Last week, Galaxy Drive In’s website touted its July 9 opening. On Friday, the Foodie File blog promised it was open. So imagine my surprise early on Saturday evening when my family and I drove up to the newly revamped restaurant on Highway 7 in St. Louis Park and noticed chains barring us from entering the parking lot. Two uniformed women on roller skates had the undesirable job of telling would-be customers that the Jetsons-style drive-in wouldn’t be serving up Galactic Burgers and Cosmic Cones until today. Sigh.
But Galaxy gals did have one small token for those who came and left empty-stomached — the drive-in’s menu, wherein lie a few noteworthy tidbits:
Aliens, Humans and All of Our Four Legged Friends Welcome™
Fantastic! Now ALF and I can finally schedule that lunch date. He can even bring along a cat as an appetizer.
Earth Girls Aren’t Easy, They’re Just Watching Their Figures
The Earthling Burger is a quarter-pound burger with sauteed onions and pickles. An Alien Burger Blast is made of two quarter-pound burgers with sauteed onions and pickles. Are we to deduce that making your burger a double makes you extra-terrestrial? Or just extra-prone to heartburn?
Presenting… Pronto Pups?
Do Pronto Pups really exist outside the Minnesota State Fair? Apparently so, and Galaxy has them, albeit with the moniker “Area 51 Pronto Pups.” With the Great Minnesota Get-Together coming up next month, ambitious corn-dog lovers can taste them head to head to see which version is out of this world. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)
Burgers and Fries Must Not Co-Exist in Outer Space
The Space Dogs come with fries (excuse me, Galaxy Fries), but the Galaxy Burgers don’t. Weird.
S’mores Fire Pits
This move is either genius or a disaster in the making — you can buy the fixings for s’mores and make your own in the fire pits in front of the drive-in. It’s a good thing Galaxy doesn’t serve alcohol. Drunks+junk food+fire=bad.
We Get It, It’s a Theme Restaurant
But really, Starburst Milk? Does it have the fruit chews mixed into the drink? If it doesn’t, just call it milk. Same goes for the Bottled Moon Water and the Intergalactic Iced Tea.
As I understand it, Pronto Pups are similar to, but not the same as, corn dogs.
As the name implies, corn dogs are coated in a corn meal batter and deep fried. But isn’t the Pronto Pup coating flour-based — something closer to pancake batter?
Can any experts out there clarify?
Service was so so so so slow and just bad. Make sure you have at least 1.5 hours. There is no way to make this work on a 1 hour lunch break. While we were there numerous people left or complained because service was brutally slow.
remember when new places would open and business would slowly trickle in as word of mouth spread, giving these new places a much needed grace period to get their act in order? yeah, me neither.
i’m sure Galaxy will eventually find its footing, but I will always look back fondly on family lunches at Wagner’s after Sunday softball doubleheaders.
I
ncredible refreshment to the true but tired Wagner’s.
This new dig will be a “come meet’ place and around for generations. The people and minds behind it haven’t missed a bet and if service was a bit slow today, the first day, the food was worth it…how can they sell it at those prices?
Hurrah to the Galaxy!!!
John is that comment supposed to read like a poem? Are you the guy that writes the copy for all the spam I find in my email inbox?
John sounds like an owner/person with a vested interest in the place. Customers rarely speak like that about a place
wouldn’t be the first time Schussler Creative attempted to astroturf a discussion board.
I thought the same thing! You can’t fool us, “john.”
Don’t worry, I’m still going to go there, but you can cut out that ridiculousness.
Just had dinner there with the family. There wasn’t much of a wait at all. The staff all is getting to know the ropes. Had a regular 1/4 pound burger… was missing lettus and tomatoes but the fried onions were good. The fries were too crunchy for my liking. Doesn’t anyone remember how SLOW the service was at Wagners? You would be there for an hour easy. I liked the decor, the food was pretty much the same as Wagner’s. My mom had been going there since the 70’s, me the 80’s and now I bring my 1 year old up with Galaxy. I was sad to see Wagners go but the building and service was out of touch. I think that Galaxy will find it’s place and all will be good. Just new servers who need to figure it all out but we had our meals within 10 minutes. I didn’t like the fries — to crunchy for my taste and the katsup wasn’t Hines… must have been Hunts or a knock-off. That was a bummer. The boy had chicken fingers and I was pleased with the quality with a lot of white meat.
I ate at Galaxy on Monday afternoon and again on Tuesday night with my 4 year old daughter. My philly cheese steak for good. One of my daughters chicken strips was RAW. Unfortunately she had eaten most of it before she said it felt funny. I want the old Wagner’s back. They need to drop the goofy theme menu and the prices. $11 for a bacon cheese burger, fries & coke is a bit much.
She got back and the food is awesome but the servers were horrible. no personality which I feel is key for the concept they are going for. But the food is good and I hope they have plans to keep it poppin for the winter..
