White Castle

We visit this location fairly often, my daughter just loves their chicken rings. Now let me preface this by saying the three stars is more indicative of the chain as a whole and I’ll get to that later in the review.
As far as this location specifically, it is always very clean — although I can make that statement about almost any of their stores. I do admire the efforts they put into that and other restaurants can/​should take note of it. Their staff is generally very friendly as well regardless of what time we are in there, and frankly the food is generally pretty good for «what it is». I personally also appreciate the fact that they serve Coke products although a lot of people would probably prefer Pepsi. :)
So I’m not critical of the store itself, but rather the chain so let me get into that. Maybe I’m showing my age here; but I’ve been eating White Castle for at least 35 years (perhaps slightly longer) and I’m old enough to remember when they had a limited menu — burgers, fries, onion rings, fish, danish, doughnuts, and drinks — not much (if any) more than that. The food was fresh, the prices were cheap, and the service was VERY speedy.
Over the years they’ve suffered from the same menu creep that affects McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and a lot of other chains — they want to be everything for everybody and in my opinion it’s done them more harm than good. Don’t get me wrong, I like their chicken sandwiches for example, but more often than not they have to cook them to order and now suddenly the drive thru is backed up over that.
Secondly, their pricing. Prices go up everywhere and I understand that, but when a single white castle is in the $.70 range and you can get a hamburger many other places in the vicinity of $ 1 the value proposition is gone in my opinion.
Lastly, and perhaps this is confined to this location, but I grew up with White Castles being 24 hours. This one seems to close on a whim — we’ve complained to their corporate office more than once — the most recent was a couple of months ago when I took my daughter by at 7:15am and it was closed. If you aren’t going to be 24 hours that’s fine, but at least be consistent.
You can’t put the horses back into the barn, but I really think they could prune ¹⁄₃ to ½ of their menu, re-​evaluate their pricing somewhat, and be more successful than they are, but that’s simply my opinion.

Since there are no longer White Castle’s in the greater Kansas City area, I have had to rely on the frozen version of this unique burger, which folks call sliders. My late father introduced me to White Castle and in his memory I eat them on his birthday. I was not able to have my ‘traditional’ White Castle memorial meal this past September and today made up for it.
On our road trip today we had to take a refreshment break and I got enjoy a #1 4 sliders, crinkle fries and a coke. Yum. The real burgers are so much better than the frozen version. The onions were grilled and abundant, the little square bun was greasy, but in a good way and the pickle makes the burger.
I also like the crinkle fries that Castle does, they are not like any other crinkle fry out there. Really crisp and light and fluffy in the middle. Also pleased to see Castle serves Coke products.
The restrooms were clean and the staff polite and efficient.
My ONLY complaint was the store was so HOT. It was stuffy hot, I think there was something wrong with the heating system.

Let me start by saying I never was a White Castle fan. However, on my long journeys to the STL I find myself remembering a dumb movie about a journey to this food establishment. My trips have never been as crazy as the movie but I keep hoping. In the mean time I can still act out getting to the place to eat. And… still yet not a fan of the holey burgers but they’ll do for a 4 hr trip home in the middle of the night.

I have suffered many years living in the south trying to be convinced that Krystal is as good as White Castle. Not by a longshot! It has been over 2 decades since I have enjoyed biting into a White Castle burger. There is a reason it is the best and the original. The service was fast and courteous and the food did not disappoint. Yeah yeah, I know… it’s flavored cardboard fast food, but I don’t care. There are not very many things from your childhood memories that don’t change or disappoint when you revisit them. Everything was on point here.

Nothing like several sliders after a late night out. This White Castle is clean and the employees are polite.