Bill & Bob’s Roast Beef

Sitting right there at a major junction between Salem and Beverly, this place is a good spot when you don’t want to go to McDonald’s or Burger King. Yes, it might have the reputation of serving the areas inebriated citizens after last call. But this is a good alternative to the other fast food places that has hot dogs and good roast beef. My go to is actually the Texas burger with fries (which are good). Every time I go its very consistent. Once I went in there with my kids and there is plenty of eat-​in room. Maybe one day they’ll do an update, it does feel a little 70s-​80s in there and there seems to be an ongoing tradition from perhaps the inebriated constituents of putting bumper stickers all over the drive through. Not sure how to prevent this… But good steady food!

The Roast Beef is excellent! Even though the portions are small compared to what most Roast Beef restaurants offer, especially for such a high price. But, they do offer a much higher quality Beef.
I do have one complaint though:
I used to stop here almost every night on my way home from work. While I still enjoy the Roast Beef, the Chicken Filets used to be my favorite. Then, a few weeks ago they switched to new, smaller ones that have a slight sweet taste to them. As a result, I went from 4 – 5 visits a week to just one.
Last night, I asked the guy at the drive through if they had switched back yet, and he said yes! I was so pleased to hear that! So, tonight I stopped to order a small Chicken Filets. I was so disappointed when I got home to find they were still the gross new ones! YUCK!

Best Roast Beef sandwich! Have been eating here for over 40 years. Still drive down from NH just for the food. Wife loves the pastrami and chicken fingers. We love eating in the car in back parking lot and looking at Beverly/​Salem harbor. Service is excellent and quick.

Food is pretty good. We love the fries so much, we call them magic fries. If you want good service though and prefer not to get attitude from old cranky dudes, head to the one in Peabody. They are way nicer there. I live in Beverly and I drive out of my way to the Peabody location. It’s super expensive for a super beef combo. It’s like $ 10.50 for a large super beef combo. I find that outrageous but my bf finds that it’s a fair price for better quality food than mcd’s. I don’t know about that. But he eats the roast beef, not me. I’ve had the hamburger there and it tasted blah. Not very flavorful.

I purchased a discount card from the Salem high football team. Bill & bobs is one of the discounts listed on the card. When I attempted to use it the old guy working was a total jerk & said «I know nothing about this & refused to take it». I highly doubt the Salem high witches are selling fraudulent discount cards.

We went through the drive in at Bill and Bob’s yesterday. It has been about a year since we have been to this location. We wanted a good cheap dinner on the go. Service was fast and the order was correct. But when they said that will be $ 24.01 I took a double take! We ordered 2 big beef with sauce and cheese $ 10.50 not a bad price at all and they were good ! One ordered of waffle fries. They gave us cheese with them. The cheap nacho cheese you get it the movie theater. $ 4.85. It was a big bag of fries. But the bag was so greasy that it left a stain on my jeans. You need to double bag theses fries. The entire bag was grease by the time we got home. The last part of our order was broccoli bites. My husbands favorite thing! $ 5.99and there was 6 in the box! That’s $ 1.00 a bite. Come on that is one hell of a mark up! If we go back we will only be getting roast beef. All the extras are way over priced!

I’m reviewing only based on the Roast Beef sandwiches. That’s all I get here. Perfectly rare, sliced to order, hot roast beef. High volume place so it’s always cooked fresh. Roast beef in this style is somewhat of a regional specialty on the north shore and this is the best Roast beef sandwich there is. I prefer it to the other «world famous» roast beef establishment in North Beverly because it’s more consistently cooked and slightly more substantial.
People whining on here about prices/​service/​atmosphere are babies. Yes it’s a little run down, no the employees don’t bend over backwards to wait on you hand and foot and aren’t overly annoyingly friendly. It’s a roast beef shop, the only thing that matters to me is high quality beef, served in a reasonably timely manner, for a fair price. That’s what I get every time and what keeps me coming back regularly. If you don’t like this place, you don’t care about roast beef.

It was 11:50 the morning. No reason the food shouldn’t be fresh. I got a burger so stale it was like shoe leather, it was called the Texas cheeseburger but was just meat on a bun, no lettuce, no tomato, nothing. And the french fries were burned. 9 bucks.

Bill & Bob’s is a North Shore institution, for drunks of all ages, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity. Why is it an institution? well for one it’s open until 2am-​ish to help you sop up the booze in your belly before you make your way home. And secondly they have a drive through. (Wait, it’s an institution for drunks but has a drive through? Mhhmm)
They also have the major drunken food groups: fried and roast beef. You can get deep fried stuff and shaved roast beef on toasted buns. I’ve had a larger variety of stuff at B&B over the years that I’d like to admit but everything is solidly decent. It’s not great by any means, but decent enough.
The roast beef on a toasted bun is good. The roast beef is bloody rare and soft, not a stringy bit to be seen and the buns are toasted crispy. Some of the condiments you get for free but if you’d like a slice of lettuce or tomato (as some sort of guilty nod to health because you are getting almost mooing cow on a toasted bun) you’ll be charged 30 cents, each. Cheese is 55 cents. The fries are perfectly deep fried, usually in oil that is just a tad too old and thus strong. Eat ‘em hot otherwise you’ll taste the oil.
The customer service is crappy. You have to also consider that these guys have to deal with drunks all night and day, so when you roll up with 100 questions you get treated like the drunk who can’t remember the order. If you want good service you can go somewhere else because you are aren’t going to get it here. Also don’t go in, when you leave you smell just like a fryolator, and likely booze.
The next time you are hankering for rare roast beef B&B’s isn’t a bad choice, so have your designated driver head over.

