Eisler Bros. Old Riverton Store

Eisler Bros. Old Riverton Store is one of the great classics of Route 66. According to its Web site, it has been in continuous operation since 1925 — a year before Route 66 was commissioned.

It would be noteworthy if it only served good sandwiches at cheap prices (less than five bucks will buy you a sandwich, chips and a bottle of root beer or sarsparilla from an old-fashioned Coke cooler). But what makes Eisler Bros. special is its ambience.

Situated right on Route 66 in a National Register-listed building at the west end of Riverton, Kansas, Eisler Bros. feels like a step back in time. Sandwiches are served from paper wrappers, not styrofoam boxes. Coke comes in eight-ounce bottles. During the summer, you can buy a big, juicy homegrown tomato to eat with your sandwich, and the big front doors are thrown open wide to let the breeze in while you sit at a table on the enclosed front porch and watch the world go by on Route 66.

In addition to the deli, Eisler Bros. has a few groceries, a few household items (on my last visit, I picked up a roll of electrical tape to cover up the light leaks in my Holga camera), and a stellar assortment of Route 66 souvenirs. The manager, Scott Nelson — nephew of owners Joe and Isabell Eisler — is a diehard roadie whose passion for the Mother Road is rivaled only by his passion for gardening, which is evident in the rack of seed packets next to the front door, the flats of seedlings in the wooden cart out front, and the brightly colored hanging baskets of petunias in the hoophouse next to the parking lot.

Add in the great selection in the deli, the assortment of old-fashioned candy near the cash register, and the fact that Scott knows the difference between mayonnaise and Miracle Whip, and you’re looking at a must-stop.

Eisler Bros. is located at 7109 S.E. Highway 66 in Riverton. For more information, visit www.eislerbros.com or call (620)848-3330.

Grades:
Product: A
Value: A
Service: A
Route 66 spirit: A+
Overall: A

Ollie’s Station Restaurant

(Cross-posted from Indie Tulsa.)

To my knowledge, Ollie’s Station Restaurant, 4070 Southwest Blvd. in Tulsa, is the only business in town that advertises itself with matchbooks that list its location as simply “Red Fork, Oklahoma.”

Tucked under an overpass next to the railroad tracks, directly across historic Route 66 from the remnants of downtown Red Fork — a little working-class community that was annexed into Tulsa well over half a century ago — Ollie’s is one of the best places in the area to take out-of-town guests or have lunch with a rugrat.

In addition to a terrific breakfast buffet, great fried chicken, and to-die-for cinnamon rolls, Ollie’s offers friendly service; a helpful, community-minded owner; and perhaps best of all, a collection of model trains that periodically race around the room on tiny tracks suspended from the ceiling.

One of my favorite memories of Ollie’s involves a toddler who was so delighted with the trains that he stretched out his arms and squealed with unbridled joy as he wobbled along beneath the track, chasing the tiny cars around the dining room.

Below are a couple of videos of the model trains running:

And here’s a clip of the restaurant’s miniature cable cars (the ski-lift kind) moving up and down in the dining room:

Everything I’ve had at Ollie’s was pretty good, but the weekend breakfast buffet — which offers thick slices of smoky bacon, three kinds of sausage, waffles, pancakes, French toast, biscuits, cream gravy, hash browns, home fries, and umpteen other goodies — is one of the few things that can coax me out of bed early on a Saturday morning.

Incidentally, Saturday morning is really the best time to go to Ollie’s, as classic car clubs frequently use it as a starting point for weekend Route 66 cruises, making it likely that you’ll find a few vintage Corvettes or ‘57 Chevys on the lot if you get there early enough.

Service can be a little slow when it’s crowded, but you can expedite things by heading for the buffet instead of ordering off the menu.

Ollie’s is open from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. For more information or to reserve a banquet room for a meeting or party, call 446-0524.

Grades:
Products: B+
Service: A-
Value: A
Convenience: A-
Overall: A-

Please seat yourself.

Here, for your dining pleasure, is the new and (hopefully) improved version of Route66food.com.

This is a sister site to Route66motels.com, but it will be run a little differently. For reasons too complicated to go into here, I pretty much micromanage Route66motels.com. I still intend to keep some measure of editorial control over things here, but because there are so many great restaurants along Route 66, and I have so few opportunities to visit some of them, I will be inviting a select number of Route 66 aficionados to serve as additional writers for this site.

Readers are, of course, more than welcome to join the fun by posting comments and recommendations, which the writers will act on as quickly as possible. (Comments will be held in moderation to protect the site from trolls and spammers.)

Now … let’s eat!

Emily