Adam & Eats: Maid-Rite Diner

This week we are confronted with a moral dilemma.

Normally, we stay as far away from big chain restaurants as humanly possible. We try to focus on local and homegrown joints. But the dilemma lies here: What happens when a couple of Northern imports bring their local food, which happens to be a chain up there, with them? Do we go to this restaurant on one of our eating adventures or do we stay away for fear of the big bad franchising wolf?

After a long conversation with one Mr. Michael “Tango” Tilley, which included talk of conspiracies like those of any Mafia movie worth its weight in Oscar gold, we came to a simple conclusion. This “chain” restaurant is new to the area (the state for that matter) and it employs locals, so why not? Moral crisis averted, you’d better pull on your big kid socks and hold on tight to them because we’re about to have ‘em blown off.

Located in the Fort Smith Pavilion, aka Target City, is the new home of Arkansas’ first Maid-Rite Diner. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. If you came from Iowa or Illinois, however, they’d be as commonplace as Sonic or Braum’s.

The Maid-Rite company has been making their signature “loose meat” sandwiches since 1926. When a couple of folks, whose names I’ve yet to find out, but are continuously referred to mysteriously as “the owners,” moved here from Quincy, Ill., they grew tired of traveling back home to eat their favorite comfort food. So, they bought into the franchise and opened a shop here. Once you’ve tried one of these bad boys, you’ll quickly see why they did this.

The place has the look and feel of an old style diner. Red vinyl stools at the counter, neon, the whole nine. And the staff is incredibly informative, friendly, and ridiculously helpful. But I’m sure you’re growing weary of my rambling on and on about how great this place is and all you really wanted to know about was how kickass the sandwiches are. Fine, let’s get to the (loose) meat of the matter.

Now the first thing to know when if comes to loose meat sandwiches is that you can have it wet or dry, with dry being what most of us are used to.

Wet, on the other hand, is when they make your sandwich and then dunk it in delicious meat juice. I can hear all of your moaning and groaning from here at my desk. Let me assure you that once you’ve tried it you’ll see that sandwiches, like many of the other wonderful things in life, are better wet.

You may be wondering what exactly a loose meat sandwich entails right about now. Well, think about a hamburger. Now, think about a sloppy joe. Now remove the tomato sauce from the sloppy joe and add all of the burger fixins. That’s a loose meat sandwich.

I personally prefer the Cheese Rite which consists of ground beef, pickles, onions, mustard, ketchup, and your choice of American, Swiss, or Mozzarella cheese. Stack all of that on a bun and then dunk it in meat juice, wrap it in paper, serve it up with some home made chips and you’ll have a glimpse of Heaven. Actually, make it two Cheese Rites, chips, and a vanilla milkshake and that’s my Heaven.

Loose meat creep you out a little? Don’t worry, they offer many other splendid things. Pulled pork, chicken, cod, they’ve got it all. Hell, they even have an Arkansas Cheese Steak.

I also recommend the tenderloin sandwich. Unfortunately, you can only get it dry, but this hunk of meat “makes the bun feel inferior.” And be sure to try the fries. And the homemade onion rings. And the Rare Bit. Oh, well, I could go on forever about the many things there are to try.

If you haven’t tried the Maid-Rite Diner yet, do it. Just because they are part of a chain, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be part of your food chain.

Until next week, good eating to you and yours.

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When he’s not beating his eggs, Adam makes time to respond to e-mails that get past his hard-ass spam filter. You can try to reach him at [email protected]

Adam also has this thing called Sandwich Control.