John's Root Beer

John's Root Beer
(Waukesha, WI)

One place that I've heard about the past couple years is a little place in Waukesha called John's root beer, which is supposed to have the greatest root beer in the world. For a little birthday celebration a week ago I decided that I would finally check it out and see what this place is all about.

When I first saw what the place looked like I already knew it would be worth the trip. What you get at John's is that awesome drive up restaurant that you don't get to see very often. Sure you can go to Sonic or something but they don't give that nice retro feel and that's what I enjoyed about John's. With it's florescent orange building to it's florescent orange garbage can and even tables it just gave off a very fun and old school vibe to it. Since you can't go inside the place, all the eating can take place inside your car or one of the many picnic tables that are on the side or in back of the building. As for the menu it has what you'd expect from a little place like this.

John's had all the fried food favorites and American classics that almost anyone can enjoy. With different variety's of hot dogs, a chicken sandwich, bratwurst, ice cream, french fries,mozzarella sticks, and of course root beer. As you can see there are a lot of different items to choose from and you are bound to find something you enjoy. I decided to try one of my favorite kind of sandwiches which is the pulled pork.

A pulled pork sandwich isn't a difficult sandwich to ruin, it had few ingredients and if you put them together right and have a good bun, then your good to go. For the price $3.57 I wasn't expecting a great amazing professional grade pulled pork sandwich and I didn't get that. What I did get though was just a good straight forward pulled pork sandwich. With a slightly sweet bbq and decent tasting pork you couldn't really go wrong for the price. They put a good amount of meat on it but not a lot to make it super messy. The sandwich isn't a big one, I think a finished it in a few bites but that doesn't bring the quality down at all. Overall the taste wasn't anything amazing and it didn't have a strong flavor but I still enjoyed it and would probably get it again.

While choosing my sandwich wasn't a difficult decision, choosing the size of my root beer was. With sizes starting at small for .71 and going to a large for $1.67. I ended up going with the large because it felt like the right thing to do. After hearing so much about this root beer, I was really excited to see what the hype was all about and I must say that it does deserve all of it's hype. While I can't say it's the best root beer I can say that is one of the more different ones that I've tried. While a lot of root beers are heavily carbonated, John's root beer is more flat and doesn't have much carbonation to it at all. It also has a nice real sugar taste to it (I'm not sure if it uses real sugar, but it sure tastes like it) which makes it a little sweeter than other root beers. It also seems a bit thicker than a normal root beer. Overall, I loved it and even though I was a little sad I wasn't offered a chilled mug with mine, I still thought it was a great root beer, and trust me I've drank a lot of root beer.


If your looking for a fun and cheap place to eat, John's is a place you should check out. With sandwiches starting at $2.14 and not getting anymore expensive than $4.84, it is a good cheap date place. If you are a big root beer fan like I am I would also say to check it out. If you like their root beer you are able to buy some to take home in a quart ($2.14,) a half gallon ($3.33) or a gallon ($5.23.) You can also get huge frosted mugs full of root beer that I believe are about a quart or so. If you like old school drive in's and good simple American and fried food, John's is a great place to check out. If you read people's comments about this place and all the memories they've made here you can tell that there's a reason that it's been open since 1937. If you are in the Waukesha area do yourself a favor and stop by, you won't be disappointed.