The restaurant looks absolutely amazing. That’s ALL it has going for it right now. Our meal arrived faster than anticipated, but we didn’t receive napkins…or straws…or ketchup/mustard. We had to request all of these items. The fries were cold, and my hot dog bun was rock hard (I did receive a replacement, with apologies)The food was…fine, I guess. I’ve had better hot dogs at Dairy Queen, and you can get a better burger just about anywhere. The young servers were a mixed bag. One or two seemed chipper, but most appeared completely frazzled or utterly bored. I was a waitress 20 years ago, and I understand it’s stressful. If you can’t handle the fast pace, get out now kids. And what’s with the 80’s music? I expected Chuck Berry and Elvis. A restaurant with a 50’s theme should play 50’s music! Even 60’s would be acceptable. If you’ve gone to the trouble of having a guy dress up like the Good Humor Ice Cream Man (a very cool touch) don’t ruin it by having “Something About You” by Level 42 blasting. I strongly encourage management to work with the waiters on their customer service skills. The cooks need to check the temperature of the food before sending it out. This isn’t Top Chef–we’re talkin’ burgers and fries, folks. Shouldn’t be that difficult. We’ll try again next month to see if anything has improved.
I went on Sunday 7/19 w/my girlfriend and another couple and their 3-yr old daughter. We were expecting Wagner’s food with an updated and fun twist. As it turned out, we were expecting too much – WAY too much! Our waitress was rude, treating us like she was really doing us a favor by even talking to us, let alone actually being concerned how we were enjoying the food and drinks. It took 40-45 minutes to get our food after ordering! They were busy, but NOT THAT BUSY! When the food did come, it was brought out by someone other than our waitress and he pretty much just plunked down the tray, mumbled something like, “here’s your food”, and was off. He didn’t ask if it all appeared to be there, or if we might need anything else. All the employees seemed to be really confused and much too busy to even give a smile. My Philly cheese steak sandwich was quite bland and certainly wasn’t a hearty sandwich – pretty light on meat. The chocolate malt me and my GF ordered “to split”, was served with only one glass (a paper cup) and no straws or spoons – getting these took at least another 5-10 minutes – a request made to a different employee that was happening by. It was also made with soft serve (not real ice cream the way Wagner’s did). Our fries were hot and done to our liking, but about half of them were little, stubby, bottom-of-the-fry-bag remnants. Her quarter-pound burger was prepared properly, but she said it was also quite bland. The other couple had similar luck. He, being a vegetarian, ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. This, after being told, 20 minutes after placing his original order, that they couldn’t prepare his preferred vegetarian Philly cheese steak sandwich. Hmmmmm? That would have been the regular sandwich minus the meat – but was apparently too far off the menu (as reported by the drive in manager, summoned to our table to explain things) to allow its being prepared. He said the grilled cheese wasn’t too bad. He also ordered a root beer. That came warm and in a frostless mug (again, unlike Wagner’s). His wife’s burger was also reported to be quite bland. The icing on her cake was an approximately 2-ounce serving of warm, bad coleslaw as a “side” that cost $1.75. As for their little girl, well…she got served a coke (ie. a caffeinated beverage) as part of her early evening kid’s meal. Not good – again, she’s about 3 years old. Overall, very unimpressed. Service – bad. Our waitress never did check back to see how we were doing. Atmosphere – bad, stressed, chaotic. Prices – high (spent over $10 each for each of the adults, even with shared drinks). We’re really in no hurry to return, but might be willing to give them one more try this fall to see if they’ve got their act together. Maybe this is in hopes that our great memories of Wagner’s and the drive in experience doesn’t have to be a thing of the past. However, if things remain unchanged, I think the Galaxy’s run might be quite brief.
Took a date there tonight for the first time. Cute place – fun theme . . . .However, you go to a restaurant for food and I was excited after hearing things like “great”, “the onion rings were to die for,” and other such comments. The REALITY – Wendy’s, McD’s and the King have better burgers, the onion rings were absolutely normal and unexciting, the root beer was undrinkable and the diet coke was either a fake or very poorly mixed. The original Wagner’s had far better food and judging from the less than major crowd on a Saturday night, the word is quickly spreading – yet another bust for Schussler the perpetual loser! They will never ever make it through the winter plans and into next year without major changes to the menu and food presentation!
Will never return!
I needed my weekly hamburger fix and decided on Monday night to experience the new Galaxy Drive-in. I thought the “look and feel” of the new place was – well just “OK” for the neighborhood. There was a full house there when we arrived and were told to park in a “SUV” spot since there were no Sedan spots or table seating available. My dog was excited by all the commotion – and he was promised a treat (a doggie ice cream cone) which never showed up – even after three people offered! I was so disappointed by the menu. Everything had a “galaxy” themed name which jus seemed so wrong for a neighborhood drive in. It took forever to order – and even longer to receive our food. Our rootbeer came in one size (although the menu said regular or large) and it was 20 minutes before the food arrived. I was so disappointed. The hamburgers with the “galaxy” sauce were fair. Not at all like the old wagner’s. The french fries were AWFUL. I wished there was more flavor to them. The onion rings were exceptional – but not enough to make me go back for them – I can get better food and faster service at Culver’s. Steve, I had hoped you’d continue our beloved neighborhood dive – this new concept needs to go back to the drawing board. Sorry . . .
Enough piling on, already. Where the hell are the Schusslerites?
As I read the even mildly positive comments I am forced to wonder if these people have ever eaten anywhere but White Castle? There is no effort necessary to create a better burger and Culver’s, Porky’s, Pastrami Jack’s and many others have incredibly better onion rings! The vendor husband and wife at 7th and 8th on Nicollet Mall sell the exact same Vienna Beef 1/4 pound Hot Dog – with MORE trimmings available for $2.50 LESS, as do many other VIENNA BEEF establishments! Wake Up People – experience the real world that is around you and within reach!
By the way, on Friday and Saturday nights at Porky’s on University Avenue, you can see all the old cars you will ever want to see, restored and running, not scale models hanging from the rafters!