Roy Rogers, Solomons, Calvert County, Maryland

Did you know that there are still Roy Rogers restaurants? When we bought in Lusby I noticed that there was one in Solomons at 14,000 Trueman, and, to tell the truth, I got excited. We used to go to Roy Rogers fairly often, back when my salary was small and our mortgage was large and expensive (9.5% adjustable to 13%). So money was tight and we had two young kids and one particularly hungry mouth to feed. Mine. I particularly remember one on River Road in Bethesda and one on Wisconsin Avenue in DC, both of which are now McDonalds.

What I liked at Roy’s best was their cheeseburgers. The burgers had the appearance of having been hand-formed rather than stamped out by a machine. They thus were more loosely packed than other fast food burgers, and tasted better.

I was a big fan of the Fixin’s Bar. I’m pretty catholic in my burger tastes, but my favorite is a cheeseburger with mustard, raw onions, and hamburger dill chips. Getting raw onion on a fast food hamburger was close to impossible then, as was a burger without ketchup, but at Roy’s I could help myself. And I could help myself to pickles. I like to snack on pickles, and at Roy’s I all but made pickles a side dish.

Fast forward many, many years, and my federal pension is generous (thank you) and our mortgage is gone and I only eat fast food when Ella and Lily want to go to Chick-fil-A, or when I stop at a McDonalds on a highway for unrelated purposes and notice country ham biscuits on the menu. That hasn’t happened in ages. But after three years of passing by Roy’s on my way to La Vela, the CD Cafe, or the Lighthouse in Solomons, or over the bridge to the many Lucullan delights of St. Mary’s County (search “St. Mary’s County”) the familiar shape and sign beckoned, and I succumbed. I went inside and noticed changes to the familiar interior. There are now some high tops in addition to the traditional booths, and additions to the familiar Fixin’s Bar.

Did you notice the salsa and pickled jalapeños on the Fixin’s Bar? There also was a new sauce, Boom Boom.

The core of Roy’s remains the same, though. The roast beef sandwich and Double R Barburger remain, and when I placed my favorite order, a double cheeseburger with fries, there were the two hand-formed looking patties.

As you can see, I went to the Fixin’s Bar and added onion, mustard, and pickles — and some of the welcome new jalapeños.

I would describe the flavor as American fast food burger, but it was elevated by a slightly looser texture, and especially by the mustard, raw onion, pickles, and jalapeños, and by the absence of ketchup.   

The fries were a disappointment. I learned that when Hardees took over the company in 1990, they replaced the beef tallow with vegetable oil. I added lashings of Texas Pete and tried the salsa, horseradish, and Boom Boom sauces on the fries, each of which helped. The Boom Boom sauce has some spice, and the horseradish sauce has some horseradish — more than I expected at a fast food place. The Texas Pete helped a lot, as always.  Roy’s now has a Texas Pete Spicy Chicken Sandwich, but Roy’s fried chicken looked thickly battered, and I personally much, much prefer the chicken just to be dusted, as at the marvelous Chaptico Market. 

I have to say that the main attraction of Roy Rogers is nostalgia, the remembrance of the days when we were young and struggling and pretty darn happy. We’re happier now, in part because we have a far wider choice of restaurants, and because we can remember the early days fondly, through the rose-tinted mists of time. Take a trip back and give Roy’s a try.

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