I ADORED the Hat when I was in Orange County! Pastrami for me, please. And their fries and onion rings portions were actually TOO generous. Kaylasmom and I could never finish a full order of either one between us.
My standard challenge to my debate team was that if any 2 of them could finish an order of pastrami chili cheese fries (with pickles and tomatoes) in 30 minutes I’d buy dinner for the entire squad.
In 35 years I never had to pay.
These are high schoolers? At least some of whom are boys? That’s a very impressive record.
Next time I’m out there …
Yep. Thought I would have to pay off about 5 years ago, but they couldn’t pull it off under time. They DID finish, but it took them 45 minutes.
I’m glad you took a picture. Yipes!
In my teens or 20s I could have eaten my share, at least as to bulk, if not as to richness, and probably not in 30 minutes. Now? By the time I was full you could tell somebody had been gnawing on the edges, but that’s about it.
I couldn’t quite decipher the online menu but it seems the large chili fries with pickles and tomatoes is $8.19 with no mention of pastrami. What does this marvel of excess cost as pictured?
Throw pastrami on anything is another couple of bucks. All the way fries will set you back a little over $13.
It will set your health back quite a bit too. Ah, to be young - ish again for food consumption. In summer at RPI, guys and I would go to the Friendly’s for hand packed pints of ice cream - every day. The young gals knew we were looking when they’d reach back to get flavors in the freezer. Different colored panties each day! Midnight or later after a hockey game, we’d go to the diner at the bottom of Hoosick St. (began with a “P” but I forget) for giant cheeseburgers, baskets of fries, and pitchers of Coke or Pepsi.
A family of 4 could eat a couple days on that one item very cost-effectively.
Yes, and now I want an order.
to share.
and a side of Tums. 
Yeah, I usually went to The Hat with coworkers, and we never ordered more than one order of fries or rings for the whole table.
My brother had a high school job at the local BofA branch. One of my sister’s friends worked in a Winchell’s on his way home, and he’d stop in and she’d hand him a box of donuts (a dozen or more) every day. He never gained weight. That’s youthful metabolism.
I agree 100%.
Yeah, howdy!
This place is in Detroit near the airport. It is famous throughout every airline in the land:
A near-universal rite of passage is to order the basic pastrami sandwich and a side of fries. After being goaded by the old heads that fgood is good but the servings are kinda skimpy. The sandwich is roughly the size of a Nerf Football. The Nerf one sized for adults, not toddlers. So not quite as big as an NFL regulation football, but close. The side of fries that comes with the sandwich is likewise huge. Nobody finishes their sandwich nor touches the extra plate of fries.
Or at least that was true back in the day; been about a decade since I was last there and they may have encheapened it since. COVID was hard on every restaurant, but those dependent on the airlines and overnight travelers especially so. It yet lives, so there is hope.
There is nothing about a fresh warm KK donut that can hold a candle to a week-old Winchell’s that’s been dropped on the floor a couple times. Winchell’s FTW.
Damn I miss some aspects of SoCal. Winchell’s, The Hat, Original Tommy’s, Charlie’s Chili, etc. Heck even the original local small In-N-Out locations; the out-of-state outposts generally sucketh.
So much iconic 1960s-1970s fast food that somehow lives on 60 years later. Plus the actual mainstream restaurants that have survived the decades. Road trip!!!
I miss a couple of places that have been gone for ages. Clark’s (later Herbie’s Nut House) on Pico just west of the old Kelbo’s down the street from Billingsley’s. Best hot fudge sundaes. The Patio had the best charbroiled burgers (on Wilshire next door to Jack Lalanne’s). The Egg and the Eye restaurant (across the street from the Tar Pits above The Craft and Folk Art Store) had these delicious exotic omelets. Yum.
Limp, greasy, fries and a burger just like you can make at home. You are paying for not having to make it at home.
I think they’re better than McDonalds. But I wouldn’t wait eight hours for one.
Isn’t that literally the entire point of fast food?
On the other hand, my fries are crisp and I don’t have to leave home.
'Twas the best cheap beer ever! When I turned 18 in 1978 it was $1.88 for a case of 24 twelve ounce returnables. The deposit was almost as much as the beer! Had some real bite to it.
I am not a fan of In&Out fries, but they have never been limp or greasy.