Dari-ette Drive-In

A local drive-​in, this place screams old-​school. Grab a bite to go, or a table on-​site, or pull your car up to an order box and relax in the comfort of your vehicle.
The fried chicken is in a batter unique for chicken, almost like a beer batter. Light, flaky, addictive, and the chicken is well seasoned and super tasty.
Other favorites are the pizza burger, and a great fried chicken sandwich that takes me back to my childhood drive in days — just simple, straight-​forward tastiness. Comfort food at its most honest.
Choose from a decent array of sides and top your meal off with one of their excellent malts (REAL ice cream), the banana malt is crazy good and worth the price.
Family owned and operated, it’s only open for the summer season, it’s a slice of MN you need to sink your teeth into while you can!

Best broiled Chicken, I love this place, the pizza burger is a close second for me. Not a lot of seating inside. But if you do the car hop thing, the kids will love it. A Minnehaha classic!

Yuk on the way overcooked spaghetti sauce and the flavorless dry bread. Had a butterscotch dip cone for dessert and the butterscotch has hardly a taste, kinda like an off brand graham cracker.

Dari-​ette Drive-​In is a Saint Paul legend.
This seasonal drive-​in has been delighting residents of the Dayton’s Bluff area of east St. Paul for four generations and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. The menu is monolithic and features an eclectic and unique mash up of Italian and fast food, both favorites of the locals judging by the other restaurants available in the area. This gigantic-​jack-​of-​all-​trades menu comes with a compromise as some of the offerings are much better than others. For instance: the French Fries are god awful bland potato sticks with minimal salt sprinkled on them whereas the Italian Sandwich was rather good, boasting subtle hints of basil in the marinara and a bold beef patty with think Italian style bread.
The Meatballs are far and away their most proud offering and I found them to be a decent rendition of the genre’s stalwart but could have used a real boost in the spice department as most of the flavor seemed to come from the aforementioned marinara and not the meat itself. Their ice cream and soft serve offerings are far and away the best bet and are enjoyed properly while sitting inside your rental car watching the passer by’s on Minnehaha Avenue.
I would imagine the majority of Dari-​ette Drive-In’s business is from either the novelty of an old school drive-​in experience or just plain old nostalgia over the years as the food is quite pedestrian at best. I would not go out of the way to return to Dari-​ette but if my travels bring me back to the east side of Saint Paul, I may just pull in for another Italian sandwich and ice cream cone.

All my family and I have eaten at this place has been ice cream and it’s the best! The saddest thing is that my high school is just blocks from the joint! There were strange rumors about the place, don’t know if any were true but that kept me from stopping there too often and once I was off to college trips became even rarer. Our last jaunt over to the ol’ east side was accentuated with a stop here and the ice cream as always was top notch as was the service.

Not much to say but when my spaghetti meatball at home from a bottle of Ragu tastes better, we have a problem. Will most likely not go back.

My girlfriend and I share the same opinion. The meatballs and sauce are both ok, but kinda Chef Boyardeeish. They get a little more flavor after they cool off for some reason. The French fries were very good. Kinda like McDonalds with a nice light crispy coating on them. Most of the prices are pretty reasonable. Would of been hard to eat in the car though.

Been eating here since I was Born. Im in from out of town and I had to come back to my old favorite place. As you can imagine lots of things change in the years but everything it’s always so consistently good that you keep coming back even with the subtle changes overtime products change etc. Well completely disappointed the French fries suck. Over the years I’ve had several different brands but the ones are using now are absolutely the worst very cheap. Coastline isn’t as good either close to what it was but a little more vinegar in it then used to be doesn’t have that same addicting flavor actually has a terrible aftertaste. Burger taste the exact same although they have changed the buns. I’ll be back one more time before I head out of town to see if they’re absolutely fabulous spaghetti delicious meatballs and great fried chicken has remained the same if so I’ll definitely give them 5 stars but for today it’s just an average 3 stars still love the place though

My boyfriend and I ordered the Italiano and Meatball sandwiches and split the jalapeño poppers and garlic cheese bread. The red sauce was really good! I honestly thought the meatball sub was good but not knock-​your-​socks-​off great like I was expecting. I recommend the jalapeño poppers and cheese bread. Oh and make sure you have enough napkins!!!

Today was my free day with the diet I am on. I decided to cure my coney island cravings. I went here and chose to eat indoors. They have very limited seating indoors.
I looked over the menu, even though I knew what I was going to get. Coney’s with cheese and onions are $ 4.90 each. A bit expensive to me. I ordered 2 with a medium beverage. Total was $ 12.32. Expensive lunch for me. Ordering was quick and prepared promptly. I suppose it helps that there was only 1 other party inside and 1 party in the lot.
I got my 2 coney’s in styrofoam hot dog containers. Opened one up and saw that there was sliced american cheese cut in half. Not good. Took a bite and much fell off into the container. Hot dog was a good beef dog. Coney sauce was very good. Not sure if it is house made or food service product. But it was decent. The bun was a nice fresh Sara Lee bun. I know it was Sara Lee because I saw the truck making a delivery!!! The cheese, bummer. Sliced American cut in half and appeared to have melted by putting the dog and toppings in a microwave. Not a good idea.
They were decent coney’s, but I will not drive 5 miles again for them. If I go here again, it will be for spaghetti n meat balls.

