Darrel’s Root Beer Stand

Used to eat there all the time in my college days when I spent the summers up in Winslow with a buddy from school. Taco tangles chilli cheese fries great burger were ok root beer was good too

Good place, loved the chili cheese fries. Very reasonable and root beer is delish. Definitely a must-​stop by place in Winslow.

I’ve eaten here many times throughout my life, and I’ve never been disappointed by the food. The prices aren’t bad either. I’ve had friendly customer service, and not-​so-​friendly customer service. I suppose it just depends upon who is working. Unfortunately, as far as employment at this establishment is concerned, they tend to only hire people that attend the LDS (Mormon) Church, as that is the faith of the owner (s). I find that a bit discriminatory. Aside from that, I’ve never had any issues and do enjoy their food.

My guy tried to eat here 3 times before our forth successful trip to Winslow.
We’d made a day trip from our weekend in Heber over to Holbrook to see a friends airplane and needed to get somewhere to get a micro sd card. We decided on Winslow rather than Showlow for the pretty drive home and the hope that Darrel’s would FINALLY be open.
We get there and its 3:50 PM. They close at 4. This is more than likely why they aren’t ever open when my guy went through town, its always after 4 on his way back from Flagstaff when he stopped.
This place is an off the wall «nothing better to do» kind of place to try and out friend from Flagstaff recommended it.
My guy had a burger and I have a fry wrap. He had a root beer float and I had a plain old root beer.
My guy really liked his burger, in particular he liked that it was built upside-​down, which I guess means the veggies are under rather than over the meat.
My fry wrap (a flour tortilla with what amounted to chili cheese fries wrapped up inside it was AMAZING! Its a fun gut bomb. Sooooo heavy but Sooooooo good. My kids would love it! (if only they were there with us that day.)
The chili is peppery without being spicy which I found interesting.
I also ordered onion rings (this thinking that onion rings from a stand alone place like this would be AMAZING, they were NOT. They were freezer onion rings with mechanically chopped onions with a weird flavorless batter on them. Also for 2.95 I would have thought I’d get more than 6 sub-​par onion rings, but I was dealt a crappy hand and I won’t order those again, if we do return.
This place makes homemade root beer. This is where they shine. It was really good, not overly carbonated, exactly the way its meant to be. This is why this place is not a 3 star.
In the end, I liked my food (for the most part) I liked my drink and my guy liked his burger.
The location is awkward and hard to find. Its hours during the week are 3 hours later, then why not on Saturday too? I bet it would do better with longer hours on the weekend.

We stopped in Winslow specifically to eat at Darrel’s Root Beer Stand. Really? Yes, really. The strange thing is I had never been in Winslow. I had never eaten at Darrel’s. I had never met anyone who had eaten at Darrel’s. Honestly I had never even heard of Darrel’s until I started looking for fun places to eat between Valencia, CA and Santa Fe, NM… and Darrel’s looked fun.
So, we stopped in Winslow, stood on the corner, took a couple of pictures, and then tried to find Darrel’s. OK, Darrel’s is kind of hard to find. Yeah, I know that Winslow is smaller than my living room, but it is on a slightly run down and scary residential street where you do not expect to see a hamburger stand. After driving around for a while we finally found it and it was closed. FYI, they are open Monday-​Saturday from 11am-​7pm (believe me you do not want to be in that residential neighborhood after dark) and they are closed on Sunday… the day I happened to be there. Disappointed, we vowed to return on the way back home.
Fast Forward a couple of days when we returned to Winslow to finally eat at Darrel’s. You order inside and eat on picnic benches outside… there is no indoor seating. My partner in crime and I ordered the following:
Large school burger — a decently sized chili burger with cheese, shredded lettuce and pickles. The chili is beanless and more like taco meat than traditional chili. It was good though not what I was expecting. The burger also comes in a regular size which is smaller… but that isn’t how I roll.
Large Chili fries– the fries were shoestring and covered in the taco meat/​chili and a very large helping of melted orange cheese.
Taco Tangle– This was intriguing but turned out to be more of a burrito than a taco. It was a flour tortilla filled with taco meat/​chili, lettuce, and orange cheese rolled up like a burrito. We never figured out the «tangle» part, but it was tasty.
Cheese Crisp– Again intriguing but it turned out to be a simple orange cheese quesadilla.
Bubble gum slush– very, very, sweet and very, very blue, but fun and nice on a hot day. You might want to ask for more ice and less syrup.
Blended Root Beer Float– This was vanilla soft serve blended with Darrel’s own delicious homemade root beer… Yum! This was indeed the shining star of everything we ordered!
We got our food and went out to the picnic table. It was a warm day and we were quickly swarmed by flies. We ended up taking refuge in our car and finishing our food there. The outdoor eating can be problematic due to flies and extreme weather (very cold or very hot or very windy) depending on the season.
Overall it was definitely worth the trip. It was a fun experience and the food is pretty good. Call before making a special trip because they do close at random, for random lengths of time and for many holidays.