Background
A new A&W location has appeared on Long Island, according to A&W's store locator. However, upon closer inspection you will find it's actually past security at the Long Island / MacArthur airport.
So where can you still get the slice of Americana that is A&W? Fishkill, New York, about 55 miles north of the city.
Getting There
This being a New York City-based blog, when I write about establishments outside the city, I generally focus on getting there by public transportation. However, for this location you're pretty much out luck. Interestingly, there's a rail line right next to the restaurant that is owned by Metro-North, but it hasn't seen passenger service since 1927.
I recently joined Zipcar, so I've been exploring areas where I can rent one of their vehicles far outside the city. I noticed two locations in Poughkeepsie: One at Marist College, close to the Metro North train station, and one at Vassar College, a good hour's walk from the same station.
Now, I could have made my life easy and just strolled over to Marist, but I am sort of trying to exercise more, so I took up the "challenge" of two hours of walking for some A&W.
The Journey
On a recent Saturday morning, I took an 11:45 train to Poughkeepsie out of Grand Central. It arrived a little later than its scheduled 1:38 arrival time, but I had plenty of time to make it to Vassar for my 2pm Zipcar rental. I should mention this is a very scenic train ride along the Hudson.
Leaving the station, there is a little bit of a climb to get to Downtown Poughkeepsie. Once you make it though, the trip is pretty flat from there. Navigationally it's very easy as well. You walk Main Street until you get to Raymond Avenue, take a right, and you hit Vassar College. The campus is rather large, but the Zipcar spots are only a block from there, at their northern parking lot.
Despite the train being a little late, I still made it to the parking lot early enough that I had to wait a few minutes before being in the 15-minute early grace period where I wouldn't be charged extra for the car. At 2:46pm I hopped in the Ford Focus hatchback and made my way down to Fishkill, using the Waze app on my phone. I had brought a small 12V charger to keep the phone charged. It was about a 25-minute drive down to the A&W, which is located in the back of a large plaza that is anchored by Wal-Mart and Sam's Club (welcome to the suburbs).
The Experience
This location was by far the cleanest and brightest fast food restaurant that I have visited in years. There were even some awards hanging by the register that seem to suggest my experience was not a fluke.
For a mere $5-something, I received a bacon cheeseburger, medium fries, and a medium drink. That's quite the value these days. Placing my order went quickly and the staff was very friendly.
It seems the frosted mugs may have been phased out at this location. I'm not sure if that's a location-specific thing or if it has something to do with the chain's struggles. This didn't really affect my experience, however.
Root beer is still tapped next to the soda fountain from a weird contraption that combines a tap handle-esque lever for the regular version and a standard-issue modern push lever for the diet version. Maybe I've gotten so used to diet soda, but I thought the diet root beer tasted delicious. Since the fountain on the customer side (the way it should be!) I went back for a refill.
After filling up my soda I started to have some concerns. Where is the ketchup? Where are the napkins? Is this going to be one of those terrible fast food locations where they give me two packets of ketchup and I have to also ask for a napkin or two?
I quickly discovered that all was well. The tables actually have ketchup bottles on them, something I don't think I've seen at a fast food restaurant in at least a decade, if ever. My table also came equipped with a napkin dispenser, salt, pepper, and artificial flowers with colorful glass beads in the vase. This is absolutely stellar for the fast food industry today.
The dining space itself had tons of light from windows on three sides, and even had TVs showing baseball on ESPN. Again, I can't recall ever seeing this at a fast food restaurant before. My phone also connected to free AT&T wi-fi - not sure if that's for everyone or just AT&T customers, but either way, not a bad offering to have.
It's sad that A&W is so rare these days, as the experience I had should be the norm for fast food.
The Return
I took the same route back to Vassar (Waze wasn't very creative) and parked the Zipcar back in its spot 15-muntes early. After a 40 minutes of walking I was back at the train station and back at Grand Central by 8:15 or so.
