Frosty's of Baton Rouge

While I'm not traveling, here is a post from an earlier trip that originally appeared on another of my sites on February 12, 2008.

I worked a half day on Saturday, then left the office and drove to the downtown Baton Rouge area for two reasons; one, to eat lunch at a "hamburger shack" that several people had recommended and two, to do some photowalking around the area. I took about 160 photos over a three hour period and hopefully will have them posted on Flickr in the next day or so. That three hours only covered the southern portion of the downtown area, so my plan is to return in the next couple of weeks and photowalk the northern part of the downtown area.

Now, several people told me that before I leave Baton Rouge (and that won't be a while, as far as I know, but I was going to be in the area anyway so...)I must try the food at Frosty's, a sort of hole-in-the-wall restaurant that serves hamburgers, fries, onion rings (mmmmmm), shakes, floats, seafood, po' boy sandwiches, and...ROOT BEER!

Frosty's of Baton Rouge exterior view.

As you can see in the photo above of the exterior of Frosty's, they pride themselves on their root beer. Too bad I've never been able to stand root beer, so I had to pass on that particular beverage choice. The outside reminds me of an old 7-11 store, with all the plate glass on the front and side, and even with it's angled placement on the corner of the block.

I ordered a cheeseburger with everything but onions, onion rings and an unsweetened iced tea. It's not something I'm really supposed to eat and I'll hear about it from my wife and my doctor, but you have to take these opportunities when they present themselves. The cheeseburger was a tasty hunk of meat; thick, juicy, nicely grilled and definitely NOT swallowed up by the bun. The onion rings were thinner and not as flavorful as I had expected, but they weren't bad, just less than I had hoped. The iced tea was VERY unsweet, for which I was grateful. Sweetened tea makes me gag.

Frosty's of Baton Rouge interior view.

Looking at the photo above (taken with my Blackberry, so it's not as sharp as it could be) you can see that the interior looks like a conglomeration of an old Steak n' Shake counter, old Denny's booths and an old Dairy Queen "special" board on the counter. The grill, fryer, bun warmer, etc were right behind the counter in full view of the customers, like the old Royal Castle restaurants used to be set up. The smell of grease was heavy in the air and the old jukebox in the corner was playing disco music the entire duration of my dining experience. The janitor was actually dancing as he swept and mopped the floors.

It was fun, even in it's "hole-in-the-wall ness" atmosphere. I won't make a  habit of going there to eat, but I'll probably try and be sure to stop by one more time before I leave Baton Rouge.