I cannot imagine the wonders of heaven, but I pray it has a Dari-​Ette. Our first Dari-​Ette meal of the season is always a joy! Never disappointed.

NOT impressed. My mom, stepdad, and I went and it cost us $ 32 and none of us where that happy with our food.
I got rigatoni ($ 7), and it was an additional $ 1.79 to add mozzarella, mushrooms, or whatever other meats… So I just ordered as is. BAD IDEA… It was so BLAND. I barley ate any of it. Luckily I got a small side order of fries, which where okay.
My parents got burgers that they said where alright. My mom’s came with a side of coleslaw (now she loves coleslaw but), she literally spit it out!
The girl that took our order was really slow, and forgot our sodas. We also overheard her messing up at least two other orders while we where in there.
Overall we where very disappointed, and would not recommend it for the food. We can’t speak to the ice cream though.

In a word Yatzee! Impossible to go wrong eating here. Kids meal selection was great and meatball sandwich is super!

I wanted so badly to love this place but it is just okay. Everything is in the experience! Truly amazing to see one of these old places still operating but at what cost? Their red sauce does not taste fresh made by a long shot. The pasta itself is passible but it’s pasta. The bread they served with my pasta was not even edible. The staff seems friendly enough and the place is mostly clean. With some adjustments to their food, I think they would have been a whole lot busier on such a wonderful night. We may come back and we may not but if we do, it will be for the experience of ordering from and eating in our ’50.

Stopped by for a bite and the Meatball Sandwich was TASTY! The Mrs got the Spaghetti and it was excellent as well! Took home the extra Cheese Bread and Onion Rings cause we were just plain stuffed.

Off the beaten path, Dari-​ette was a great place to meet up with an old high school chum over a meatball sandwich and fried chicken. Soaked in meatball sauce, the sandwich became a messy experience, with each bite requiring a napkin or some good ol fashioned finger lickin’.

Came here for a quick snack after softball tournament. Wanted something refreshing. Our order consisted of a spaghetti, a banana malt and a blue raspberry slushy. The told us the slushy machine wasn’t working. My girlfriend changed her order to a Oreo malt and they said they can only do an Oreo flurry. Really? You can’t just add malt powder? We took our business to Dairy Queen instead.

An East Side institution. My mom used to take my brother and I here when we were growing up. Sadly, I have not eaten here in years, but on Friday I was craving a meatball sandwich and remembered this place. Great food, quick service, and reasonable prices. What is not to like?
Meatball sandwich was HUGE. Seriously. I actually considered not finishing it (But I did!) Fries were good as well, nothing too special but they were tasty. Banana choco milkshake was great!
I need to stop eating so many calories… but it is hard…

I’d never heard of this place before. My husband had a deal to use, so we decided to go on one of our non-​fasting days.
He got the pizza burger, I got the sausage sandwich, and the boy had a cheeseburger. The pizza burger was a winner with the boys. I thought my son was going to try and eat the whole thing himself because he kept asking for bites. He also loved his cheeseburger.
My Italian sausage sandwich was ok. I ate it open faced because it was just too much bread. I felt that the marinara was ok, as well. When I eat Italian sandwiches, I like to feel as though I’ve found something close to what I might get back home in New York. This sandwich did not do that for me. So, if you’re seeking a middle of the road sausage sandwich, this one’s probably alright for you.
I do have to say that I was surprised that they had diet cherry coke. I’d already drunk a gallon of water that day, so I wanted something different. I don’t typically drink soda at all, yet thought it was a good fit for what we were eating.
One caveat about eating outside (we chose to eat inside): If you are allergic to bees, wasps or hornet, park and eat inside the restaurant. We’d pulled up to an ordering station that had bees buzzing about it. I didn’t feel like capping off the evening with a visit to the hospital, so we parked elsewhere and walked back to the restaurant.
Both the boys want to come back, as their burger jones was sated. The onion rings and fries were also ok. Since I don’t typically food of this sort, it must be stellar when I do indulge. I’ve yet to find a burger joint that does that for me. Well, there is Golden’s, but that’s another review.

How many old time drive in diners are left. I found one that infuses traditional American food with Italian and oh so much fun.
The neighborhood is not very savory but overall, you and the family should be ok.
Whether you want a pepper steak, meatballs, a cobb salad or a great malt, this is the place to be.
You can even get a cone or a slushie.
Are you feeling the love and yumminess now?