Yumm waffle fries from here are the bomb! Some stuff is a bit expensive but they are open late!!!

Horrible food and horrible service. Have had to throw out my meals more than once and staff is really rude.

Try to get there by 12:30 a.m. so that you don’t get caught in the 1 a.m.-just-left-the-bar drive-​through line. I’m partial to the mozzarella sticks, but chicken tenders and fries are also good.

Had roastbeef sandwich which was good… But more importantly, there is a motha flippin drive through!

Time to update the review, since I’ve been here a few times since 2010.
Bill & Bob’s continues to offer great food at very reasonable prices, and they are open late everynight.
My standard order is the Super Beef with sauce/​cheese and a pizza roll, with the occasional diet pepsi (bleh). Yeah, those Pepsi products cost them a star.
Nothing else had changed here. I’ll be back on my next visit home.

Being somewhat of a Roast Beef professional, I can say that this is one of the finest joints on the North Shore. That being said i can’t really speak to the rest of the menu items, but if you’re eating at a place with roast beef in the name and not ordering roast beef, you’re doing it wrong.
Like many other Roast Beef places in the area they feature the classic sizing options including regular beef, big beef, and my favorite, super beef. Slap some signature sauce on it or just mayo and cheese and you’re good to go. Heres a tip from a regular: add bacon. It’s worth the extra cash. Top it off with one of their delicious milk shakes and you’re in heaven.
Speaking of extra cash the prices are definitely higher than you might expect just walking off the street. However you need to avoid the idea that this is just another fast food joint, the food may come up fast but the the ingredients are good quality and a super beef will keep you full for two days. The staff knows what they are doing, but are not patient people! Very rough and tumble, but you have to be when open til 230!

Roast beef is on point, with some type of seasoning that makes it better than any roast beef I have made or bought in the store. Sauces are good, and they are good with putting as much on as you want.
The best part is that they are not as fast-​food-​y as you think. Stuff is good but you can find things on the menu that are good.
And finally, I think it’s owned and run by a local family that uses local places for their supplies. Can’t beat that.

Great little find on the side of the road as we drove up through Salem. One of the best roast beef sandwiches I’ve ever had — flavorful and tender; the fries were good too. Plenty of parking and seating (you order at register and seat self, similar to a fastfood setup) as well as a drivethru if you prefer. You do have to pay for any condiments or toppings you want to put on the sandwich though. Definitely will stop by next time we go up to the North Shore!

This place is Shelbyville quality all around — I ate there once and will never be back:
The oil used here wouldn’t be fit for Homer’s grease collecting business (Season 10, Episode 1).
The quality of food stuffs is even lower than the meat served by Lunch Lady Doris — «More testicles mean more iron!» (Season 5, Episode 19).
The customer service is akin to that of Krusty Burger (Season 2, Episode 17).
All in all, it’s not America — it’s not even Mexico (Season 9, Episode 22).

I will say that I think Bill & Bob’s is amazing. Everything is just perfect.
Their chicken «fillets», fries, roast beefs, pizza rolls and broccoli bites are to die for. Plus, it’s open til 2am.
CON: I think it’s a little too pricey.

Your experience really depends on why you go here. If the bars let out and you’re faced and you want to just fill the pit in your stomach with some of the most heart-​humping comfort food, Bill n Bob’s will definitely do it for ya.
They’ve got awesome roast beef, pizza rolls, cheese steak rolls, fried zucchini sticks, broccoli bites, shrimp roll, turkey sandwiches, and on and on, and on… you get the picture.
Now, for those who are a little less blotto when you’re going for a nice greasy food fix, here’s a couple of cons:
1. They’re always closing early. It’s supposed to be open ’til 2am. In my book, 2am means 2am. Their clock is DEFINITELY set like 5 – 10 minutes fast so even when you’re screaming down the street for a quick roast beef (which takes 20 seconds to make), you will often see the lights going off even though your car clock says 1:52. Some times it’s as early as 15 minutes. Maybe that’s ok with you; it isn’t with me.
2. Trash all over the parking lot some nights. I get it. The people inside are really food servers, not janitors. But some nights, local yokels can’t seem to make it to the barrels and dump their shit all over the parking lot. It generally doesn’t bother drunk people looking to plow good food except for the following…
3. Trash and extra food attracts seagulls. If you enjoy seagull crap all over your car, or just getting chased and dive-​bombed by seagulls if you dare to pull your car over and polish off some food, then this is the place for you.
Trash, seagulls and early closings. All a part of the charm of Bill n Bobs. The workers are pretty cool; they’ve all been friendly and straightforward. It’s just this kind of place isn’t customer-​centric, it’s product-​centric.
In other words, their unspoke motto is, «Eat yer food and shut up.»