fatburger, Five Guys, Rodeo Burger and Red Robins now… and they pile on the «salad» and give you plenty of options, some even on the bun.
They’re busy, yes, but they need to properly use the deep fryer. I used to think that Peter’s onion rings were the best in the province — crispy, light and flavourful, but I was given a clump of fused batter and onions that’s the result of an over-​crowded fryer basket and under frying. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was, if I hadn’t already come home, I would have handed it back to them.
The good news is that the variety and selection of milkshakes is intact, and the shake that I got was every bit as good as I remembered. I like a blend of chocolate, banana and Oreo, and I got the real thing.
The reality is that I’m not going to wait twenty minutes much less an hour for a shake, and I probably wouldn’t order the burger or onion if even if I could walk right up to the counter.
Bottom line, I think it’s a good kids’s burger — very soft and plain, but it turns out that I’m not a kid any more.

Be prepared to wait! There were about 30 cars in the drive through and about 50 ppl ahead of me in the line inside. There are 3 tills and only one was being used most of the time, sometimes two, but usually only one. There were a lot of staff running around and 2 calling numbers for orders. They really need to have three people at the tills at all times when it’s that busy. Very inefficient .
Food was good but not as good as the Calgary location. I will likely not stop at the Gasoline Alley location again. I’d recommend waiting until you hit Calgary.

Not sure what all the hype is about this place. I haven’t been through Peter’s in Calgary since I was 20. I took a chance on the Red Deer store since it is new and there was an acceptably short enough line up. Ordered a single cheese burger, onion rings and a licorice shake.
After about 20 min of idling in line, I arrived at the food window, received my order and was on my way.
Burger = average burger with BBQ sauce and cheese slice. No spark to this at all.
Onion rings = average Sysco supplied. My order was a mass of rings welded together by the deep fryer.
Shake = Freakin’ awesome! It took the entire drive from Red Deer to Calgary to finish this enormous cup of deliciousness!
Bottom line — Peter’s seems to have missed the advent of new burger places offering far superior and interesting styles.
Likely won’t bother with Peter’s again unless line is short. I will pass on the grill and take a shake!

Peter’s Drive In (or more commonly known as Pete’s) is a staple institution in Calgary. Every time that I drive by, the place is slammed with people waiting patiently in their cars and outside in line to get their hands on a burger, fries or their infamous milkshakes. Their newest location recently opened in Gasoline Alley so we decided to check them out for lunch on a Friday.
The lineup inside snaked around the doors but it was moving at a reasonable pace. For the most part, their ordering system is pretty efficient but they need some help organizing themselves. There must have been over 20 people working but only one worker was manning the fryer while 5 people waited for him to do everything for the fries and onion rings. Poor guy, he was hustling too.
The menu is concise — burgers, fries, onion rings, milkshakes (over 4,500 flavour combinations!), and desserts.
— 3x Cheeseburger ($ 4.50) — all their burgers come with an extra half patty. I never knew that! I haven’t had a burger in who knows how long (years) but this one hit the spot. Simple but well executed. The sauce was tasty and I really liked the bun it came with. The texture was soft and chewy. Toppings include Peter’s sauce, mustard, relish and onion. Apparently, you can get lettuce, tomato and fried onion if you request it (not sure if it’ll cost extra moola). All I know is I could have used some vegetables in my life.
— Onion rings ($ 4.50), blueberry mango milkshake and chocolate caramel milkshake ($ 4.95 each) The onion rings were hot, crunchy and crispy. You could tell they came right out of the deep fryer. They messed up our order as we also ordered small fries ($ 4.00) but those were hot and fresh too. I preferred the onion rings and we easily could have skipped out on the extra order of fries. We definitely overdosed in fried gluttony.
As for the milkshakes, you already know about them. You can mix up to three flavours together but we decided to keep it simple. For myself, blueberry with mango and for my bud, chocolate and caramel. They are thick so wait for them to melt a bit unless you enjoy working on your sucking skills ;)
A worthy stop on your way to Calgary.

I wanted to say I loved this location because I love the Calgary location so much but it really just fell short. I have been going to Peter’s drive in since I was a kid and I still enjoy a cool Peter’s Milkshake on a hot day. I was so excited for this location to open as I travel regularly between Calgary and Edmonton and Red Deer is always the break point.
The good:
The milkshakes were just as good as the Calgary location!
The gravy was very tasty! I have never had it before and it was really good.
The restaurant was clean (granted it hasn’t been open that long but they are keeping it clean)
The bathrooms were pretty clean too
The not so good:
My fries were undercooked like super undercooked. Like they really shouldn’t have been served to me under cooked.
The downright unacceptable:
We waited for 50 minutes to be served. They had only been open for an hour. There was maybe 10 – 12 orders ahead of us. The sheer level of inefficiencies was shocking! I can give them credit that they have only been open for so long but the Calgary location runs like a finely oiled machine and this place was a broken down hoopdie. I know the owners know how to run something efficient. They literally had a line to the back of the restaurant and they were making French fries one order at a time. There were points with 3 cashiers that no one was talking orders because the cashier would take the order then when to fill the order with zero sense of urgency and just be standing around waiting for one thing or another.
It wasn’t even a busy weekend that I was there. I was there on a Thursday at 11:00am. There was no clear manager or leadership and it showed.
I am soooooo disappointed because I was sooooo excited.
Ever the optimist, I will give them another try in a few months, maybe closer to 6 until they work the kinks out (or at least I hope they do).

It’s a really long wait time and the food is really mediocre compared to the Calgary location. I was not very happy that we drove out of our way to come eat here. The onion rings were good but the burger was sloppy and cold.

Burger is similar to one of those that you would find at a car dealership on come have a burger and test drive a car sales event, or a fundraiser for a kids sports team, or at a carnival. Lame, tasteless patty.
Fries were ok, a bit greasy and not crisp, onion rings were good, milkshake was good. For the 40 mins we waited in line and the 10 mins we waited for the food, it definately is not worth it.

Do not go here if expect either decent service or timely food. After spending 45 mins to get halfway through a lineup that should’ve taken MAYBE 20 mins total, I walked out.
What made things worse was the fact that there were lots of employees standing around doing nothing. One of them was wandering around twirling an onion ring on his finger. For 10 minutes at the end there, there wasn’t even anyone taking orders!

Pathetic wait time !!!
I could have driven to the one in Calgary faster !!!
Don’t waste your time fat burger is better !!

Peter’ is classic and the experience did not disappoint. We went within the first month of opening, so the wait was about a half hour to order because of the line up, but staff seemed to be working hard. Food was good, shake was great!

Food is good so far as fast food goes. Inconsiderate drive through users queue on the road. This is actually illegal, so you can get a ticket if your unlucky. Seems to be popular though, place is always packed. Prices are reasonable. It took is ½ hour to get to the front of the line, it was as long as the length of the building. There are 30 flavours of milkshakes, you can combine up to three kinds for 4500 variations. The single burger comes with an extra half patty. The burger I had was drenched in what I assume was ketchup, making it very messy. Finally, because this is Alberta, you have to fight idiots driving oversize pickups for a parking space.