#294: Amy’s Drive Thru

11:45AM, 6/3/2023

Not long after the last post I decided I wanted to check out Amy’s Drive Thru. This is a vegetarian/vegan/organic focused fast food joint located in the Galleria mall’s parking lot. There don’t seem to be many of these, less than 10 or so. At first I didn’t know this place had anything to do with Amy’s frozen foods, mostly because I wasn’t even aware of the frozen foods! A friend told me about them when I brought up the Drive Thru. So to really make this a complete visit I made a point to check out the selection at the grocery store (Safeway) and picked out the Broccoli and Cheddar Bake to try out. I’ll get into this after the main part of this post.

I headed over to the Drive Thru on an empty stomach, and I was extremely hungry after being surrounded by the delicious aroma of warm buttered popcorn while I watched an early showing of Across the Spider-Verse in the Century right there at Galleria (loved the movie, btw). The movie let out just after 11:30 and I was at Amy’s by 11:45. As I pulled in I was checking the building out closely. I had never seen it close up from this side before and wasn’t sure if this was, as the name maybe implies, strictly a drive thru. There was certainly an outside patio, both covered and uncovered. It was difficult to see through the windows but it appeared to also have inside dining. I grabbed some drone shots, then headed in, pausing to grab a photo of the green car, both painted with flowers and home to real flowers, having been converted to a fancy planter.

Once inside I was pleased by the large, clean, brightly lit dining room with high ceilings. A woman working the counter greeted me as I approached and asked if this was my first time (definitely picking up on me taking in the whole menu at once). With my affirmative response she happily gave me a rundown of the concept (everything is vegetarian as a base, everything can be made vegan and/or gluten-free) and pointed out a handful of popular items. I heard parts of this towards other customer throughout my visit. She was great, and may as well be the actual Amy as far as I’m concerned!

I picked out their flagship burger, The Amy (double veggie patty, double cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, Fred Sr.’s secret Sauce)[$7.99], the Chili Cheese Fries [$5.79] and a regular fountain drink [$3.29]. A little under $20 struck me simultaneously as a bit pricey and also a lot less than I had expected from a place like this. Once I had paid I headed over to fill up at the fountains. They don’t have any branded sodas here. I assume it’s a house-brand as they just say Cola, Lo-Cal Cola, Lemon Lime, Orange, Root Beer, etc. I picked out the Lo-Cal Cola, which was so foamy that it took a while to get my cup filled up with more soda than foam. This tasted pretty decent. I would pick a Coke or Pepsi over it but it did the job. It had a light cola flavor with an unexpected hint of apple at the end. I found this curious through every sip, and it didn’t turn me off or anything. It was just interesting.

The pager I was provided with went off about eight minutes after ordering, and I picked up my tray at the counter. The same woman paused an interaction with another customer briefly to offer me some sauces and give me one of each to try out. My first impression was being slightly disappointed with the portion size of the chili cheese fries. I didn’t get a good look at the burger until I had pulled it out of the first wrapper. It was In’N’Out sized, as she had described earlier, so no surprises there. I started with the fries, worried they would cool off or get soggy if I waited on them.

These were pretty great. In fact, they were the best thing I had (the cashier had told me she’s never tried them specifically because so many people say they love them). The chili was super flavorful, the fries crispy (at first) and after testing all of the different sauces (ranch, secret sauce and spicy secret sauce) I decided the only thing that enhanced them was a drizzle of sour cream, which was provided even before the other sauces were offered. I would say that you need to devour these quickly, and I cannot imagine they would travel well at all. While the chili is flavorful, hot and delicious, it’s a bit on the thin side. The fries started soaking it up immediately and before I had finished the small portion it was bordering on a soupy mess.

Moving on the the burger -I did not think very highly of the appearance of the veggie patties. They looked like very generic veggie patties you might get in, oh my god, the frozen section at the grocery store! After writing the last sentence I went to the Amy’s Kitchen website to take a look at their frozen burger offerings to see if they were the same patty. Actually, of the three burger options I found on the site, this Drive Thru version looks the least appetizing by far. It’s so…flat and puck-like. OK enough ragging on what the patty looks like. The rest of the burger looked pretty good. Fresh lettuce, a juicy slice pf tomato (maybe it could have been a little more ripe), plenty of fresh onions and a nicely toasted bun. I really wanted to like this thing. It was just sort of bland overall. The produce did the heavy lifting for flavor. This definitely needed something extra. After first trying the ranch and secret sauces I found the spicy secret sauce to be it. Unfortunately for me I discovered this improvement in only my last couple bites.

Overall I found Amy’s to be OK. It is doubtful I’ll come back to be honest, but I’m not really searching out vegetarian/vegan options like, ever. Places like this need to impress quite a bit to get me to return (I’m thinking Vegan Plate or Sunflower Drive In as examples). I dig the natural aesthetic of the roof, so they’ve got that going for them!

So for my little tangent here let’s get back to that frozen Broccoli and Cheddar Bake. First off this baby was a whopping $8, which strikes me as an unusually expensive frozen dinner. It was essentially pasta, cheese and broccoli. I opted for the microwave method since I was hangry and it would be over a half hour longer to do it in the oven (which would, without question, have yielded better results). I nuked it for five minutes and gave it a minute to rest. Some crumbly bits that would have crisped up using the oven had already fallen out of the bowl into the plastic wrap. I wasn’t about to try and get them back in the bowl, à la cup and ball game, with it still in the bag so I wrote them off as a loss.

The amount of broccoli was super disappointing. I had to really search through the bowl to find the largest piece to photograph on the fork. It’s kinda sad right? All this said though, the flavor was actually pretty great. If this was maybe half the price I’d consider stocking up the freezer with a few at all times. At $8 for this meager serving however, I’m more likely to find a recipe and just make my own.